Last Wednesday was the New Moon in June; notoriously good for fishing... The thought is it's harder for the fish to find food at night because of low light so the day feed is unreal. A popular bait fish, Bunker (aka Menhaden or Pogies) were just everywhere! You couldn't get away from them! The trick was finding the schools with big fish under them! Epic day of fishing and just perfect weather!
To start things off, Plymouth Fire came out with a ladder truck and giant American flag! We did our morning muster and boat assignments then off we went. Plymouth Harbor master lead the way with two of their boats along with a Coast Guard boat escorting us out of the harbor to Bug Light.
We didn't have to go far... Big Striped bass were close to Plymouth! All the boats caught fish, many veterans even got to take home some fillets. Many over-slot fish were caught and released to swim another day!
Strong work by RTR team member Capt Mark Petitt, owner and operator of Plymouth Charters, F/V Fire Escape. Bravo Capt Mark, you win the MVP award for putting in such strong work to pull it all together and elevate this event!
Thank you to each and every Captain that showed up with their fishing vessels, knowledge, experience and willingness to support our nations veterans!
Bravo to you, Ed Bridgers, Ken Texeira, Mike Whitman, Meg & Russ Bennassi, William Mitchell, Anthony Belculfine, Brian Cusack, and Mark Petitt!!! Also, big shout to Jonah Petitt for running the Rifles to Rods camera boat, keeping our gear dry, and even putting us on a 40" striper!
Another big shout out to Madison and everyone else at the Tavern for accommodating our group last minute after their neighbors (not mentioning any names, <cough cough> rhymes with Abby Hack <cough cough>) gave us the snub one day before the event. Madison had a positive attitude from the start and worked with our team and the Tavern staff to provide a perfect environment and menu for our group of veterans and staff after a beautiful day on the water!
As always, it was great to partner and collaborate with local veteran nonprofit New England Adventures, we look forward to our next event together in September; fly fishing in Southern Vermont, staying at a Lakeside Victorian Mansion and also partnering with Mt. Snow Adaptive Sports!!
This event was sponsored by Dellbrook | JKS, thank you Russ Bennassi and Mike Fish at Dellbrook for helping to make this happen! With all the support we were able to get 40 veterans, including volunteers, and 9 boats on the water in just one day!