A 50 mile boating day, no bones hooked; no bones boated, a few suspicious splashes that a few years back I would sworn were bones; now I'm sure they were bass or blues plinking sandeels.
Lets see - Falmouth - Vineyard Haven @ 5; more big bass in 4' of water; a few follows, more follows of hooked schoolies, but no connects. Watching some of these 30-40" fish sniff at a wiggling eel was a wonderful education into fishing reality. At one point in my eeling career I was under the misconception that if you delivered an eels within 3' of a bass it would eat it. It was actually amusing to see a keeper sized striper shadow the eel, apparently covering it like a defensive back shadows a receiver.
No signs of bonito; no bonito at East Chop or O.B. ferry terminal either. lack of a mosquito fleet is also a telling sign. Running home @ 7:30 I had awesome fog experience. It rolled in from the east, covering east Chop to Waquoit in a curtain about 200' high. I ran the edge of the bank on a flat calm sea, in clear air, with the bank looming to my right. Its not just fishing thats fun sometimes...
Went back out from 11:30-4, Falmouth -Hedge Fence - Wasque - Poge Gut - E'Town - E'Town flats - East Chop - V.H. - home. The closest I could pretend to seeing bones was a nice mixed school of bass and blues on the E'Town flkats in 8-12' of water. There were some sharp splashes; I boated 4 nice 24-30" bass; 2 nice 6# blues,lost 3-4 fish, of which one was definitely a blue as I saw it; the rest were mystery. None of them made the long hard runs indicative of bonito.
What else did I see. Tons of sandeels everywhere; hot water - 72 degrees off E-Town on the flats; 68-69 in Vineyard sound. Bass in the rip at east Chop; nothing I could figure out in Poge Gut; something small that birds were following (rat blues?) off East Beach/Chappy. Hedge Fence had rain, but no fish, snaeels plinking the surface like rain; nothing I threw, dragged, flipped, or swam connected though I did have 1 small blue follow a fly to the boat and turn away. Hedge Fence really seemed to ahve too much bait for any chance of catching a fish.