Canal Observations by yours truly.....

[pmbrac]

I will say that ever since I stopped fishing live herring, I've been into more and bigger fish. I 've taken a couple 40#ers in the canal on plugs since last spring. When herring were legal, I spent most of my time chasing those things through the woods. Now I just fish. Lots of bait in the canal this year. Lots of good fish too. btw, I fished side by side with my buddy throwing skin jigs and I was jigging with black Ronz, and i outfished him 5 to 1. man I love the ronz. I bought 100 black ronz tails this winter and made my own jigs. very effective.

[Back Beach]

Originally Posted by pmbrac

I will say that ever since I stopped fishing live herring, I've been into more and bigger fish.

I agree. Wish the rubber stuff was around in the early 90's. Used to get 20,30,40 plus fish some days on herring with only a couple large mixed in. Now a good day might be 3,4,or 5 fish, but all good sized. Of course you still get some blitzes, but I feel there were bigger numbers of real large in the canal 10 plus years ago. Thing is though, I catch more of them now than back then without all the smalls to weed through.

[Swimmer]

I agree with every observation you've made here. The water temp especially during those tides were cool. I usually stand in the water without boots on during early evening and morning hours during the summer. One night, after fishing for three hours, I got out of the water, which I was in up to my knees and couldn't feel anything. Like many people here the canal is close and I have been doing my best to really learn how to fish it this year (see gas prices), and not just go to the canal to fish any old time. I have had some good mornings and some great mornings. I love plugging there, and learning new places to jig in the ditch. I would have been there this morning, but I cut quite a bit of cordwood yesterday, and my body screamed a loud no at 3:30 a.m. Now I am pissed because I can't cut wood in the rain. Too much of a chance on slipping on the log pile, but I could have fished. Cause the fish don't know its raining. I use to think the canal was extremely difficult to fish. Its not extremely difficult, but it is challenging. Those fogging morning, top-water, pencil popper smashes are exhilarating and worth the trip.

[Raven]

from way up there flap

you must have used binoculars to make those OB's

[capequahog]

I havn't tried this myself but I saw it when the macks were in heavy, snag one on light tackle, live line it back in on the big stick, HOLD ON