I got home today to find that my son is still at volleyball practice, my little angel was icing her rolled ankle on a couch and texting up a storm, of course. Da Wife was moving like a tornado trough the house with a broom. Wait, that came out all wrong. She was doing her last full house cleaning before she goes back to work on Tuesday.
I had about two hours to kill till dinner. I could have sat on my PC and return thirty emails…or I could run down to Jones inlet and fish for an hour. Emails, fishing, emails, fishing, emails, fishing, fishing, fishing, fishing…..
So I told my wife I will be back in two hours or so and I grabbed a 7 foot St Croix rod and a four pieces of three inch Gulp swimming mullet along with some pork rinds. The plan was to probe mid column for weakfish but only for a short time. If I don’t get a bump in 20 minutes I was going to switch to trying to catch a fluke..or two
I was greeted by strong south wind, much stronger than I expected but hey, I was already here. I probed the water with a bucktail and pork rind for fifteen minutes but quickly lost interest after it was obvious that no one was home. I cut the leader off and tied one of those “John Skinner Gulp” rigs as I call them. Bucktail on the bottom tipped with three inch Gulp and a dropper loop with a single bait holder hook and another Gulp bait about a foot or so above the bucktail.
I spent a half an hour tossing this into the wind but got no fluke to show even a passing interest. I was surprised as I had a half dozen fluke here few days ago, same tide although the wind was much calmer. Depending where I was casting, I would have a huge bow in the line and this made working a bucktail difficult. Or I should say it made it hard to “feel” what my bucktail is doing. Which I absolutely detest. If you don’t feel that the bucktail is almost at extension of your hand, I doubt you will get out fishing the bucktail as you could. Or should.
I told myself, three more casts and I am out of here. Only this time I made a cast directly into the wind with no bow in the line. Yeah, the bucktail landed in location that I would have not ordinarily cast into, but beggars cast be choosers. Now I could feel that bucktail perfectly as it was drifting with the current. Bam! Fish on!
Ok, this was nice, at least I didn’t get skunked I said to myself. I made another cast in the same location and Bam, another fluke. Hey, this is even better , I said to myself. Then cast number 3,4,5,6,7,8,910,11,12 all produced a fish. Twelve fluke in a row! By this time I dropped one Gulp by mistake when rigging, one was chewed up and another fish just swallowed the third one.
I added the last Gulp swimming mullet on to a bait holder hook and banged another five flaties in the next fifteen minutes. Damn, I said to myself, this Gulp shit is insane. For a moment I almost left like John Skinner! Yeah, catching fish looked that easy! Only John does this seemingly on EVERY trip.
I realized that it was I who was the reason I caught nothing in the first hour. I did not properly adjust my presentation to the wind velocity. But now I just lost my LAST Gulp minnow due to fish tearing it up. No big deal, I said, I will use a pork rind. I kept looking at my watch and kept casting but other than one short hit, I got no hook ups. Then I tried something unconventional, I added a 70 pork rind to a bucktail and another 70 pork rind to a bait holder hook. It “should” work as well as Gulp. Except it does not. I managed one more fish and nothing else. But I knew the fish were there if I only had more Gulp..
How do I know there were more fish present?
I returned with my son two hours later with crapload of Gulp swimming mullets and we put an additional hurting on the fish. It’s like they commit suicide on these Gulp baits!
The only thing I have to ask, has anyone used five or six inch Gulp mullets in a place of a pork rind? No, not occasionally. I am curios if someone has used them instead of pork rind most of time. Would love to know the result…I know my mind is spinning about the possibilities
Last July, I used a black gulp eel on south side of montauk after using live eels for two hours. The live eels got nothing but I caught a keeper on the gulp on the first cast. Then, nothing for 30 minutes.
I find that gulp is awesome, but the bags get full of water in the surf. If you leave them in your basement afterwards, they get moldy and you’ve wasted good money. Not that that’s stopped me. Maybe I should try storing them in a roll up water proof bag, like the type you would use for a cell phone.
↓Started using the jerk shads this year. They are something else…
↓The broom reference was too funny !!! LOL
↓I know an old salt commercial rod and reel fisherman, who now only uses GULP and only hand lines.
I too have had wild success since watching THAT video with the gulp, and have been mightily relieved not to deal with bait anymore. Interesting thing is recently gulp changed their “recipe”, I guess to comply with some law or something along those lines, they made their baits “biodegradeable” or totally more fragile than they used to be. I missed the boat on hoarding the old stuff, and I miss it anytime I run into seabass, triggers and now snappers as they tear the new stuff up in no time. But I love it, fragile as it is, and I easily blew away my totals prior to using it.
Got to love John’s video’s, not to mention the ones from your seminar that one winter. Huge resource, greatly appreciated!
↓I’ve been using the 5in grubs in white and nuclear chicken and destroying big fish in the squan river.
↓I tried the pork rind on the top hook earlier this year also. Caught a few, and I think some of the fluke would pull the end and not get to the hook.
Jim M, I tried Excite-A-Bite swimming mullets for the first time last week. They are MUCH tougher than Gulp. I could tell the difference as soon as I pulled one out the bag. They don’t stink as much, and the fluke crushed them. Definitely worth a try, I will be buying more.
↓I always use some sort of gulp bait.
↓just today at Shinnacock inlet . 6″ white gulp mullet on a bare ( no hair) smiling bill with a 3″ glow gulp mullet on the dropper hook. 17″ fluke on the 6″, 9″ on the glow at the same time.
↓For the last two years on the bay side mainly, I’ve had success fluke fishing using a fluke ball (sinker – it has two metal loops on it.) One loop has a swivel to attach 12-18 in fluoro leader and then attach 3/0 or 2/9 gami hook along with 4 1/2 in pearl-color gulp swim mullet. The other loop for the main line. 7 ft rod with 14# braid. The gulp nuclear chicken works great also but it appears softer than the gulp mullet and therefor tears easier.
↓I find the 6″ tends to get bigger fish.
↓The 3″ gulp and a 3/4 oz bucktail is deadly with the fluke. I’ve even got some blues with it but no bass so far.
↓what kind of knot or rig is being used in pictures 3, 4 ,5?
↓here you go
↓http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KastgsmIFFI
I’ve used the 6″ gulp mullet with a bucktail, but solely from a boat fishing the ocean. I feel that you need at least a 4oz spro to thread a 6″ mullet – and that’s much to big for the places I target fluke from the share. I fish the pink ones when squid are around and have picked up some of the biggest fluke I’ve ever caught. Still searching for my double digit though….
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