I was tog fishing last week with friends near New Haven, CT, near the harbor breakwaters, which are made with boulders about the size of a dorm-room fridge. I'm not much of a bottom-fisherman, but I do enjoy it.

Anyway, the bottom underneath us had all these boulders thrown together, with cracks in between. We did noticably better when we were able to get our bait into a crack in between the boulders, than when our bait was sitting on top of the boulders.

Is that normal? What's the theory here? Are the tog lying in wait between the cracks? Or do they go down into the cracks after I get my bait down there?

I found one crack between 2 boulders, it felt like a very small space, that I pulled 4 keepers out of. Were all those fish possibly in there, befoire we got there?

I have to get down there with my SCUBA gear and check it out, I think that would really help me be a much better fisherman if I could visualize what's going on down there.

Made blackened fish sandwirches with the filets, and some drunken tog stew with the racks. Unbelievable stuff, thanks to those here who posted the stew recipe..

They hide and swim in the boulders and cracks. When they get hooked they will take you right back into those rocks.

They feed on the shellfish and crabs that live in those cracks.

Tog don't swim around very much. Once they've found a place with
good stuff to eat, they stay there and munch away.

Often tog will "fill in" a hole once you pull a fish out of it. I've caught tons of fish from spots like that. Its almost like they are waiting in line to get in or something. And I think that tog swim around a bit more than people think. Check out Mike Laptew's and Skinner's videos. This year I was able to catch dozens of "transient" tog, that were moving between rock piles while I was on a sandy bottom.