Sandy Shakedown

[13owhunter]

Headed out of Sandy this morning around 11 for the first trip of the season and it was one for the books.  Started in about 15fow and got on browns pretty quick.  Caught a bunch on spoons and stick baits.  Was pulling one and 2 colors on boards, a couple of flatlines and the riggers.  I made a bunch of changes to the boat and added live scope that I have on a portable transom mount.  I didnt have it set correctly for the first  hour and then shortly after I figured it out, the one color started screaming with a nice king going airborne behind the boat.  Not 5 seconds after the king hit the deck, my starboard side rigger took off to another screamer.  15 minutes later and the second king hit the deck.  This one was pretty big around 17#s.  Real nice fight on light gear.   At this point i saw several blips on the live scope right off the bottom in about 30fow.   We had most of the spread in already and there were fish under the boat so I hit spot lock and threw on some casting spoons on spinning rods.  My casting spoon hit the bottom and i jigged it all of two times and was hooked up again.   This fish was a bit smaller probably around 8 or 9#s but i caught a spring king jigging which was pretty epic. 

 

This was my first time using live scope and it was pretty unimpressive most of the day as there wasnt much to look at.  I am using the LVS32 in down mode on the transom and not the PS30.  What it did tell me was that there were kings under the boat.  My 2d sonar had a couple of blips but nothing to get excited and certainly not the 10-20 big marks swimming around at one point.  The decision to spot lock and jig a spoon was 100% based on the livescope intel.  I did not see the fish or my spoon on the screen at the time for what its worth.  We spent the next hour looking for the kings, saw a few more but thats it.  I believe we caught 15+ browns, the three kings and lost what was probably a coho behind the boat.  3 or 4 browns were 3-5#s and the rest of them were lil guys.  Old boat ran great and it turned into a really nice day on the water.  Doesnt get much better!