BassyiusMaximus
07-12-2006, 03:47 PM
. . . of course, my big-bass fishing is always at night since during the day I like chasing scup, black sea bass and fluke, then I stalk my favorite night places by boat, depending on what the sea and wind are doing so I can put myself on some good drifts by the totally rocky shorelines I have stalked in the daytime over the years during both high and low tide so I know I'll be safe.
Even though it is almost mid-July, the fish have still been skulking around my usual haunts and I like to get to them right around sunset and watch the sky go from light to dark. The night of these bass, it was right around low tide and the moon was right around the first quarter. This was one of the first times I did not use eels at night but went with a big black plug, I forget the name of the thing but I spent $20 on it at Red Top and it is very similar to a Danny except that the lip is not metal but part of the wood body of the plug, the lip is carved right into the plug. The lure had 3 hooks but I removed the first two and kept the tail hook which is bucktail or synthetic thread but white nonetheless.
I got on my drift and on the first pass I got nothing. This area I was fishing was new to me as I had never fished it before, I had visited it at least 3 times in the daytime and once at night, it had moving water and was flushing me out to another pile of rocks that was marked with a red buoy as it was part of a small channel marker while both of the sides of the inlet were full of rocks and the water just seemed very fishy. On the second cast I let the lure float for a while before I began the retrieve. I love the way this lure, like a Danny or a jointed Bomber moves in the water, with the 7 foot light-action ugly stick coupled to my trusty 6500SS, I had to go with my heavier rod since the lure would probably have been a lot for my 7' light Boca/Boca 40 reel. Nonetheless, I can feel this lure wiggling from side to side despite my painfully slow retrieve, about as slow as I work my eels, when I felt the take. The pull was immediate and I could feel my line paying out the the shore on the starboard side of the boat, the fish heading straight for the rocks on the shore.
Cut back to a month ago while fishing with a relative newbie, we had an eel on the bottom and a fish had picked it up and ran, the rod was just sitting in the rodholder and the drag was just set to full-loose, we let the newbie take the rod and he just started reeling and we could just hear the drag spinning. We told him to tighten up the drag, which he did, and he set to just reeling the fish right in, not letting the fish play or allowing the drag or the fish to take line, we were watching just horrified as the bend in the light/medium rod suggested that the fish on the line was pretty big, however, the reel did have 20lb test and before we knew it a 40" bass was at the side of the boat, ready for the net. It was one of the fastest boatings of a high 30's low 40" fish I had ever seen.
I thought of that episode and decided that I could muscle my away from the rocks and had to trust that the 15lb test I had on was not too fatigued as it was relatively early in the season and the line on this particular reel did not have too many fish caught on it, so using the limberness of the rod and using two hands, I steadily pulled with more force than I was used to and got the fishes head to turn and stay in the channel which was about 15-20 feet deep. The fish then ran towards the stern, taking me out about 50 yards. How I love the initial run, then when I think it is over the fish goes into overdrive and runs twice as fast and the drag just sings. I kept both my headlamp off and all the lights off as I didn't want to possibly spook any other fish that might have been in the area and I wanted the challenge of fighting the fish in the total darkness. In addition, I love seeing the swirls of the dorsal fin and tail in the water in the available light and how big they look when I know I have a big fish. The fish came to the boat and ended up being a 39", 30.5lb fish that after this pic was taken, I put back in, made sure it was alive and watched it swim away for another day. http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/thundra04struck/BassBaby.jpg
To me, anything is better than holding a fish out to the camera to make it look bigger. I'll do anything to NOT do that, I've seen ads for Charter boats that have the person holding the fish out and it makes me laugh inside when I see it, like the Charter guy has to exaggerate a little to show his fish. No matter, I know how some don't need to show the world their fish but I do know that my neices and nephews, especially my 4 year old nephew who loves to see pictures of fish on the fishing sites, it makes them happy, so if for nothing else, it is for the future generations of fishermens enjoyment.
The weekend looks hazy, hot and humid and I'm going to live-line some scup in the deep water along with chase the bluefish, I can't wait. Enjoy!
Even though it is almost mid-July, the fish have still been skulking around my usual haunts and I like to get to them right around sunset and watch the sky go from light to dark. The night of these bass, it was right around low tide and the moon was right around the first quarter. This was one of the first times I did not use eels at night but went with a big black plug, I forget the name of the thing but I spent $20 on it at Red Top and it is very similar to a Danny except that the lip is not metal but part of the wood body of the plug, the lip is carved right into the plug. The lure had 3 hooks but I removed the first two and kept the tail hook which is bucktail or synthetic thread but white nonetheless.
I got on my drift and on the first pass I got nothing. This area I was fishing was new to me as I had never fished it before, I had visited it at least 3 times in the daytime and once at night, it had moving water and was flushing me out to another pile of rocks that was marked with a red buoy as it was part of a small channel marker while both of the sides of the inlet were full of rocks and the water just seemed very fishy. On the second cast I let the lure float for a while before I began the retrieve. I love the way this lure, like a Danny or a jointed Bomber moves in the water, with the 7 foot light-action ugly stick coupled to my trusty 6500SS, I had to go with my heavier rod since the lure would probably have been a lot for my 7' light Boca/Boca 40 reel. Nonetheless, I can feel this lure wiggling from side to side despite my painfully slow retrieve, about as slow as I work my eels, when I felt the take. The pull was immediate and I could feel my line paying out the the shore on the starboard side of the boat, the fish heading straight for the rocks on the shore.
Cut back to a month ago while fishing with a relative newbie, we had an eel on the bottom and a fish had picked it up and ran, the rod was just sitting in the rodholder and the drag was just set to full-loose, we let the newbie take the rod and he just started reeling and we could just hear the drag spinning. We told him to tighten up the drag, which he did, and he set to just reeling the fish right in, not letting the fish play or allowing the drag or the fish to take line, we were watching just horrified as the bend in the light/medium rod suggested that the fish on the line was pretty big, however, the reel did have 20lb test and before we knew it a 40" bass was at the side of the boat, ready for the net. It was one of the fastest boatings of a high 30's low 40" fish I had ever seen.
I thought of that episode and decided that I could muscle my away from the rocks and had to trust that the 15lb test I had on was not too fatigued as it was relatively early in the season and the line on this particular reel did not have too many fish caught on it, so using the limberness of the rod and using two hands, I steadily pulled with more force than I was used to and got the fishes head to turn and stay in the channel which was about 15-20 feet deep. The fish then ran towards the stern, taking me out about 50 yards. How I love the initial run, then when I think it is over the fish goes into overdrive and runs twice as fast and the drag just sings. I kept both my headlamp off and all the lights off as I didn't want to possibly spook any other fish that might have been in the area and I wanted the challenge of fighting the fish in the total darkness. In addition, I love seeing the swirls of the dorsal fin and tail in the water in the available light and how big they look when I know I have a big fish. The fish came to the boat and ended up being a 39", 30.5lb fish that after this pic was taken, I put back in, made sure it was alive and watched it swim away for another day. http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/thundra04struck/BassBaby.jpg
To me, anything is better than holding a fish out to the camera to make it look bigger. I'll do anything to NOT do that, I've seen ads for Charter boats that have the person holding the fish out and it makes me laugh inside when I see it, like the Charter guy has to exaggerate a little to show his fish. No matter, I know how some don't need to show the world their fish but I do know that my neices and nephews, especially my 4 year old nephew who loves to see pictures of fish on the fishing sites, it makes them happy, so if for nothing else, it is for the future generations of fishermens enjoyment.
The weekend looks hazy, hot and humid and I'm going to live-line some scup in the deep water along with chase the bluefish, I can't wait. Enjoy!