My brother and I were out in the boat yesterday evening looking for stripers and bluefish along the south shore. Surprisingly, we didn't find any, but what we did find was a boatload of black sea bass. In fact, this was the biggest hit we have ever had from the boat catching countless numbers of them and lots and lots of keepers. I landed the biggest one I ever got in RI, a fish we estimated ran over 6 lbs.
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It's not how many we caught that made the night, it's how we got them. They were all caught on artificals with no bait added. In the past we have had limited success catching these fish on artificials here in RI. Yesterday evening we discovered the absolute best lure we have ever used to get them. It was the Kastmaster XL, that same lure that has been getting real good numbers of stripers and blues for us in the last few weeks. We started off using bucktail jigs and flukes on jigheads, and those lures got only a lukewarm reception. We then switched to this elongated Kastmaster and immediately started nailing one fish after another. We discovered that the black sea bass were generally hitting it on the way down as the lure fluttered to the bottom. We also found out that if we didn't get a hit on the way down, we could jig it in long sweeping pulls of the rod that would lift the lure five or six feet off the bottom. As it dropped back down, the sea bass would nail it on the drop.The Kastmaster XL's that we were using were the 3 1/2 inch (roughly an ounce) and the 4 inch (roughly on ounce and a quarter) models. The colors that were most effective were green and chartreuse (see photo).
Other bottom fish also readily hit this lure as we also landed a good number of big scup along with a keeper tautog.
For us this lure has been the hottest lure of August for a number of fish. It seems to work with equal effectiveness from both shore and boat. It can be casted and retrieved or jigged as we discovered tonight. It's both versatile and effective, a great combination for a lure
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