Stripers After Work!

Decided to hit the upper DE bay with my buddy Dan after work last night. Called Port Penn Bait and Tackle to ask about fresh and got the word boat would be in with fresh around 5. Well that was perfect timing. Got home loaded boat and was out the door by 430.

We pulled into the bait shop and they were still unloading the fresh right off the boat. Grabbed the 2 doz fresh and off we went.

Got fishing around 545 and had to wait a little for the tide to start running all the way. After about 10 minutes we started getting light bites.

Around 6 Dan has a nice run off and hooks up. Right as he hooks up I get a runoff, hook up and then lose it.

Dan gets his fish to the boat and just as I net it the clicker on the baitcaster is screaming so I drop the net and reel the circle hook tight and I'm on. Unfortunately mine was just shy at 27" so back in it went. Dan's measured 29" so in the cooler it went.

For the next hour and a half it was nothing but shorts. Two were close, just an inch or two shy. The rest were smaller fish around 20 inches. The bite was very finicky. Lots of pickups and drops right away.

Finally around 8 I hooked up and put a nice 28.5 inch fish in the boat. At 8:30 right before we called it a trip Dan hooked up again and another just barely 28 inch fish was in the boat. And its good it was a keeper because it swallowed the hook way down and was bleeding pretty good.