rwp Posted October 30, 2020 Report Share Posted October 30, 2020 (edited) Finally connected! (long winded version) I had a big fish follow the other day, which I thought was a drum, now I am pretty sure it was a striper. I fish a small retention pond really often. It's no more than 100 yards across the widest spot and probably 6-8 feet deep depending on the tide. It's 20 feet from the parking lot, and a playground. Some people will fish it with their kids for croaker, a lot of people throw nets for bait fish. I catch comments almost every time I am there about how I am wasting my time fishing that spot. I've thrown a lot of soft swimbaits in there, usually 4-5" keitechs, and I have caught a ton of puppy drum, most around 12", two were slot size, one of which we kept. We have also caught 8-12" white perch, and one that was 14". The drum we kept was actually caught on a spinner bait, and was 4.5lbs, that was earlier this summer. Now, I have just started fishing hard baits. I was using my 9' Megabass ICBM with Tranx 400. 80lb sufix 832 in yellow, 60lb mono leader, 8" savage gear 4 play 2.0 in sexy bait fish color. The weather was awful. Hurricane Zeta just passed though. It was cloudy, and cold. It was 85 last night and 55 this morning. 30+ mph winds. In the past, days like this have worked well for me, so I went for it. Fished for about 30 minutes around the pond and headed out to the bay. It was too windy to even cast out there so I headed back to the pond to make a few casts. I was just about to call it quits and decide to plunk one in next to a concrete retaining wall. The water is only about 4 feet deep there, and its no more than 20 feet from where I was standing. I let the bait sink for a few seconds, and gave 2 gentle twitches and got NAILED. The fish pretty much set the hook itself. I run my drag pretty much maxed out, probably 15 lbs. The rod and reel kept it pinned without issue and I horsed it in though the reeds and brush up onto shore. Perfect slot size fish at 8lbs 15.4oz with a completely empty stomach. I'm calling it 9lbs. Edited October 30, 2020 by rwp ddow229, Firebaiter, StriperAddict and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassbass Posted October 30, 2020 Report Share Posted October 30, 2020 Nice one rwp 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimbaitrookie Posted October 31, 2020 Report Share Posted October 31, 2020 Good fish! rwp 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwp Posted October 31, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2020 Thanks guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LUV-2-CATCH'EM Posted October 31, 2020 Report Share Posted October 31, 2020 Way to go man! Good fish and kudos to you for sticking it out in crappy weather...Sometimes the worst weather brings the biggest Bites. Heck yea! rwp 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassturds Posted October 31, 2020 Report Share Posted October 31, 2020 Hell ya. Awesome fish!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwp Posted October 31, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2020 Thanks guys. Whipped up meal 2 for lunch. Truly thankful for this fish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danthefisherman Posted November 1, 2020 Report Share Posted November 1, 2020 Very nice! I'm just recently starting to fish for striper and they are a blast to catch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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