Date:	Saturday May 12, 2007	Fish:	Striped Bass
#:	23	Largest:	35"
Location:	Rockaway reef
Crew:	Allan, Michael & Bob

Striped bass are plentyful!
We had a good first trip of the year! I was sick as a dog the day before form some bad food, but this didn't stop me. I was dragging but we met at 7:30 and were soon off to Bay Park Fishing Station. We picked up our bait (1/2 bushel of clams at $20) and clam chum and went towards my old favorite haunts. With no other boats around we shot off to follow a dragger but this produced nothing. Then back to my first spot and there they were. Within ten minutes we started reeling in bass. Often tripple headers with only 4 rods on the boat. By noon we ran out of bait (that;s another story... this so-called half bushel of clams had around 15 clams in it... tops. That's over $1 per clam). We started cutting opened the bellies of the fish in the cooler and each of these scraps produced more fish. Then we pulled some bellies form the chum pot and here again more fish, then this wind came out of nowhere and the fishing shut down. By 1:30 we were back at the dock with our limit of bass, released 19 others & 5 nice 4 pound bluefish for shark fishing bait. Bob was high hook for the day, followed by Allan (who was a very slow started) then his son and finally me. I had 5. Bob had 9.
We also had an assortment of comon skate, 2 or 3 of those HUGE skates and a few spiny dogfish (not to mention a few lost bluefish)

Good Fishing - Captain John