“Herringing” may not be a word (or even the formal name of your German neighbor), but that’s what I was doing last night while you were sleeping. But let’s back up a day, to the wee hours of Sunday night/Monday morning.

A-shrimping I did go. I didn’t like the cold air or the east wind, but we’re getting near the May new moon, which is, if you keep track of this sort of thing, primo grass shrimp time in these parts. I fished two marks. The shrimp mating swarm tally at both was disappointing — I’d give it a 3 out of 10 — and the striper action was correspondingly below par. Nonetheless, I fished and hooked up and had a blast. There’s something about the “ploink!” and “squsplish” noises the feeders make that makes me cackle.

Sunday’s rig was Micro Shrimp Gurgler on top, Caddis Shrimp middle dropper, and RLS Black General Practitioner on point. I liked that my first grass shrimp bass of the year came on the GP. So much for the importance of casting distance — the take came about 20 feet away. When stripers are focused on feeding, you can often wade comically close to their position if you’re careful about it. What a hoot to be catching stripers on size 6 and 8 hooks!

~

Last night’s outing was a fine way to spend the evening, if you place a premium practicing your Perry Poke and short backcast two-hand overhead volley — not to mention nursing an expertly crafted cigar. I fished one mark, a trib known to hold herring and stripers, neither of which were present in any great numbers. So. I covered lots of water. I greased line swung. I swam my Razzle Dazzle in short, staccato bursts. I set a hard stop of very early AM, and made it into bed before 3am.

So goes the night shift.

Hope to see you for tonight’s Zoom. Some of you asked yesterday about getting on the list and haven’t yet sent me an email.  (To be clear, leaving a comment on this site is NOT an email. To get on the list, you send an email to swculton@yahoo.com asking to do so. I hope that helps.)