we were planning to hit the edge on saturday but got blown out again. decided to stay inshore and take it easy. hit a few spots in the bay and started nailing these guys immediately. also had one big hit that i am sure was a nicer bass, but he fell off.
felt like i depleted that small rock pile i was working so left to hit a few other spots. didnt find much else and decided to go home after 2 hrs of fishing. made one more try at the first spot and found the bigger bass.
after that we played with some bluefish schools and took a few for my dad to smoke. overall a good day.
we had been watching the reports carefully and thought we had a weather window. forecast was for 3-5 ft. swells with a small chop on top. we decided to do a day trip, but we were wary cuz we all had to work monday and i live two hrs from my marina. so we loaded and gassed upthe boat on saturday.
saw this guy at the marina:
so, sunday managed to leave the dock at 3:15 am. started heading out the bay in the pitch black with scattered areas of patchy fog. pretty sketchy even with the radar twirling. had a brief scare after passing a tug and barge combo near newport. all of a sudden, the boat swung hard to port and motors made bad sounds. i immediately shut them off and trimmed them up and found a small rope on one motor. phew....for a second i thought i really hit something. drove around a little bit, everything seemed fine so we kept going. cleared the bay and again traveling in pitch blackness with areas of fog. seas weren't too bad and we were able to cruise at a good rate.
we hit an area south of the dump. i was a little annoyed because the temp break i was looking for moved a couple of miles sinc emy last check the day before. finally found it, but it was inundated with weeds. water was warm though going up from the 65 degrees on the way out to around 71 degrees where we started fishing.
got the lines in and started fishing...by then it was about 7:15. lines were in for about 20 mins when we had our first hit and got this guy to the boat (30 lb. longfin, our first this year!):
he had hit a green machine/bird combo. worked the area a little more, but the weeds and lack of hits, convinced us to head somewhere else. so we trolled in the direction of the fishtails around the 50 fathom line. the temps got as high as 74 degrees, but eventually settled around 72.
after about an hr of no hits i was about to change one of our lures when the same GM/Bird combo goes off. we watch the line peel away as we try to get more hits. we get a few more strikes on our spread and see them swing and miss a few times, then one more rod goes off. no more hits come so we work on those two and get them both to the boat.
they were identical 30 lb class yellows:
we start cleaning off the blood and getting the spread out. we left two spreader bars and a ballyhoo and one GM out while fighting those fish and i just put the boat in gear. the crew is still cleaning the boat, i'm driving and only go about 50 yards before our small spread starts getting attacked. they are hitting everything this time and we have 4 fish on and there are only 3 of us! luckily one fish falls off, and the three of us settle into the fight. we go 3/3 on those despite me just fighting my fish from the holder as i am also busy gaffing and leadering.
at this point our fish box is almost full, and even if we could fit more fish in there, we don't need anymore. so, by now i realize it's only 10 am and i can get home early so i wont die at work monday. so we troll for another hr. we get a lot of hits and fight a few more. but none come to the boat. at 10:45 we have something big come to our spread. don't know what it was, but the splashes were at least double of the previous fish. it looked like somebody was dropping widescreen tv's behind our lures. he swung and missed at lures all over our spread before finally hitting the port spreader.
our 50w started singing alot faster than the small yellows and he quickly dumped a few hundred yards of line. we fought that fish for about 10 mins, but it wasn't to be. so around 11 am and our box full and work looming over my head, we ran for the barn.
it was a little snotty out there, with the 4-5 well spaced out swells from the south and a 2 ft chop coming from the NE. it eventually flattened out halfway home and we were able to eventually cruise at 35 mph. passed by the huge fleet at mudhole. so many boats lookin for giants. i was glad i decided against fishing for those. we dont have the gear anyways.
so got back to the dock by 2:30 p, for a total fishing trip time of 11 hrs and 15 mins. our shortest canyon trip ever! 220 miles traveled and about 210 gals. of gas. all in all another great weekend in the ocean state.
RI Fishing report 9/16-9/17...11.5 hr canyon trip 
