Big baits often really do equal big fish!
“Don’t set the damn hook, give the fish a chance to get the hook in its mouth!” It was an exasperating experience. It was going to be one of those days with this crew aboard. Great weather, actually too good for my liking. Bright sun over an unusually calm Vineyard Sound with a barely perceptible zephyr of southwest wind. I was guiding a client in his newly-acquired 24-foot center console and he had brought along a friend who was not an experienced fisherman.
I had worked up a sweat on a rarely unoccupied Squibnocket hump without a charter boat in sight. They were not happy about snapping wire until I took one of my rods and began putting some vigor and length into the strokes. My rods were equipped a 24-inch length of Dacron at 100 feet to allow for jigging by hand with the rod in the holder. We left there with the skunk thrown over the side, thanks to two hard won stripers in the 18-to 22-pound class. Devils Bridge and the Brickyard, as well as a few spots along the rocky north shore came up dry. I had one last option before I headed across to fish Robinsons Hole to the eastern edge of Tarpaulin Cove, which had produced a few bass up to 25 pounds the day before. I ran the edge of Middle Ground until I could see into Tashmoo Harbor which put me atop the shallow spot on the rip which had always been good for a bass or two.
Everything Eats Them
I had selected a dozen whip eels from my holding car, hoping to weight and drift them along this shallow edge which usually held few opportunistic stripers and occasionally big fluke ambushing bait caught in the turmoil of the shallow rip. I cracked the tails of two eels to prevent them from knotting, pinched on half-ounce rubbercore sinkers and paid out the braid, handing off the conventional reels to my deckmates with the warning not to set the hooks on a strike but to feed a few feet of line out before engaging the controls.
We were using 4/0 J-hooks at the time with the reels in freespool when I noticed the guest setting once then twice before I admonished him. Upon examining the eel for striper scrapes I noticed minute teeth marks from the tail to just behind the head. I told my client to feed out another 15 yards and lock up the reel in the rod holder. While I was re-hooking the first eel the other rod was bouncing until it bent over. I handed off the rod, grabbed the net and walked to the stern waiting for what I believed to be a fluke. We saw color at 10 feet and after cautioning him not to lift its head out of the water, scooped it into the net then onto the deck where it began tattooing the fiberglass with its broad tail. Once they got the hang of it we boated two more fluke in the 4-pound class and a 5-pound striper which also found the little snakes to their liking.
The tide went slack and we headed for Robinsons but everything else after their fluke encounters on live eels was anticlimactic. They couldn’t believe that fluke ate eels, never mind the juvenile scup and sand crabs we found in their gullets. I have been using the live eel, freespool drifting and slow-trolling method for over 40 years, and it works on cows and schoolies and not just a few fluke entrenched in the gravel ledges up against the boulder fields that had chewed its way up an eel to find the hook. Even since circle hooks have been mandated, it works just as well, as long as I can convince the angler not to set the hook when they feel the strike. Even in boulder fields and broken bottom where both stripers, black sea bass and larger predatory fluke, unafraid of being eaten by a jumbo striper, take up ambush positions, the drifted or trolled eels catch some of everything.
More Proof
One early morning we were dragging eels in 12 feet of water and I kept getting hits, fighting a substantial fish then losing it once it began losing its proximity to the bottom. The eel was torn from the vent almost to the head but not close enough to the 6/0 hook. We put on fresh eels, keeping the still lively chewed ones for casting. On our next pass Charlie had two vicious strikes and runs but he kept feeding line off his thumb until he felt the head shake, locked up and began reeling. He said that 6-pound fluke gave as good an accounting of itself as the 10-pound striper he had released earlier in the morning.
That thick slab had a stomach full of choggies and small scup, then got greedy and ate something with a hook in it. Today, almost all of the productive bottom from Brenton Reef to Westport’s Hens and Chickens, is populated by sub-legal black sea bass which are eating almost everything stripers feed on during the much earlier stages of their growth. The larger black sea bass we catch and clean are loaded with immature lobster and crabs. The last two slot bass I filleted last fall both had immature black sea bass of six to eight inches in their stomachs.
For the past several years along the aforementioned stretch of water we have caught some of the largest black sea bass we have ever landed as a bycatch while striper fishing. We are slow trolling eels, using 6/0 to 9/0 circle hooks and catching black sea bass up to 24 inches and well over the 5-pound mark.
Dialing In
As most sea bass anglers know, this species is very aggressive and will follow a hooked sea bass to the surface, which is why we use artificial lures in the form of jigs and teasers which often result in double headers. Throughout most of the rocky area from Newport to Westport we have been catching the largest specimens of sea bass on live eels slow trolled or drifted for stripers. As the attached photos will reveal those sea bass are caught fair in the jaw with eels much larger than the whips we usually use to cull out the smaller fish.
On one particular trip my deckmate, Matt Francis, caught two black sea bass well north of 5 pounds and we had several other sea bass from 3.5 pounds to the mid-4-pound class, all hooked fair on live eels. On that same trip we caught and released three stripers from 36 to 42 inches using the same method, baits and circle hooks. If you can resist setting the hook as the sea bass works its way toward the head of your eels, you just might be handsomely rewarded.
Turning back over the same piece of hard bottom where the jumbo sea bass came from Matt dropped a jig and teaser and was immediately hooked up to an 8-inch black sea bass. This is not just about big baits equal big fish. After having our eel bit and pulled as we worked it along close to the bottom we have retrieved it in full view of the surface and watched a 2-pound sea bass, chase it then reluctantly give up and turn back towards the bottom.
Keep It Basic
My sea bass rig is simple; it began many moons ago with 30-pound mono spooled onto a Penn Jigmaster conventional reel with a single barrel swivel connected to heavier 40-pound mono to the jig. The teaser, either a large fly or plastic squid is attached about 16 inches above the jig. My current outfit is a Maxel 25 reel spooled with 40-pound PowerPro to a quality barrel swivel attached to a leader of 40-pound fluorocarbon with a simple improved clinch knot to a 4/0 to 6/0 circle hook. The size and placement of the rubber core is important. In most instances I begin with a half-ounce and twist it on about three-quarters up the leader. You want to be close to the bottom but not dragging on it or hanging up.
A sea bass will occasionally come up 30 feet or more through the water column trying to steal the jig or teaser from the mouth of a hooked sea bass before the shadow of the hull spooks it. If you are looking for bigger legal black sea bass you might want to try this method. Trolling a deep diving plug along the bottom on a three way rig has also worked but the smaller sea bass, some not much bigger than the plug itself, will strike it and get hooked, causing lost time and injured fish. No, I don’t use single hooks on my plugs, I’ve lost too many fish to hits and unsuccessful hook ups. There are a few really big sea bass down there and this method eliminates culling through a dozen or more to find a barely 16.5-inch specimen. Give the eels a try and you’ll quickly find out that it’s not just stripers that love them.
