Home of the Blues

Notice the front hooks were taken off of this popper

I don't know where Johnny Cash was drinking his heartache away when he wrote "Home of the Blues" I assume it was in Tennessee somewhere. However, I went to a cove in Narragansett Bay that is home to some really big blues right now. While I was out on Eric's boat, Dave was on his brother's boat. While we were catching trophy sea bass, they were catching monster bluefish
http://ristripedbass.blogspot.com/2017/06/mother-of-all-bluefish-landed-on-wild.html

Since I wasn't sure the weather would hold out today, I didn't try to do anything I would consider exotic. ( I want to try for walleye again and fish for pike in Connecticut). Even though I didn't know what the weather was going to do I also didn't want to do anything boring. So I decided to paddle my kayak to the spot Dave caught the big blues.

From my put in, it was a solid 20 minute paddle to my fishing spot. The wind was light out of the northwest which was in my face, but the water was very calm. I paddled into the cove and I started to see fish whirl as I scared them with my 'yak. I knew I was in the right place before I made a cast. Three splashes of my popper onto the first cast I hooked my first bluefish. It took me for a Nantucket Sleigh Ride. I let it tire out some before I brought it to my kayak for a a release.

After my third blue, I realized life would be a lot easier if I took the front trebles off of my popper. This way the fish could only be hooked by the trebles in the back.

   I had fish blowing up on my popper. Sometimes the same fish would hit it three or four times until it was hooked. While I was fishing I saw multiple fish splash. I could hear plenty more behind me. Something that was very interesting was I could see multiple bluefish sunning themselves on the surface. I saw tail fins right above the surface (like shark fins). It was really neat. At one point I was surrounded by bluefish. I could see them in every direction and no matter where I casted I was going to get a hit. Yes, even just cruising on the surface, they were still aggressive. Multiple times I sight fished for them, casting ahead of them and leading my lure in front of them. I had one fish make a V wake like a pickerel does from ten feet away from my popper before crushing it.

Today was one of the best days  ever from my kayak. I landed about 15 blues between 8-15 pounds. I had countless others blow up on my popper. I never went more than five cast without at least a hit and miss. What made it even cooler was being so close to all of those trophy fish just swimming around in the sunlight then coming alive to explode on my lure. Today was incredible.