Toggin’ it
 

Getting late for stripers, so went for togs. Did pretty well; seven keepers with my bud. Used Joe Baggs Orange togzilla jigs. Had one on next to a bare hook. Every fish on the bare hook was a short; every keeper came on a jig. Sure get a thumbs up here! So did anyone else catch anything?

Stocked trout... boring.

That's a key piece of advise about jig/ keeper ratio.
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Not a big fan of the jig, when I was using it (With bait) I tied a short leader tied to the hook with a treble hook , not many missed fish but it tore them up so I stopped,,, but it worked !

I should have pointed out that I did have crabs on obviously. Used the Joe Baggs green togzilla jig too, and did NOT catch anything, for the second time.
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just got back from about 2 hours of tog fishing. About 6 fish 17" and lots more shorts so no keepers.

You know how simple and effective and inexpensive my go to is :drevil:

Bob , do you tip it with bait ???

Off the braid and swivel, I run 40# seagar to a 6/0 gamakatsu octopus hook. I tie 30# mono directly to the hook eye, then form a loop in the mono close to the hook, usually no more than a couple inches away. Gives me easy weight changes, easy handle to land fish without a net, unless they are togzillas. The crab sitting just off the bottom allows me to more easily feel when the tog has tasted and decided to move off with his snack. Simple, inexpensive and I’ve found out fishes anything I’ve tried, including the latest jig craze. Usually cut the larger crabs in half, if small they go on the hook whole with corner cut to let the juices flow.

Yes I do.... :humpty:

But I’m still using double hooks a little below the sinker.... I can feel them lookin at the bait... LOL

Probably had my best togging day ever today. Cold start 25 at the ramp in the dark, even my outboard said I don't know about this.

I like the tog jigs too. I recently switched to using the Magictails jig because it has a wide flat bottom and it holds the crab up well. I'm running pp super slick version2 in smoke grey to a 40lb mono leader which I tie as a dropper loop. On the bottom I have the jig and 8" up Im using a 3/0 gami baitholder hook. It is very important how the crabs get hooked.

On the 3/0 gami the crab has to be small (1/2 dollar) size or a medium crab cut and hooked between the rear legs (all removed) and coming back out between the top of the shell and the tail. This hook is small enough that the blackfish suck it right in no problem.

On the jig, which I consider my workhorse, I hook the crab 2 ways. 1. Same as above.
2. Medium to small crabs I also push the hook up thru the tail near the rear of the crab and right up thru the shell. The crab kinda gets wedged at the bend of the hook, I use this when I know there are larger fish but the smaller ones can't pull it off.

All day today on either tide the fish were switching their preference as to top or bottom.

I somehow managed to land two tog one 6 & one 7 lbs on this rig today. I thought I had a beast but it was just two solid fish.

The best part about the jigs is that they are super forgiving with the bottom even in a boulder field. A crossing current maybe not so much but upstream or down it can search around the boat to fish a larger piece than the swing of your anchor line. Let the current walk your jig down a drop-off, the thin diameter of the pp ss cuts the water and keeps the feedback coming from the jig to your hands nicely.

Such a cool fish.
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I used a rig like in Ray's photo but just 1 hook 2 it would tangle a lot. The other modification was I used a kale hook,, which gave me better better hook set.

Frozen deck to start off yesterday and a terrible bite,,, thinking all the big wind from previous days murked things up....
Attachment 67433

Today much better
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That is about as good a catch as possible.
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perfect shape on the oysters >< over the counter shape

Can you still get tog in buzz bay this time of year or am I better heading out front maybe even in a state to our south
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:humpty: ... for another month if you're willing.

and then go a little South, and you can still pick some up close to Christmas...

Thanks bloo
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Higgie, ...2 of us landed close to 100 fish yesterday until the tide shut the bite down...BB. Was like peace-work for a couple of hours straight...
Soft Asian-crabs left little room for error when setting the hook,...with cut green crabs catching the larger fish..Albeit we only boxed 5 keepers. My bait of choice will always be the female green crab, (which is actually orange bottomed)
So get out there, still plenty of action to be had....saw birds working surface fish too, but I wasn't playing the anchor game with such a steady bite going on.

Hit it again this AM....closer to Clamma, but ddeeeeeeeeeeeeeepp
Again, incredible numbers....much larger fish too.
Ran out of asians, but the frozen green crabs were still knockin' em dead!! :fishin:

don,t care to use Asians out front

still 18 to 20' yesterday … just very little sea bass ……………………….. crashed today ….trouble making two in ROW ><>

WATCHED SOME RUN & GUN YESTERDAY // FU CKIN NUT S :sspam:

WOW
went with Niko today out of NB,,,, headed south to 5 spots along the way ,,, worst day ever for this time of month... not even the onslot of smalls.... really strange....

Could it be Earthquake!

Ray … they were all caught over the weekend …………..it looked like the July 4th :huh:

Went rec out Newport area, only fished for a cpl hours did well, released a cpl dd.

Yep, there were at least 10 boats set up on RR Sunday...we chummed which may have increased the amount of smallies, but the action was non-stop, no waiting once it hit bottom.

Nice surprise today when a school of stripers suddenly appeared out of nowhere 10' from the boat, absolutely gorgeous out there!!!

I went out of wareham Saturday for a few hours not a sniff. I’m thinking I may have needed to be a little deeper. Hit some spots I’ve got tog in in the spring while seabass fishing. Hope to get out again it’s been to nice to put the boat away. Got a bunch of oysters tho and couldn’t beat the weather so wasn’t a total loss
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We were between 25 - 35' when out in BB, but over 60' yesterday in RI
My spring spots become vacant this time of year, I don't even bother

90-100ft over the weekend, and had a decent chew going.

Pains me to say it...but when pulling them up from those kinds of depths, bad things happen. We try to slow the retrieve, but even then...they still come up bug-eyed or bladderless sometimes..... read somewhere about puncturing the bladder...tried it, but it didn't seem right? Even tried pushing it back in...:point: ...:doh:

How do you guys treat this or do you?
Anyone versed in ichthyology? Is it safe to puncture?
Hollow needle...I'm sure we all carry one in our tackle bag...

https://www.flseagrant.org/fisheries/venting/
Good info on venting. Not ideal, but better than certain death.
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why go deep until you have too ???????

That's what she said!!!.... :humpty:

Attachment 67473

Got out this past weekend. Waking up my five year old at 4:45Am is special, rub his back and whisper, "it's time to go fishing." It's like the exorcist watching him go from completely asleep to wide awake in 0.02 seconds. We use circle hooks for fresh water fishing so I didn't deviate here for blackfish, cut crabs with the shell removed was sufficient.

I knew the first hour or so would be hot, I was literally net man until just before slack tide. My son put the first fish in the box, his best tog at 17.5" my dad and I got our limit before the tide turned. Nothing stellar and the other tide yielded shorts. Maybe one more trip and then got a bunch of work lined up for the boat.

That's awesome!

That's GREAT Linesider.... 3 generations sharing some tides,,, CAN'T get better than that!!! :kewl::kewl::kewl:





IMO-Sidenote: I often read of guys peeling the shell off...???
I never saw the advantage??...In fact, I feel just the opposite
> Even if just slightly, it will retain some of the juices until removed
> It will also fend off cunner bites from that side of the bait
> All this is momentarily of course, as it doesn't take long for it to come off on it's own anyway, if not during the decent itself....so why bother with the extra step of removing it yourself?
> I also see guys leaving the legs on? That's another no-no for me...by leaving the legs on, you get a lot of missed hooksets, Tog grabs a leg or two, runs with it or chomps...you set, but strike out cuz there's no hook there.
I like cutting a bunch of crabs once I'm set up on the spot...then I'll grab handfuls of legs, quickly mince and toss over the side.

Good point. Just started fishing for these this year ... this month. I think I’m 15:1 short to keeper if not worse, but fun and delicious fish, a blast on light gear.
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Very jealous up here on the north shore,,,,,

bloocrab,

Thank you! Yes I had asked my dad first every trip and finally he wasn't busy and it happened to line up on the best conditions day of all the trips. I 100% agree with everything you said and that is how I fish for them, cut legs off and keep the shell on, it is great advice. If you have a good crew of guys onboard they can cut some legs before getting underway or during an approach and have some chum ready before anchoring.

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No shell crabs:

My son at 5 is a good fisherman already, some of our goals this year were to spend a lot of time working on casting and retrieving various lures and jigs.
Billy D (PBAdad) built him his first surf rod and we spent some time fishing bucktails, shad bodies and eels. He did fatigue a bit from the heavier surf setup vs. using a 2k or 3k sized freshwater outfit but I also limited those trips in regards to duration. He did well for seabass and scup from the boat but we could get away with lighter setups for those fish. For tog, I handed him a St. Croix tidemaster med heavy with a 4000 sized reel which I felt was a good choice because it has enough play to allow a fish to take a crab, turn and load the rod enough to engage the circle hook, and enough backbone that if he even got a turn in might save some hardware ...even if he was asleep at the reel or had too much slack line, my thinking was the fish might just hook itself, for him I used a 2/0 or 3/0 thin-wire circle. I also thought that if the fish could just engulf the offering without chewing (removed shell) he might hook more fish. He won't accept help during fishing so we talk a bit about previous trips on the way down and I ask him what went good / bad and use both as opportunities to teach. He caught 6 tog and lost 2 rigs due to fish burying them in the rocks on our last trip, if you ask him how many fish he caught he'll tell you "only one" because that was the one in the box. As he develops in strength and continues to fine tune his reaction time (especially considering tog) I'll switch him back to some type of J hook.

I'm very fortunate that he loves fishing as much as he does, under any conditions, and complains when we leave after 8 hours. Ice fishing is on deck, this will be his first Champlain ice trip this year, he might love ice fishing more than all other types of fishing.

Feed that habit, nurture it...he too, will be fortunate to be taught this way, not to mention strengthening the father-son bond that is often hard to navigate... With my boy, I always loved explaining what I was doing while fishing, but more importantly why I did it and how it made the most sense to me. Thought it would help encourage data-processing the old fashion way. He learned the mechanics quick, but never developed the liking to it (although I remain forever hopeful)...he'd no sooner catch a fish and simply want to dissect it, regardless of how hot the bite was?? Maybe I got a doctor in the making...or at least a good chum guy.....:gorez: