Big Bass, Bigger Gas Prices!

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-26

[00:00:01]All right, here we go, guys. A uh kind of brisk but warm day. Uh May 19. I had a charter today. We canceled it mid last week when we still weren't catching bass. It was going to be a bass charter.

[00:00:12]Um I'm going to prospect today. Uh we're going to head east. We're going to hit the rips, see if there's life there. Um got a couple of unconfirmed reports that the fish are starting to show up there.

[00:00:23]So, uh this charter is pushed to next Tuesday. Um, so I figured good chance to prospect. We have five rods, uh, rigged and ready. Uh, we have my new, uh, fluke rod here that I've rigged with a 5 bucktail, single bucktail with a fat cow jig strip. We have a three-way setup on my Captain Neil Faulner rod. This is a prototype almost 8ft rod. It's a slow pitch jigging rod, perfect for spoons.

[00:00:53]That's a nickel spoon. Uh, we'll have that ready. We have a poor man's uh Berkeley glide bait. 20 bucks on Amazon um on a jigging world rod here. And then we have my noodle rod here with a single bucktail, a one and a quarter ounce bucktail.

[00:01:10]If if conditions allow, maybe we'd snap jig. Um, I think the two main ones are going to be the the 5 in or the 5 oz and uh the three-way setup, but we might we might also drop that uh that spoon down.

[00:01:26]So, a little bit little bit of wind today. Uh, but it's wind with tide, so hopefully the rip is not bad. We are we have about a 25m minute ride to the uh Eastern Grounds and we'll catch up with you guys once we're there. All right, here we go guys. And as you heard in that intro, we are striper fishing today. But today's video is going to be a lot more than just striper fishing.

[00:01:47]We're going to so show some nice fish caught, but then we're going to talk about gas prices. Topic a couple of you have asked me to talk about and you know it was time for a fillup uh or a partial fillup. I was going to add uh some fuel today. I added up 150 gallons back in midappril around April 15. I paid 531 a gallon. I know gas prices have gone even higher since April 15. So, I was curious what the price was going to be at the pump, how it's going to affect my season. But hey, we'll talk about that later. Here we are running to the striper grounds. You know, we mentioned all the rods we brought. We're actually going to use all of them except the noodle rod with the snap jigging. Kurt was flying at times over 5 miles an hour here uh in in Plum Gut, East End of Long Island in the reps. Um, we are going to start though in the first instance with a single 5 ounce bucktail on my new BRC Jigging Jerks Fluke rod, acid wrapped, 6 feet 8 in. And because I set it up for fluke, not thinking I was going to bring it striper fishing today. It's got 10 pound braid. That's what I use for Fluke. Uh, so we're going to be a little careful when you see us getting out of the rip here. This was literally our first drift of the day or my first drift of the day. I'm fishing solo, not keeping any fish. I'm going to reset and we'll watch this drift play out in its entirety. It's literally my second drift of the day.

[00:03:49]And hey, if you've never done this style of fishing, it pretty soon you're going to see me swinging hard. That's the bucktail hitting the bottom. I don't know if it's a fish hitting the bucktail or the bucktail hitting the bottom. So, I'm swinging as if it's a fish hitting.

[00:04:01]If it's not a fish, I'm reeling up two times because that ground comes up quick. And the last thing I want to do is get snagged on the bottom.

[00:04:34]There's a fish.

[00:04:38]Oh yeah.

[00:04:40]First fish on the new rod. I got the 10 lb test on. So I got the the drag a little loose.

[00:04:49]Size weight.

[00:04:53]And again, the only reason I have 10 lb test on is because it's a fluke rod.

[00:04:58]I promised Bruce, my great rod builder, I would try it out. This is the final version. Oh, this fish is running.

[00:05:19]This is an over. I think one fish might be enough on this cuz again, if I had heavier line on, I'd be a little more comfortable.

[00:05:36]Dare. I tighten the dra. Just tightened it a hair.

[00:05:46]Oh, nice fish.

[00:05:50]Wow.

[00:05:52]Beautiful fish.

[00:05:55]Beautiful.

[00:05:57]All right.

[00:06:00]Problem with my boat. Gunnel is so high.

[00:06:03]Ah, I got you.

[00:06:06]Oh my goodness.

[00:06:11]On the CNS bucktail 5 oz. Wow.

[00:06:16]Beautiful fish.

[00:06:19]That might be a 32. That's my guess.

[00:06:22]We're not going to measure. We're going to get her back in quick.

[00:06:25]There she goes.

[00:06:29]And yeah, hindsight being 2020, that 10 lb braid probably helped me. Like I said in the intro, we're going uh over 5 miles an hour at some points, especially as you get closer to that drift. And yeah, the the 10 pound brain just way less drag. But you know, I did a couple more drifts this way. the current started picking up and I thought, you know what, let me not uh, you know, overthink this. Let's switch to the three-way, right? That's more conducive.

[00:06:54]You could put a heavier weight on uh three-way swivel. So, you got a short line. I got 30 lb floral on the short line. Then, I got about six feet of 80 lb mono with a small bucktail. I got an 8 o sinker on the uh three-way swivel.

[00:07:10]Let's see how we do with that.

[00:08:44]Okay, finally another hookup. This is smaller.

[00:09:04]All right.

[00:09:06]Of course, we got to deal with the And unfortunately, I'm going to leave the three-way setup. And you see here, I'm talking on the phone with my friend.

[00:09:44]He's out there on his, my friend John.

[00:09:46]And yeah, I'm a little distracted. And you know, to me, one of the big pitfalls of using the three-way, yes, you definitely get more uh feel for the bottom, but you also have more stuff down there. You have the three-way swivel, the weight, the bucktail.

[00:09:59]There's just more stuff that can snag and hang. And that's what happened to me here. A little distracted talking on the phone. Really need to be focused when you're doing this. So, yeah, I'm going to break off and I'm not going to rerigg. I'm going to go back to the bucktail. I'm going to put a 6 bucktail on instead. Um I had the 5 ounce CNS bucktail. I'm going to move to their 6 CNS bucktail. And look, if you are a beginner, the three-way is definitely the way to go. There is a steep learning curve with the single bucktail. When you're moving four to five miles an hour, it is very difficult to feel the bottom. A lot of people, my clients, when I take them out and they've never done this, they constantly let out line even though they're closer to the bottom than they realize. It's it's very subtle. It's very nuanced. Once you get it though, in my opinion, it is a superior technique to the three-way. And what we'll see is the quality of the fish. Now, we have one in one, right? We have one with the single bucktail right at the beginning of the trip. We had that little rat uh that I caught with the three-way. We'll see what the next two fish caught on the single bucktail look like.

[00:11:18]There's a fish.

[00:11:26]Oh boy. This is a little better than this is going to be in between the two fish I caught.

[00:11:33]Get on the CNS bucktail. VRC jigging jerks fluke rod and a pissy fun 300 reel. This feels like a slot fish. Let's see if I'm right. We're not keeping fish, but Oh, and I didn't mention this. I convinced my rod builder to start building these rods acid wrapped and a little short of Yeah, we'll give it an unofficial measure. See if it's a slot. Looks like it might be right there. 28 or so.

[00:12:15]All right, buddy. Let's see if we can pick you up cuz I only have 30 lb line here.

[00:12:24]Easy. Might be short. Might be right there. There's the zero.

[00:12:29]H Yeah, right there. like 28 on the nose if we were going to keep it. We don't care about keeping stripers. I personally think it tastes disgusting.

[00:13:18]Oh, there we go.

[00:13:29]Oh, better fish.

[00:13:48]It's going to be a decent one.

[00:14:13]Oh yeah, nice fish.

[00:14:19]Bruce, if you're watching this. Oh, this might be bigger than my first.

[00:14:24]Oh, it is. I think. Bruce, if you're watching this, the acid wrap makes it so easy.

[00:14:31]The torque is insane.

[00:14:35]All right. If you spin it, I'll be happy. If you don't spit it nice, all right, we are leaving uh the striper grounds. A lot of the boats have cleared out. Um, I'm happy with today. Caught four fish, dropped one. Um, but now the scary part.

[00:15:15]I am going I 516 gall uh hours. I'm at 533. I added 150 gallons to the boat. I winterized it almost empty.

[00:15:28]And yeah, I'm going to add some more fuel. Maybe about 100 gallons. And the scary part is what am I going to pay? I know when I last put fuel in, it was uh over a month ago, I paid 531 a gallon. 5319.

[00:15:43]Forget the nine. We're just going to go by the the three numbers. I honestly have no idea what the fuel dock is charging now, but uh that'll be a nice uh little tag to the end of this video, how much the fuel is and maybe I'll come back with some comments on uh you know the fuel prices and what the heck is uh what the heck are guys like me going to do when you know fuel is 25, 30, 35% more than it was last year. All right, we'll check back in at the fuel dock. Here we go.

[00:16:28]All right, spoiler alert. Mitch was here getting gas. What's up, Mitch?

[00:16:31]>> How you doing?

[00:16:32]>> His new boat, his Kobia 240. Um, and he told me the price. $5.99. So, $599. So, we'll just say six shut off.

[00:16:41]>> Six bucks a gallon. I'm going to grab pump one. I'm going to add 150 gallons.

[00:16:47]So, what's that? 100 time 6 is 600. And then, uh, 900 bucks to add 150 gallons.

[00:16:56]Fun, fun, fun. All right. And yeah, we'll hold off talking about the gas prices till the end. I want to focus on the good news first. For me personally, that's that the bass are in. Um, I can start running my charters. have actually cancelled four bass charters already because they just weren't there. Um, we could catch them at another spot, but it involves casting and it's difficult with four people to do that. Um, so super thrilled all four of my uh charters that I've canceled have been rescheduled and we should be on fish every trip. I'm also thrilled with the way the new VRC jigging jerks fluke rod worked. Super awesome rod, 6 feet 8, Americanmade with an American blank titanium guides. It's the VRC website, which I'll include a link in the description to, will have all the specs on the rod, and you can pre-order them now. They should be ready for a late June, early July delivery if you do want to pre-order one. Um, and in general, just thrilled that the bass are in. You see a picture of my buddy Andy here. He was fishing next to us. He got an almost 30 lb bass also on a CNS 6 bucktail. You know, I I'll go to my grave saying that the 6 bucktail will catch bigger fish than the 1 ounce three-way method. Of course, the the the three-way method is the easier method if you're not used to this style of fishing. And I guess we can't uh you know, avoid the subject any longer.

[00:18:20]Let's talk about these fuel prices.

[00:18:21]Yeah. So, last year, to give you an example, I was at about 450 a gallon. um April 15 when I added fuel last time I was at 531 a gallon. Now I'm at almost $6 a gallon. It just sucks. And let's put politics aside. Please don't in the comments make this a political discussion. It just is what it is. We we really I want this this discussion to be more focused on how are your boating andor fishing habits going to change because of the fuel prices. I know a couple the charter captains I've I've checked with are likely adding fuel sir charges and I don't blame them. This is a very low margin business. I'm not talking about party boats. I don't know what the margins are there. I imagine maybe a little better even though obviously more expenses with a big boat.

[00:19:06]But for a lot of us charter guys, it, you know, we're doing this because we love fishing. We love interacting with people. And you're not doing it to become rich. And stuff like this just really hurts. That's all I'll say. Um but it is what it is. I'm not going to raise prices right now. I'm going to wait and see if it gets worse. If it gets worse, I'll look at that again.

[00:19:27]I'll readress my situation. But let me know in the comments. Are you going to fish less? Are you going to boat less because of these gas prices? Hope you guys enjoy this video. As always, if you like these videos, hit that like button.

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