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Rhody Blues Festival

1K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  juro 
#1 ·
Started the day with my autopilot not wanting to turn onto 95 to R.I., it's gotten too conditioned to Cape coordinates - but I overrode that and headed to south county. Very glad I did!

When I arrived at Napatree the surf and wind were ridiculous and nothing was happening on the inside despite an acre of bunker. I headed on to Weekapaug and found albies busting consistently inside the breachway so I squeezed in between the line of guys and took a few shots at them, got a few great shots - but no one hooked up even the spin guys. Blues were out in the surf, reported those who walked back to their vehicles.

Ran into JimW and Chuck, who also joined in the pot shot parade and then we decided to grab something to eat, take a break and head to Quonny. Jim, Chuck, Slinger and Greg w/ sons were at Quonny in the AM where Slinger landed a nice albie on the fly. Others were tangling with the blues, a theme for the day.

I hopped over to Charlestown and landed a nice fluke on the fly, almost popped it into the cooler but I am so lazy I let it go.

Joined the gang in Quonny where the blues were churning the water up and the line of bent rods from the boat ramp down was truly impressive (all blues, all the time). The Quonny breachway looked perfect for albies although they did not run it in the afternoon like they did in the AM.

I sat upcurrent next to a guy working a full length Spey rod in the current. I have to say Quonny is one of those places where a Spey rod is really effective on the incoming current for fishing a swing. You can actually use all right bank techniques. Of course I could nearly cast across the channel with a single hander and I stripped the fly to the leader so I didn't take out my two-hander even though it was in the truck all day.

As the bunker came in thicker with the flood, more and more and more blues came in. At one point it was a slam on every cast, lost a few flies then put on the wire and started landing them. Not huge - the bigger ones were 6-7 pounds. Lots of fun and constant action.

It was great to fish the Rhody beaches again, despite the morning blow it really got nice in the afternoon and I was glad to have hooked up with the guys. Plenty of action, blues that is. Rumors were that very big bass were in the pond pounding the bait at night.

Another great day, another great memory.

Foreground: Brandon, Other side: JimW, Chuck. Location: Quonny.
 

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#2 ·
Juro, sorry I missed you. We must have passed each other on the road in the afternoon. The guys said you'd just left when I arrived.
Those bluefish were a lot of fun! Especially for the kids. I sure do hope all these cocktails can maintain their population densities until they reach slammer size! It wasn't all that long ago when blizes like we saw yesterday were made up of honest 10 lbers and up. Fifteen pounders were common off Watch Hill every fall and one year Halloween saw 18 - 20 lb blues from shore at the light! [I personally weighed in a 17 lb, my best ever, but saw bigger blues landed which were down right scary!] Of course, there were adult bunker back then. Without the bunker, these little guys will continue to be the predominent size class as they have for the past three years, not coincidently the same time period the peanut bunker have been numerous. If only those peanuts would return as grownups!
 
#5 ·
dOh!

I only kept two fish all year - one big bass from the Cape in September and one big coho salmon from Sekiu Washington last weekend.

Figures I would have been breakin' some kinda law if I kept a single flattie! It was probably about 17.5" as well. :hehe:

Good thing I am lazy!
 
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