May 19th 2013: Flounder fishing!

Fished with some friends on the South Shore (Mass) on Sun AM.  The forecast was for overcast skies and light SW winds in the morning.  It was bright blue skies, a few wispy clouds, and a building west wind.  Awesome.  Last year, there was tons of bait (sea herring, etc).  This year the bait is sparse and very small.  Unless more bait shows up, there's not much to hold the fish for more than a tide.  Anyway, there was some surface action early with schoolies.  We were on the tail end of it and I only managed 2 micros which taped together might not have reached 28".  By 10 AM, we were ready to pack it in.  And my hobie drive failed again.  Lots of fun paddling with a broken drive in a strong wind against the tide.  Good thing there were no sharks around because I think I must have looked like a wounded seal.

I had a few more hours to fish, so I stopped by Tomo's Tackle on the North Shore.  Joe was kind enough to lend a hex wrench to try and get the fin to stay put.  Nope.  2 min. is all it lasted once I hit the water.  But where else can you get seaworms and hobie help??  Thanks guys!  I appreciate the hex + the worms!  The flounder were biting even if the tide was almost dead low slack.  It took a while to find them, but I found a school of flounder (do flounder school?).  Most were good sized.  All of them were hooked in the corner of the mouth with a 1/0 u

p-eye shiner hook (aka croaker hook).  I kept fishing until one of the flounder bent the hook and then I limped back to the ramp and gave the rest of my worms to a family fishing from a dock.  Lots of bait on the northshore - saw some birds working and had a few stripers pop up on bait while fishing for flounder.  With a broken drive and a honking wind, I decided not to chase - but definitely lots of potential.  Saw at least 1 sail boat flip in the wind and get towed into shore by a bigger sail boat - wind was definitely strong out there.

Nice to be out in the salt again.  :D