Stripers in the snow! Monger style!

[PAMonger]

What a day! Leave the dock at 6:00 AM. Dead calm and about 50 degrees. Break the inlet and head north... All of a sudden, Danny (the mate) says "wow, it just got nautical". We tried jigging in solid 6-8s. Gusts were reading to 40. All 5 of us are casting jigs and working the retrieves. One guy hooks all 5 on the jigs! Unreal. He lost one but landed 4 while the rest of us kept working.

Jerry makes the call to switch to trolling due to the conditions and with the hope that anyone else can fight a fish. Good call as always, my friend. We had 12 by 9AM. After that, Danny played around with settings on the troll and we were able to add 5 big blues to the mix and a bonus bass as well as 25+ keepers (of course only keeping the legal limit). 5 or 6 shorts in the mix. Some over 20#. Danny kissed all the keepers who came in after the box was only open to blues and sent them back to grow for next year's live-lining charter. He did serious work today and set up the troll rods back and forth at some times not even getting them clipped in before the bite. He was an animal. I'm so glad that we were able to finish up and head in at noon for a rare, well-deserved break for the hardest-working crew in the biz, IMHO.

One of our guys who was new to the Monger was skeptical of the praises that I and dablackfishmvp sang, but timed the bite. We never went more than 7 minutes without a bite. Unreal.

Jerry, congrats again on sending us home shaking our heads wondering what just happened and adding 3 more to Monger Nation.

I also want to give props to the crews and customers of the Bounty Hunter and Russian Roulette for toughing out the sportiest day of the fall so far and enjoying a great day.