John Raftery and friends

Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 66* and Clear.
Met the guys at the marina and went looking for bait. I had looked and thrown for bait for over an hour this morning and only had 32 baits so I went one more place to look for bait. I was worth the trip, I made 1 cast and caught about 80 baits. We filled our tanks and went around the corner and set out our spread. We were working a flat hoping to catch fish pulling up onto it to eat the bait that was nearby. We made pass after pass on the flat and on every pass we would take a hit or two. The Stripers were not real aggressive, I don't know if it was the clouds moving in, the barometer dropping or what but our action was limited to a strike about every 20 minutes or so. We were on some nice Stripers, the largest one [32inches] John is holding all the way on the right side of the picture, hard to tell its true size by the picture. The guy holding the Striper with the grey shirt up front is Steve. He enjoys going fishing but has no passion to reel in the fish, he loves watching his friends have fun. Steve is a gracious host, every time he fishes with me all the talk on the boat is about how good all the meals are that he prepares for his guests when they stay at his lake home. He also is very intelligent and articulate, I am going to start taking a dictionary on board when he goes out with me to look up the meanings of some of the words he uses in his conversations. [No I am not writing about him because he gave me a big tip, John who is an Attorney was also getting lost with some of the conversations] We had to cut the day short because some of the guys had to get back to Md. by 4 to go to a game so we came off the water at noon. Although the day was short we had a lot of fun, we caught some nice fish and all of us came away with a little more knowledge thanks to Steve.