On Veteran's Day, we decided to run a 1/2 day Rockfish Trip and left Little Creek at 0600 to beat the Holiday crowd. Our guest VIP was Robert Lueken, MD (US Navy) and this was his second trip with us for the weekend.
(To his and our delight, Robert limited out the prior day in a whirlwind of action underneath birds that were feeding on silversides. See the attached link the prior day's report: http://www.teamreeltime.com/FishingReports/tabid/126/forumid/8/postid/88/view/topic/Default.aspx )
As we rounded the Jetty, we asked Robert to keep his Eagle Eye out for Birds ( 20/15 Vision, you know...  ). But despite this we could not find any. It appeared that they might be taking the morning off ... hmmmmm  (?)
So we shifted gears and ran to the CBBT to work structure. Carl rigged our lines and prepared for the morning. Once we arrived, Robert was quick to catch small Schoolies working the rips around the CBBT rocks and pylons.
This produced about a 1/2 dozen hookups and while fun, most were too small for our liking. So we took advantage of the increasing current and shifted tactics again to put Robert on something bigger. And sure enough, as we trolled we found nice size schoolies lower in the water column and had success. Here's one of the nice schoolies Robert landed:
Nice Catch, Doc!
This one was actually 29.5 inches which is a little large, so back it went. The current VMRC reg's allow 2 per day per person with the length being 18 to 28 and one can be 34 or above.
As the morning progressed we caught our limit of keepers. And like the day before we were able to trade up by keeping the smaller ones healthy in our live well until we could catch a few larger ones. I lost count of exactly how many fish we C&R's but I believe it was close to 20.
Now for a little tactical discussion:
One of our secrets to catching sooo many was that we used the new Berkley Gulp bait that looks like little yellow strips. And Robert named these "LYT's", or "Little Yellow T~rds", because simply put that is what they smell like. We had a little fun with them and bantered about what they actually consisted of and whether or not they increased our rate of catch.
The Captain said:
"It looks like these 'LYT's' really work..."
The First Mate said "nada" and then looked down and stated:
"Stink Bait is for catching Cat Fish, you guys..."
So to settle this light hearted debate we found it necessary to appeal to someone else... And since our guest was a MD, we appealed to him. After all, isn't the customer always right? Well being the highly technical type, here is what our client said:
"Let me pull out my BlackBerry (PDA) and check Wiki-Pedia on the World-Wide-Web"
Well anyway, this is how I remember it but perhaps it was slightly different. It makes a good fish story.  . After limiting out and getting our fill of Catch & Release action we headed back to the dock to clean up.
Oh, one last thing to report - As we rounded the Jetty and headed back the dock, we finally found the Birds! Here's an action photo:
 As you can see, hundreds birds were Sunning themselves on the dock near the Marina !!!
* * *
In anycase, a great time was had by all. We enjoyed the action, adventure and as you can tell - the banter and fellowship!
Good Luck, Tight Lines and See You on the Water, Captain Fletcher Dunton - USCG Liscensed, OUPV
PS - Please remember to Book your Trip early with us as our schedule is filling up ... Also, I believe the Gulls thought they had the Last Laugh for the day. But it really didn't matter to us because we had or limit!
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