Scup & Stripers

[B-assman]

My experience yesterday and today has left me with some questions im hoping you guys / gals can help me understand a few things

Here's what happened.

Fished the past two mornings in a certain spot - by boat. We definitely found the fish. SB were surface feeding both mornings - acres of them - but they were very very finnecky. Yesterday I had one on a soft plastic - Zacs had 2 on a yozuri popper. Today I had some bumps but no real strikes - tried everything in the bag. Remember - I was casting into acres of feeding fish for about 2 hours both mornings.

The only bait i could see in the water were minnows - BUT there are "commercial" scup guys hauling up tons of scup. Yesterday there was one guy near us - today there were 8 boats out there - hand lining for scup.

So - my questions
First of all - what the heck do people do with scup? Is it for lobster traps? Does anyone live line them?

Second - do you think the Stripers feeding on the scup? If so - what artificials do you recommend to mimic a scup?

Any thoughts to help solve this mystery would be appreciated

Thanks

[rwilhelm]

Scup is good eating and yes people do live line them.

[Nebe]

work the food chain my friend! get some squid strips or worms and catch up some scup, then chum and liveline. I guess it would be more sporty to not chum if your into ethics and of course make shure your scup are of legal size limit..

[Rappin Mikey]

If you ever had some scup for sup, you would know whats up. Stripers love to pile them up in their gut.

[redlite]

SCUP ON!!
To many ethenticities especially Potuguese folk, scup is a delicacy. They pan cook them whole and the meat supposedly comes off the bone.
I personally have never tried it, but the consensus I have heard is that it is an acquired taste.

Bass love scup. But not quite as much as blue fish.
Drop down a piece of anything on a hook, catch them, and live line them. We have had some big scup take chunks of pogie on 8/0 octupus hooks.
When we live line them we usually cut the dorsal spines off and clip a wing so they don't swim quite as well.

[Mr. Sandman]

They get good $$ for scup. Last fall it was like 2.00-3.00 per fish....insane I know....

Scup is about the only big bait left in our waters this time of year. catch 10 or so, keep them a live and 3-way them in deep holes.

Beware...the "law" 10" legal scup size....insane, I know but the "brains" in charge of the law know best...

[Gotofish]

Great bait for livelining, especially because they're all over the place. Got my personel best 42# livelining a scup in 80' of water over at middle ground. Granted, this was 2 years ago and the only time I've done it, but the smallest fish that day was 38".

[MakoMike]

If the bass were feeding on top, they probably weren't chasing scup, scup are bottom dwellers. Tehy do work livelined, but probably not in your situation. The bass were probably feeding on the small fish, and so keyed in on them that you needed a real good imitation to fool one. Also it can be hard to compete, when there is a lot of bait in the water. You best bet would probably have been to catch some of the small fish and livelined them.

[fishweewee]

Here is one way to liveline scup (which are plentiful and easily caught on squid strips).

1) Handle the scup with a wet rag, NOT your bare hands if you can help it. Your hands have a scent and you don't want to alter the protective slime too much. Keep as natural as possible.

2) With scissors, CUT the dorsal fin off. This makes it a bit easier for the bass to eat the scup. It also leaves a blood trail which might attract fish.

3) Thread the leader through the mouth and through one of the gills, tie off a 3/0 treble hook and embed it in the rear of the hump (on the back) such that the hooks are facing forward.

Wait around for the frantic swimming and then the tug tug tug.

[Christian]

you could also do well by casting somthing out that sticks out from the school. like a little yellow swimmer or popper.

[goosefish]

I think I've kept about five fish this year. Three of them had scup in them and the others had the usual---lobster, crab, and cunners. These fish right now, in the places that I fish, are on the grub, going from rock to rock looking for whatever. Scup love rocks but really love the smooth ground right next to them; cunners are right in the rocks. These are my observations while snorkling. I keep telling myself to stick to the game plan, fish the rocks and keep fishing the rocks and sooner or later something good will come. But the fishing hasn't been all that great for me.

Ramble induced by medication--off topic discourse. Scup good bait, some guys use twine through the nose, others go just in front of the dorsal, while still some lip hook them. All depends on current or drift speed. Long leaders and egg sinkers.

[ThrowingTimber]

Net some peanuts, hook 2-3 on each of the hooks on a sabiki attach 2 oz bucktail to the bottom cast to the outskirts of the school, hold on, Release/keep your choice, repeat..... Storms are good and zara spooks are essential... Try and check what type of bait fish they're on... Chum the live peanuts too, grab a handful, tenderize them not too much you still want the top water wiggles and then hold on.

[killerlexus]

any places near boston that i can catch scup from,north shore or south shore.

[Notaro]

No, KL. They aren't around the haba.


FWW, it is possible to employ that method from the shore? Provided that I would have to cast far?

[B-assman]

Thanks everybody - great responses as always.

Think I'm going to try getting some scup and livelining them! What size hook do you use for scup - pretty small mouths on those guys - right?

[codfeesh]

perhaps you was in the area where there was a worm hatch?

[Crafty Angler]

Goosefish (hey, GF, you any relation to Joe Monk? - going out to a favorite spot a coupla nites ago there was a pretty active bite going on - as I was switching spots with the tide I walked across the beach and saw several good sized scup washed up.

Mostly smaller bass though - and a bunch of blues, one was 15# but long and lean.

Those scup probably just died of fright - that nasty bugger was giving me the evil eye the whole time I was prying my hook outta his lip and trying to save the eel at the same time.