BassyiusMaximus
08-04-2008, 02:46 PM
While the weather has been so nice this time of the year, the fishing for me has been the best ever, of course I say that every year since I live in the now and worrying about the past gets me nothing. This past Friday, I had the day off so my fiance’ and I went fishing. Up at 5:30am and adrift in the zone by 6am/sunrise. If you can recall, the day was sunny and warm and the water calm, as you can see, so, very, sweet!
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/thundra04struck/Sunrise8-2-08.jpg
Like I had mentioned in another post and as is written/suggested/advised so many times as fuel prices have gone up, that it might be best to either work/learn the areas we already know or to seek out new places to find and catch more quality/quantity of fish and this is exactly what I've been doing.
When not on the water and in my office, I stare at the nautical charts about every chance I get. When I'm underway, I always keep a close eye on every seam/rip/turbulent water I see in relation to where I am/the land/what is underwater and if I’ve the time, I’ll go back and while watching the fishfinder/sonar, take note of what the bottom really looks like and notice any irregularities down there. As this is my 2nd season with either a GPS or a FF, I can now see things I had never been able to the previous 20 years, but the great thing, is even with nothing, I still caught fish but I definitely get more now because of it and this is a good thing.
Like many fishermen I know, I focus on where the bottom changes from shallow to deep as at least how the theory goes, and from past experience, the fish are where there is food.
In my younger years, I would spend a lot of time in the heat of the season/like now, drifting along and blind casting for fish in some very fishy-looking areas and even in the area I had spent time in on Friday. I clearly remember all the times I would be in the clearest, calmest water with a high, hot sun, and see fast moving schools of small tuniods right under the boat and could see the hookup as they would fly-by, that sweet flash, right down to that big eye looking up at me as it tore away with the rest of the pack and my line going off, the drag from my trusty 6500SS making that drill-sound away from the boat, thankfully, I had that same experience again this past Friday.
Like I mentioned earlier and has been the advice given over and over again this season as gas has been 25% more than last season, to learn the areas closer to home better or to find places where one need not run so far to catch fish and I have been doing just that, learning my areas closer to home. I've been concentrating on the the basics. Moving water, rocky water, bottom/contour changes, and bait.
This day, I anchored myself in 5-7’ of water and let my stern drift out into about 17’ of water and behind the boat the water ranged down to 40-90’ depending on which direction I/we wanted to cast. Of course, the tide was running so there was good flow. The best part is the water, because of the bottom changes below, it made the water turbulent and a rip was even within casting distance. Needless to say, we were in casting heaven for this morning. Shallower water off the bow, current seams to either side of the boat and about 20'+ of water, and a nice mini-rip off the stern drppping down to 60-90', 360-degrees of castability and fish potential.
We pretty much started and ended the day with hard-plastic, deep diving lures and after losing the first two fish of the day, thankfully they were only bluefish, as the drag was tight on the fiance’s reel and once she slacked off a bit, she didn’t lose the important fish we’d get a little while later. The biggest experiment that paid off was my rigging of teasers behind the green/olive deep divers we were using. I took a 12-14” floro-leader and tied on one of my 5/0-6/0 eel hooks and slid on a small 3” squid skirt over the hook, both in green and in white/silver. As the big Tuna like green, so do these babies. The fish loved the teasers and the bluefish surprisingly didn’t make a mockery of the skirts, probably because the fish would bite the hook cleanly, it was beautiful to see it work. It took a short amount of time to learn how to cast without getting the teaser to hook up on the lure/mainline, but once we got the hang of it, much like casting out an eel, it worked out well. The other main thing we had to have was the patience to let the lure hit the water and let it drift back into the turbulent water/the rip and we’d be able to get, effectively, longer casts. Sometimes, like in surf fishing, when we knew that the lure was just out of where most of the fish hit, we’d let the lure drop back with just enough tension so as not to let the lure foul itself and when we tightened back up in the strike zone, we’d have a fish on. I’ve done this in rips where the stripers are stacked up and sometimes we can see them. I’ll either drift or hold the boat ahead of the rip and we’ll drift lures into the face of the rip and hookup, no secret there as this is what the wire-liners do when jigging parachutes, but I’m not a fan of wire and massive rods for bass at all, but to each their own.
First fish was a bluefish but on the 2nd round of casts, we each had a bonito on. Like playing the inshore-fishing equivalent of Twister, we were around each other quite a few times as the fish go left, right, up and down and it was great to know that we had these fish to ourselves this morning as there was not a boat in sight and none even transiting within 2-3 miles of us all morning long, heaven. 12 lb test and light 7’ spinning rods and 40-series reels. No leaders and just a ball bearing snap swivel to the lure. I like to think that having the swivel helps to reduce line-twist, but what do I know? What I do know is it all worked.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/thundra04struck/DoublebonesonDeck.jpg
Of course, I’m always the de-hooker and even though Friday was a warm day, at 6:30am, it is still a bit cool hence the jacket.
We then get a few more rounds of bluefish, which we don’t mind as I’ve got lots of people here at work who love bluefish. As it is, I have a woman who brought me in a tub of homemade fried and barbecued chicken as we trade back and forth and I’ll give her another 5-8lb bag of fillets for her next barbecue. It is great to hear her stories regarding the sandsharks/dogfish I give her and how she skins/fins the fish, puts it in aluminum foil, seasons it then throws it on the grill and when done, she doesn’t even get to taste it as it is completely gone as all the barbecue attendees have just devoured all 10 lbs of it. It is a great feeling knowing I’m feeding others with what I’ve caught and that seasoned and cooked right, it is great summer-eating. Like my late Mom would say, “One hand to give, the other to take” and both to type this story, ha!
Then we pick another bonito or 2 among the bluefish as well as this combo of bass and bonito a while later. About a 34” fish to the 23” bonito;
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/thundra04struck/BonitoandBassDoubleheaderII.jpg
I picked up another 32” bass, nothing great but the good people do love that stuff for the grill so we box it and by 10:30am – 11:00am or so, we were a bit tired from all the catching. Much to my surprise, we got quite a few keeper sized bass in this area, all mixed in and it was nice to be able to get all 3 in one area and to try and guess what fish was what when we’d hook up. Once we were tired enough, I pulled up anchor and moved to where there was a nice sandy shoreline, anchored again and cleaned the catch and made sure the bonito stayed iced as the family likes to eat it raw every now and then. This is a sweet fishbox.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/thundra04struck/NiceLivewell.jpg
Enjoy!
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/thundra04struck/Sunrise8-2-08.jpg
Like I had mentioned in another post and as is written/suggested/advised so many times as fuel prices have gone up, that it might be best to either work/learn the areas we already know or to seek out new places to find and catch more quality/quantity of fish and this is exactly what I've been doing.
When not on the water and in my office, I stare at the nautical charts about every chance I get. When I'm underway, I always keep a close eye on every seam/rip/turbulent water I see in relation to where I am/the land/what is underwater and if I’ve the time, I’ll go back and while watching the fishfinder/sonar, take note of what the bottom really looks like and notice any irregularities down there. As this is my 2nd season with either a GPS or a FF, I can now see things I had never been able to the previous 20 years, but the great thing, is even with nothing, I still caught fish but I definitely get more now because of it and this is a good thing.
Like many fishermen I know, I focus on where the bottom changes from shallow to deep as at least how the theory goes, and from past experience, the fish are where there is food.
In my younger years, I would spend a lot of time in the heat of the season/like now, drifting along and blind casting for fish in some very fishy-looking areas and even in the area I had spent time in on Friday. I clearly remember all the times I would be in the clearest, calmest water with a high, hot sun, and see fast moving schools of small tuniods right under the boat and could see the hookup as they would fly-by, that sweet flash, right down to that big eye looking up at me as it tore away with the rest of the pack and my line going off, the drag from my trusty 6500SS making that drill-sound away from the boat, thankfully, I had that same experience again this past Friday.
Like I mentioned earlier and has been the advice given over and over again this season as gas has been 25% more than last season, to learn the areas closer to home better or to find places where one need not run so far to catch fish and I have been doing just that, learning my areas closer to home. I've been concentrating on the the basics. Moving water, rocky water, bottom/contour changes, and bait.
This day, I anchored myself in 5-7’ of water and let my stern drift out into about 17’ of water and behind the boat the water ranged down to 40-90’ depending on which direction I/we wanted to cast. Of course, the tide was running so there was good flow. The best part is the water, because of the bottom changes below, it made the water turbulent and a rip was even within casting distance. Needless to say, we were in casting heaven for this morning. Shallower water off the bow, current seams to either side of the boat and about 20'+ of water, and a nice mini-rip off the stern drppping down to 60-90', 360-degrees of castability and fish potential.
We pretty much started and ended the day with hard-plastic, deep diving lures and after losing the first two fish of the day, thankfully they were only bluefish, as the drag was tight on the fiance’s reel and once she slacked off a bit, she didn’t lose the important fish we’d get a little while later. The biggest experiment that paid off was my rigging of teasers behind the green/olive deep divers we were using. I took a 12-14” floro-leader and tied on one of my 5/0-6/0 eel hooks and slid on a small 3” squid skirt over the hook, both in green and in white/silver. As the big Tuna like green, so do these babies. The fish loved the teasers and the bluefish surprisingly didn’t make a mockery of the skirts, probably because the fish would bite the hook cleanly, it was beautiful to see it work. It took a short amount of time to learn how to cast without getting the teaser to hook up on the lure/mainline, but once we got the hang of it, much like casting out an eel, it worked out well. The other main thing we had to have was the patience to let the lure hit the water and let it drift back into the turbulent water/the rip and we’d be able to get, effectively, longer casts. Sometimes, like in surf fishing, when we knew that the lure was just out of where most of the fish hit, we’d let the lure drop back with just enough tension so as not to let the lure foul itself and when we tightened back up in the strike zone, we’d have a fish on. I’ve done this in rips where the stripers are stacked up and sometimes we can see them. I’ll either drift or hold the boat ahead of the rip and we’ll drift lures into the face of the rip and hookup, no secret there as this is what the wire-liners do when jigging parachutes, but I’m not a fan of wire and massive rods for bass at all, but to each their own.
First fish was a bluefish but on the 2nd round of casts, we each had a bonito on. Like playing the inshore-fishing equivalent of Twister, we were around each other quite a few times as the fish go left, right, up and down and it was great to know that we had these fish to ourselves this morning as there was not a boat in sight and none even transiting within 2-3 miles of us all morning long, heaven. 12 lb test and light 7’ spinning rods and 40-series reels. No leaders and just a ball bearing snap swivel to the lure. I like to think that having the swivel helps to reduce line-twist, but what do I know? What I do know is it all worked.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/thundra04struck/DoublebonesonDeck.jpg
Of course, I’m always the de-hooker and even though Friday was a warm day, at 6:30am, it is still a bit cool hence the jacket.
We then get a few more rounds of bluefish, which we don’t mind as I’ve got lots of people here at work who love bluefish. As it is, I have a woman who brought me in a tub of homemade fried and barbecued chicken as we trade back and forth and I’ll give her another 5-8lb bag of fillets for her next barbecue. It is great to hear her stories regarding the sandsharks/dogfish I give her and how she skins/fins the fish, puts it in aluminum foil, seasons it then throws it on the grill and when done, she doesn’t even get to taste it as it is completely gone as all the barbecue attendees have just devoured all 10 lbs of it. It is a great feeling knowing I’m feeding others with what I’ve caught and that seasoned and cooked right, it is great summer-eating. Like my late Mom would say, “One hand to give, the other to take” and both to type this story, ha!
Then we pick another bonito or 2 among the bluefish as well as this combo of bass and bonito a while later. About a 34” fish to the 23” bonito;
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/thundra04struck/BonitoandBassDoubleheaderII.jpg
I picked up another 32” bass, nothing great but the good people do love that stuff for the grill so we box it and by 10:30am – 11:00am or so, we were a bit tired from all the catching. Much to my surprise, we got quite a few keeper sized bass in this area, all mixed in and it was nice to be able to get all 3 in one area and to try and guess what fish was what when we’d hook up. Once we were tired enough, I pulled up anchor and moved to where there was a nice sandy shoreline, anchored again and cleaned the catch and made sure the bonito stayed iced as the family likes to eat it raw every now and then. This is a sweet fishbox.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/thundra04struck/NiceLivewell.jpg
Enjoy!