Well, today was a first on board the goodship Gravy. The word for the day was not clouser or slug-go, but bait. Yes, b-a-i-t. Not the kind where you point at the water and say "look at all the bait" or the kind of bait that is attached to a swirling bait-ball. Nope, this was the kind of bait that was attached to a hook that was attached to a line that had a weight on it and that was slung into the deep to patiently await the bite. However, the bite did not require a lot of patience, in fact, the bait got bit pretty quickly! It was a whole new way of fishing...

So one might wonder how the bait got on the boat. Well it came as a bit of a surprise to me when that innocuous little cooler that was stashed in the locker with life jackets and warm clothing turned out to contain a "baggie" filled with sand eels. My clients for the day, Jim and his daughter Tory, had snuck on board none of the sand eel imitations that this fishing guide is so familiar with but instead the real thing. Yesterday, Jim had labored for 45 minutes in waste deep water collecting these little buggers for today's trip. Well, I'm glad that he did...

We had tried fishing Capt. Avery's way, tossing slug-gos into likely spots and following a couple of slightly active birds to an area where the fish were sporadically swirling but not in any relation to the sand eel imitations that we were offering. Jim calmly asked if we couldn't head back to "the channel" where we had witnessed a couple of boats "hooked up" as we passed. Recognizing that my plan wasn't working, I acquiesced to Jim's idea and to fish in the channel with bait. It worked great! In 4 or 5 drifts we caught 5 or 6 fish including 2 tautog! We also caught a crab and a starfish. The starfish was given short term accommodations inside of a 5 gallon bucket filled with sea water and kept Tory mesmerized for the rest of the morning.

Well, I don't think that I'm going take up fishing with bait as a regular practice, but I have to admit, it is tempting to keep some on board for those days when all of my old tricks are not working.

Oh, and of course there is the story of the "the one that got away"...