The Stripers Never Showed, But the Bay Delivered

This past Saturday, I hit the water with the Peper brothers, Eric and Harold. We left the dock at 5:00 a.m., hoping to get in on an early striper bite, but the fish had other plans.

We worked Plum Gut and The Race hard, covering plenty of water and trying just about everything we could think of, but came up empty. After striking out offshore, we headed inshore and I stopped at a few of my usual summer spots along the way. Other than a handful of sand sharks, there wasn't much happening.

Eventually, we made our way to one of my favorite spots in the bay. We practically had it to ourselves, with only one other charter boat nearby, and that's when things finally came together. The action picked up with fluke and weakfish, and the boys put two keeper fluke and a beautiful keeper weakfish in the boat before the tide went slack.

Not the striper trip we set out for, but that's fishing. We ended up with some great fish for the table, a beautiful day on the water, and quality time spent with old friends. Hard to complain about that.