Saturday morning we took the armada to one of the beaches on the Southern end of the Chesapeake Bay. The wind was from the South-South West so it was pretty flat for us. La went for a long paddle and I anchored to keep an eye on the kids (who were trolling for plankton with some nets we made) and to cast a line further out and still use lighter tackle. I caught a few croaker while out on the Hooked SUP. I tried laying a crab line out with chicken neck on it and when checking on it, I saw the target I was hoping for - baby pompano. After catching the croaker and transferring them to Marlon on the Grom paddleboard to take back to the beach to our specimen bucket, I paddled back to the beach to try my hand at catching the pomps on a tenkara rod. After you take a few minutes to adjust, you begin to notice all kinds of small fish hovering in the shallows (to not get eaten I presume). Between Marlon throwing the cast net and me using the tenkara rod with #16 hook, we brought a baby bluefish that had a semi-circular chunk missing out of it's back (almost something's lunch), some anchovy type fish and several small pomps ranging from very small to almost edible size. I didn't end up paddling out too far since I was hanging out with the kids, but I can see how paddling out to deeper water, anchoring and throwing out a rig with a bigger hook could lead to a much harder tug-o-war match with a piscine competitor. We had a blast and all this made me miss living in Virginia Beach even more than I already did.
