Fishin' with my Baby Bro'

I had the chance to take my brother Doug out today for some striper action. We get to fish together 3 to 4 times a year, planning trips to upstate NY for steelies, the James River in VA for blue catfish, down to Florida for a bit of everything, etc. These outings account for Doug's entire fishing season. His drive up from Philly followed an overnight flight in from London Heathrow, and I hit him with the idea of leaving at 12:30 am for what I hoped was a good night bite. Who needs sleep, right? After a four hour nap, we hit the road. The last time he came up to fish my boat was the summer before last, and we spent most of the day sitting in dense fog. After talking up my solid striper season thus far, the pressure was on to produce. My plan was to take advantage of the flood tide peaking around 4:00am, fishing eels against a breakwall. As we got to pre-dawn we would net some bunker and then head to a few more locations for the next tide cycle or two. My first cast at 2:20 am and I was tight! I get to do this all the time, so I handed off to Doug who brought in a nice 32" fish. Over the next hour and a half, we landed two more keepers in the low 30s, and a bunch of shorts. I wanted to have a loaded baitwell by the time the sun broke the horizon. We located a big school of bunker and I landed a nice pancake, drawing a blank. I have no idea how I missed every single fish. My next cast faired much better, filling my livewell to capacity. It didn't take Doug too long to land his next keeper at location #2, a beautiful 38" fish. While we didn't spend the day doubled up, we worked up a good bunch of fish, many hookups coming in spurts. Doug lost a few going Bassmaster with circle hooks, and I broke a pair off. Those always make you wonder. In all, I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend the day, and thank God I found some fish!