[Introduction]

0:30 Announcer: Saltwaterfishing247.com helping you catch that fish of a lifetime.

0:39 Dave: Good morning. This morning we're going to talk about a little gill netting, something I've learned in my 25 years from the school of hard knocks unfortunately of netting and current. Another tip is wind direction. Two key factors in netting and keeping the net out of the prop, which happens unfortunately to all of us at one point in time.

Dave: Today we're going to be netting in the current on the river here. And we're going to put the net out and we're going to put a belly in the net. What I mean by that is we're going to put an arch in it. And as the net is going downstream, the arch is going to collect any fish that aren't in it and end up in the belly of the net which seems to help if there is no bait around and in collection of the bait.

1:18 Dave: The other key factor is, which is huge, and I watch a lot of guys out here just get to a spot, throw the net out and ten minutes later the engines up in the air and the net's in the motor and they're not catching nothing, is wind direction. The net is always going to go in one direction.  

Dave: The boat is going to be controlled by the wind. We're going to put the boat nose into the wind, drop our net and back away and keep the boat always downwind at all times and let the net stay in front of us. And that will keep the net tight and also keep the boat away from the net as we're pulling it in. So let's give it a shot here and hopefully we'll get some bait here and show you some more here.

1:58-2:07 (boat motor)

2:08 Matt: When Dave gets up real close to this, what I'm going to do is when he starts backing up I'm going to throw in so we can get as close to this as possible. One thing you want to look out for is to always watch your depth as well. When you're dragging back, you want to make sure you're not in shallower water than your net. Because if you start dragging your net on the bottom, it's just going to destroy it. It's going to get all hung up. So keep an eye on your depth as well when you're moving close to structures.

And again, like we said before, it's so important to keep, to keep these lines separate because Dave's coming out with quite a bit of speed and you can see this is going out without a problem. I'm just trying to keep them a little bit more separate.

3:02 Dave: All through the net. See down the end down there Matt?

3:05 Matt: Oh yeah.

3:08 Dave: You can see by the sun coming up in the east, that's the direction the wind is out of this morning. So we started our net about the wall, back downwind. And boom we got a nice belly in the net and we just had some bait hit the net now. We're going to be drifting down along the wall and the boat's going to stay away the net. The wind's already got the boat, I can feel it already. And it's going to keep this net nice and taut.

3:36 Dave: We got a hickory shed here, which they seem to show up in the mornings, just when it starts to get daylight. They come in here and they feed on bait fish. Great bait. A lot of scales on them. They have a tendency to clog up the bait tank but the stripers love them. They got a lot of color on them when the sun hits them. They get blue and green and shine real well.

3:54 Matt: Now you've got a commercial license so 

3:57 Dave: Yes, I have a commercial license. I'm able to keep these, as many as we can get. Like I said, that's a great bait.

4:05 Matt: More shad.

4:06 Dave: Wow. Very good.

4:12 Matt: Whoa ho, ho ho

4:13 Dave: That's a shad there.

4:14 Matt: Big bait. Big fish.

4:15 Dave: Big bait. Big fish. That's bigger than most trout you catch, eh Matt? (laughter)

4:32 Dave: You can see as we're pulling the net in, the boat is staying downwind. The net's perfectly straight out. We don't have to worry about the net going underneath the boat or the the boat going over the top of the net. And this is working out perfect.

4:52 Matt: When I'm putting this thing away, make sure you hook up your top line and  your bottom line so when you dig in there, it's ready for you. Now we're going to put this thing away. Time to go fishing.

5:05 Matt: Walk over this side, Em. (laughter) Here, Dave. (fish splashes)

5:31 Matt: What do you got Em? Reel it in a little bit more. Come on up here. Face this way. Pull it that way. (fish splashes) Ah, come on. There you go Em!

5:56 Emily: (laughter)

5:57 Matt: (laughter) What do you think?

5:58 Dave: Turn around Emily.

5:59 Matt: Em- turn around. This is Emily's first striper. Her first drift out with Captain Dave Griser, man. I tell you what. What do you think? Are you digging it? You want to hold it?

6:12 Emily: Yeah. 

6:13 Matt: (laughter) Let's get this hook out of here and we'll get her, get her holding this fish.

6:20 Matt: So you can grab it. There you go.

6:25 Emily: (laughter) Hold it like this?

6:27 Dave: A little sideways.

6:28 Matt: There you go. Right like that.

6:29 Dave: Oh I got a fish on my line up here, you hear?

6:31 Matt: Yup. What do you think?

6:32 Emily: (laughter)

6:33 Matt: Was that awesome?

6:35 Emily: Yeah.

6:36 Matt: You ready to do some more?

6:37 Emily: Yeah.

6:38 Matt:  Alright let me get some pics for you.

6:39 Dave: How about grabbing this rod here?

6:40 [Closing]

7:03 Announcer: Saltwaterfishing247.com helping you catch that fish of a lifetime.