Rockfish Thanksgiving

Pre-dawn patrol on the Parker at 25 knots with a long exposure.	Sunrise from the cabin of the Parker, about 40 minutes later.
The days haul of fat schoolies 19-21 inches up to 2.75 lbs.	My top water rocks caught Saturday evening on slug-gos, I took the picture when we returned to Greg's dock at sunset (I told you we fished all day).
Awesome light on the York and a long day of fishing, ahh, good stuff.	Blair took his blushing bride Wendy on her first fishing trip out on the James, and she jigged up this 26 incher, which fed their family for Thanksgiving. Wow, Blair I can see it now - you will never get to fish again - you will be stuck driving the boat while Wendy pulls in all of the Rockfish. Photo courtesy of Blair.
Greg's biggest this year so far- 26-27.5 inches and 7 lbs - the hogs are moving in. (Blair - this puts him in the lead of the 2006 Three-Monkeybubba Rockfish Tournament) He ran into a blitz of diving-bombing gannets (large torpedo-like seabirds, that bomb the water for the fish a huge school of Rock are feeding on). He caught 11 fish bottom trolling with huge heavy weights during this, all while driving the 21 ft Parker. Photo courtesy of Greg.	Greg back at his homestead - the fish looks a lot smaller because Greg is a big lanky ape and he is holding the fish several inches behind his gorilla head. Photo courtesy of Greg.
Rocks in the live well (I think Greg needs a bigger one). Photo courtesy of Greg.

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving, my lady and I had a great dinner at my parents, brother, sister in law and their girls . I helped my Dad put up less than 25% of his Christmas light display (which ends up covering 2.5 acres when finished, I'll send pictures). I went out with the high school buddies on Friday and then got up at 4:30am early to troll for Rocks with captain Greg and Jason West - We were day early for the striper blitz Greg found fishing solo on Sunday - Jason caught two decent schoolies about 19 inches but no hogs that we expected to find and we fished all day - only to return to a honey hole across from Greg house on the York, near Yorktown. With the light tackle I landed for schoolies and kept two in the twenty in range (2.5 lbs) and Greg hauled one in - that only took 20 minutes - I had my limit in 5. Saturday night we went to Wren and Derek's, where I got to listen to Derek razz me all night because he didn't get to go out with us. It was great to catch up with people.I finally got some pics from some of my fishing buddies so check them out.

Tight lines - John