Thursday, July 7, 2011

Dinner Plate Scup








Last night I went looking for stripers or blues in the Bay. I didn't find any, but what I did find was a load of good sized scup. These were unlike any I had ever found along the oceanfront. They were large, some nearly the size of dinner plates, and they were aggressive. They would readily attack plastics and jigs mounted with plastics ripping these offerings apart like piranhas attacking raw meat. I had run into these the previous night in shallow water and I decided to give the same spot another try. I also came armed with a rig I had devised. It looked like a double teaser rig only in place of the teasers I had tied in two, small #4 hooks on which I threaded one inch plastic grub tails (see photo). On the end of the rig I had mounted a quarter ounce jighead with a three inch plastic curly tail. It did the trick, sometimes accounting for double headers. By the end of the evening I had landed over 30 scup, many as large as small schoolies. They weren't stripers, but the action was terrific. In these days of reduced numbers of stripers, I'm planning on branching out and going after what's plentiful and available. Last night it was large scup.