OB Fishing Pier

The other day I went fishing with my friends Aiden and Westley.  My family went out to lunch at the Lookout Tavern in Oak Bluffs and there just so happens to be a fishing pier right across from the restaurant. When we parked next to the restaurant, Aiden and I quickly hopped out of the car and grabbed the three rods each of us brought. We ran to the end of the pier and started to rig up. We brought three rods because we were going to be using mainly bait rigs, so we could set the rods out and leave them. I put some squid on a porgy rig.  After a couple of seconds, I felt a a porgy grab my bait. I let it eat for a few seconds before I set the hook. I reeled him in and quickly released it. The next cast I got another porgy. They were sure hungry. My mom drove up and dropped of Westley, along with all of his fishing gear. After catching about ten porgy, we decided rig up the rest of the rods. One of the of the rods was a 10 foot 6 St Croix surf rod. The longer the rod, the farther you can cast and this rod was was almost 3 feet longer than the rest of our rods. Earlier that day I tied a rig that looks like the one below. The weight is shaped like a pyramid so it travels through the water like a bullet and is great for long distance casting.

So I grabbed the big rod and put the head of a squid on.  There were a few things I could catch with this rig: a dogfish, a big sea bass, a skate or maybe even a nice fluke. I casted it out and left it there. About an hour later, the rod started to shake. I grabbed the rod and waited a few seconds then, started to reel. I was using a circle hook, so I did not need to set the hook. A circle hook is a special type of hook that has a beveled tip that always hooks the fish in the corner of the mouth. It better for the fish and it easier to remove the hook. When I reeled the fish up to the pier, to my delight it was a fluke. I was very excited and happy that I had just caught my first fluke on the Vineyard. Using the pier net we lifted the fish up, took a few photos, and then released it. The fluke was around 18 inches.

While we were fishing for porgy, my friend Aiden also managed to catch a interesting puffer fish.  We do not know what species it is, but here are a few pictures.

The last but not least interesting catch was a striped bass. My friend, Westley, caught it using an entire mackerel. I loved fishing on the pier and cannot wait to go back again.