Back on the 4 AM low tide shift again at the sand bar at the mouth. There was steady-to-heavy rain from the time I arrived 'til I left, which is a good thing because it really cut down on the crowds.
This time, I was getting a lot of VERY light hits on jigs, so light that it was impossible to react fast enough to hook them. Still, caught a few schoolies to 20 inches and had one on for about 5 seconds that was definitely bigger but not well hooked. Dead drifts near the bottom worked much better than any kind of retrieve.
When the tide turned to incoming, small shad made their usual appearance and both fly fishermen and shad darters were picking them up. The bait guys started connecting with stripers when the tide turned with mostly small fish but more than the lure chuckers or fly casters were catching. Did see a couple of just-keepers dragged off the beach. I think they were caught by some of the overnight camping contingent before I got there.
Did manage another schoolie and a shad down by the party boats about 1 1/2 hrs into the incoming before the threaded end cap on the reel seat on my fly rod decided to come unglued in midcast. Of course, a fish hit while my reel was sinking to the bottom so I wound up handlining both reel and fish in. Luckily neither were big. Hopefully epoxy glue will be strong enough to keep the end cap permanently on the rod...
-bd