I know this is a LMB / SMB board but I thought I'd share with my NOVA buds a night in the life of the fishing that I've spent the majority of the past 25 years chasing. Striped Bass.

I got a call a week ago from a buddy in NJ that our friend from Chicago was flying in and they were heading to a small island in New England to do some striped bass fishing. I took two days off of work and drove up yesterday. I missed the 6:30 ferry but caught the last one at 8:45 and hit the island at 9:30 as my buddies were ready to hit the water. So after 7 hours in the truck, a small wait before the ferry ride and without any time to rest I geared up and off we went.

The plan for the night was to hit a bunch of areas and to find as much moving water as possible since there wasn't much wave action and the moon was bright which can make the fishing tough on the beach. We planned on throwing light colored plugs and live eels. While we didn't quite find the type of water we wanted, we were able to get some bites at almost every spot we fished. At the end of the night I only landed 2 fish the largest weighing 16# 4oz. I lost two others that I had solidly hooked but got off as they put on an absolutely crazy show flailing half out of the water until they got the hook loose.

My friend Brian ended up with 4 fish and Charlie got 1 with mine being the largest so far. While the 16-4 was a nice fish and certainly the biggest I've seen in a while it's not really what we came here for. The goal for the trip is to get something twice that size. I only have one more night on the island so hopefully we can get a little more water movement or some cloud cover tonight and make it count. The bottom line for me is to get together with some great friends, spend a few days in a beautiful place and pick up right where I left off doing something that I love. Enjoy the pics.

Great Post! I can't see the pictures (stupid firewall), but I'll check them out when I get home.

This is something I've been trying to get into, but don't know many people. I bought a 12 footer about six months ago and finally made my first trip upto point lookout two weekends ago without any results.

Beautiful pix Paul. I've been dying to catch some striper in this area.

Awesome post! I've always wanted to catch a double digit striper.  

Good job Paul, it sounds like one fun trip.

Just finally saw this. Paul thats awesome man. Great post.