As the flood tide began to move gently Andy started us off with a healthy 18” keeper for the box. Bob followed suit with his own fat Tog of 17” and then we began the typical rounds of a bunch of shorts with a nice keeper mixed in here and there. Frank had a few frustrating moments as he hung up and lost 3 jigs in a short period of time only managing a few shorts in between. I handed him one of my spinning rods and almost instantly his luck changed as he decked his first keeper of 18” in length. Rob had been quietly working away at a lot of short fish until about mid-morning when he had a big hit and following a strong fight put a sweet 4.5# fish in the box. The guys kept working away diligently and by 11:15, the 4-man limit, plus the captain’s share had graced the fish box. Although we did break off a couple of the typical “freight trains”, most of the keepers were in the 17”-19” class but nice and thick. Of course, while in the C&R mode as I was cleaning the catch the crew did manage to land several other nice keepers including a few more in the 4# class that were all quickly returned.
A nice comfortable, smooth ride back to port with healthy bags of filet capped off another very satisfying day on our North Fork Tog grounds. Although I still have 4 trips on the books for the balance of my season, the weather forecasts are looking quite iffy. I sure hope we can squeeze at least one of two more trips in before the curtain comes down as the fish are chewing good right now.
Capt. Mike