Fishing thread 2015

[skyking]

Post up your fishing adventures here.
Went out on a bottom fishing charter out of Westport Saturday. I took my nephew again.

I took dramamine, he waited till it was too late and was either at the rail or head on his arms at the dinette in the cabin the whole day. :'(

I've never been sick before but there is a first time for everything. It was kinda funny. I was just slaying them, I had 10 sea bass in and my body tells me it is time. Put the rod in the holder and ralph, earl !

Picked the rod back up and got 5 more

I never had such a good time feeling bad.

We just missed limiting the boat on the bass, but the lings were impossible. We hunted them for hours in the afternoon. The only two on the boat we caught when fishing for the sea bass. I think I had one bite. They were on the finder but just not interested.

 

[purbeast0]

i went saturday to my normal lake for a stroll with the wife and kid, but had my rod with me. i fished for about 20 minutes and had no bites. i even saw 2 very large bass in the water, but they simply did not even notice my lures when i passed by them. i remember last year around this time (spawning season) the bass are not very aggressive at all and i had hard time catching them, even when i could see them in the water. it was very similar behavior.

i'm going out in the chesapeake in a month on a charter trip for some rockfish (striped bass). excited for that because the big ones are supposed to be running now through may.

 

[skyking]

That sounds like fun!
This was the charter company.
http://westportsportfishing.com/
Scroll down in the images to "light tackle fun"
That is a good sized sea bass, but they are fun on the light gear. When you are in them it gets crazy. Last year same time, we got skunked pretty bad all morning. We finally get into a good school and 28 of us brought in 200 fish in 15 minutes. They covered the deck

 

[DrPizza]

That sounds like fun!
This was the charter company.
http://westportsportfishing.com/
Scroll down in the images to "light tackle fun"
That is a good sized sea bass, but they are fun on the light gear. When you are in them it gets crazy. Last year same time, we got skunked pretty bad all morning. We finally get into a good school and 28 of us brought in 200 fish in 15 minutes. They covered the deck

That sounds like a pretty good time. I do that with the kids, but it's schools of large panfish that I seek out. This is the time of year for me to take a break one of these nights and head out crappie fishing. Sometimes, you can limit out in 30 minutes; other times, it's hours of hard work finding them and getting them to take the bait. Last year at this time, I caught the biggest bass I've ever caught on an ultralight from a kayak. I thought I had caught a big carp until I got it in the net. The whole time, thinking, "weird. I've never caught a carp on a white jig before."

 

[skyking]

kayak balancing challenge to boot! These sea bass are fine white fish eating. I had a grilled fillet last night and tonight the rest are going on the grill at the neighbors. I'd rather have a fish feed with friends than freeze it.

 

[Vdubchaos]

It's a tough beginning of the season here in northeast. Waters are still cold (some still frozen).

People are getting skunked EVERYWHERE I go.

So far, I got a 14" pickerel about a week ago (on my fishing kayak). Son caught a crappie and yellow perch.

We went to a big lake yesterday (on a kayak) no luck. I had a fish chase my lure but no bite....fisherman on boats getting skunked all over the place....

 

[skyking]

I bet, very late spring for you guys. We don't have anything open yet. lakes open the 26th.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

I've never been sick before but there is a first time for everything. It was kinda funny. I was just slaying them, I had 10 sea bass in and my body tells me it is time. Put the rod in the holder and ralph, earl !

Picked the rod back up and got 5 more

The two could be connected. Perhaps you stumbled upon a very effective chumming technique.

 

[Jeeebus]

Been offshore a couple times this month. Caught a bunch of snapper and a decent sized kingfish. Hopefully find time to head out in a week or two.

 

[JulesMaximus]

I have a 3 day ocean trip booked for early August out of San Diego. Should catch plenty of yellowtail.

 

[NetGuySC]

Took my 8yo son fishing and he caught his first bass saturday and his 2nd sunday. I love that he loves to fish even when they're not biting.

 

[ponyo]

Did little surf fishing while on Spring Break vacation with the family down at Cape San Blas, Florida. Caught pompano, black drum, and shark. We also did some crabbing and caught bunch of blue crabs. I stopped catching crabs by the third day because I was the only one eating it. Drove down to Apalachicola, Florida and ate the best fresh oysters. I don't think I ever had better oysters in all my life.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Took my 8yo son fishing and he caught his first bass saturday and his 2nd sunday. I love that he loves to fish even when they're not biting.

Not catching anything, relaxing and enjoying nature IS what fishing is about and a valuable lesson in life!

WAY too many kids nowadays need instant gratification or always need "something" to do.

 

[Imported]

Haven't gone fishing in years.. Gotta make time for it this year!

 

[Jeeebus]

Went out last night until about 2am. Caught a bunch of snapper and a fat bonito while vertical jigging over a reef.

We got absolutely killed by sharks for roughly an hour... must have been dozens under us while anchored. Lost at least 10 lines to huge ones. Got so bad they were slamming the snappers before we could pull them up. Back hurts so bad today.

 

[skyking]

other than the sore back that sounds like a blast! Out west our only crazy trips are offshore for tuna. It's about a 40 hour ride.

 

[Jeeebus]

other than the sore back that sounds like a blast! Out west our only crazy trips are offshore for tuna. It's about a 40 hour ride.

It was a blast. Brought home enough fish for a few meals and got to do battle with some monsters (all of which cut us off long before we got a chance to see them). My favorite was one series of nibbles I had... set the hook and bam, fish on. Did not feel like a shark but felt like a legit fighter like a tuna or amberjack. Then about 10 seconds later he realized he was hooked and was like 'fuck this - I'm outta here' and nearly dragged me over the boat. Not sure my rods can handle the size of sharks we were facing, but next time we're rigging up with wire and bigger hooks.

As the police chief said in Jaws... you're gonna need a bigger boat!

 

[skyking]

Salmon fishing in some parts of the Puget Sound can get you a lot of small dogs, if you use steel leader. If you don't you can put down a whole lot of gear.

 

[DrPizza]

Spent two weeks on my favorite lake, bass fishing. By the end of the first week, I was bored with it. Dozens upon dozens of nice sized bass - 18-20" range.

Had some boat problems early on - turns out I fixed my boat and simultaneously "broke" it - ran great with muffs on. Put it in the water, idled out until I was beyond the buoys, then couldn't get it on a plane. Limped in to the dock a few miles down the lake, since the tow vehicle had left. Went over everything, concluded it was either a gas issue or a spark issue (exhaust smelled rich - water in gas fouling plugs, else not enough spark). Fixed the latter - new cap, rotors, plugs. Idled even smoother after that. Couldn't get it on a plane though. Took it to the marina, so I could enjoy vacation time instead of: hour round trip to city, new gas cans and electric siphon, drain gas, replace. Trip to city to get rebuild kit for Holley double-barrel carburetor; spend day rebuilding, etc. Realized that I didn't want to spend vacation chasing a problem. Marina knew what I had done; checked fuel, checked timing, and a host of other possibilities, then discovered I had a loose plug wire - very tight fit for my hand on one side, and I had knocked a plug wire loose on a plug I had just changed with the ratchet while changing the adjacent plug. So, I had simultaneously fixed the problem and unfixed the problem.

So - very glad I also took my kayak with me; I had the best fishing very close to shore, well inside the weed edge. Water was very high and I was catching them right up in the cattails. And nothing beats being dragged around by a 5 pound hog when you're in the kayak. You reel the kayak to the fish, rather than the fish to the kayak.

 

[Jeeebus]

Went down to Islamorada (one of the Keys) on Sunday with a friend that had chartered a fishing boat. Full day of fun.

We started out chasing schools of tuna about 15 miles offshore (the Marathon Hump if anyone is familiar). Caught a few tuna and then searched for dolphin for a few hours - headed 33 miles offshore but nada. We came back in and picked off a bunch of vermilion snapper, triggerfish, and red snapper (red snapper is unfortunately closed so they all had to go back) off a ledge in about 200 feet of water. Lots of tasty fillets. Highlight of that portion was learning that triggerfish are apparently vicious and will bite people. I learned that as I had one in my hand and he squirmed forward to take a chomp down on my other hand. Ouch.

Got back to the dock and my buddy decides he wants to go out that night for another trip. This time we've got one of those big sportfishers reserved with a huge tower, cabin, a/c, etc. Basically a yacht. We get to the dock and two ladies in skimpy clothes are getting off - they smell like cheap beer and broken dreams. Buddy asks the mate who they were and he responds that they are local strippers they just met. Of course my friend decides to invite them along and they say yes, so now our night trip is complete with stripper cheerleaders.

We caught about two dozen mangrove and yellowtail snappers for the night trip, half of which came home with me (left half for the mates and the strippers). All in all enough fish taken home for dinner for 5 on Monday, Tuesday, and four more bags frozen. Not bad.

 

[Jeeebus]

The beast that snacked on my finger.

 

[purbeast0]

i have some really cool pics of trigger fish that i've taken over my years of snorkeling. love those fish.

 

[ponyo]

Triggerfish is one of my favorite fish to eat raw. Sweet tasting fish with firm chewy texture. Great sashimi fish.

 

[Jeeebus]

Just getting back from an evening/night trip. Caught a decent size kingfish and not much else. We got chased back in by storms - lightning everywhere so we hauled it back in. Not the most productive trip, but time on the water is better than time on land.

 

[MongGrel]

The beast that snacked on my finger.

I ought to be fishing here lately just even offshore atm as not doing a lot else atm.

Yeah, trigger fish have some nasty teeth as they eat barnacles, not a shark but those suckers will bite anything small like a finger off fast.

I haven't went offshore in a long time, used to go after Kingfish and Grouper/SeaBass/Grunt a lot.

Not sure but I think Mangrove Snappers are Grunts, they good eating we used to get a lot of those going after Grouper.

*edit* I guess not, we used to get those too, but Grunts are good eating too IMHO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemulidae

We used to troll for Kings I guess, so depended what we were up too, used to go grouper fishing in the 70's and catch tons at one point in the Bay.

CG I swear to god was almost Quint to the core on the boat we went out on, but was out of Tampa, and that was pre Jaws.

Even had a prosthetic leg on top of that, the first Black Sea Bass we'd catch always had it's head go on the hook on the lucky pole, he swore it was the best Grouper bait.

There were always bets then, biggest fish, first Grouper, most Grouper etc