squeteague......

[Raven]

Originally Posted by Clammer

one of the underlying reasons I don,t eat seafood <><><

what? no brain food?



Clammer i can tell you need ZINC
it helps you think

SEE veggie thread in scuppers

[Clammer]

FISH IVT
trapper don,t know .he wasn,t a digger ;;

who burnt the harbor masters boat boat to the water level last summer ><><

[pbadad]

Adding to wader dad reply, 2005 was a year short lived of big Weaks. In a 3 day period Weakfish 5-13lbs were caught. Following tide cycle HI dusk all gone. Remember slamming big Weaks in 1981/1982? North Rip B.I. on 6 oz Crocidles.

[Pete_G]

All my catches in Narragansett Bay have been incidental over the years.

One at Gaspee Point from shore, one at Colt State Park from shore, one from Greene Island from shore, and two by boat near Prudence Island. All while fishing for blues or stripers.

Heard wild stories of a weakfish blitz somewhere in South County a few years back in the fall.

There are those who target them (B. Moeller as Clammer mentioned) and they do catch at least a few every year. Certain areas are known producers.

[piemma]

In regard to the commercial value:
It was in the Fall of 1989 and Larry Tremblay and I were fishing the Block. We went to dinner at Govenor something hotel and were sitting at the bar. Met a commercial dragger captain and got to talking about Bass, Bluefish and he brought up Squets. He said his nets were full of them the last few days about 12 miles SE of the Block. He was getting $4 a pound! He wasn't dragging speciafically for them but it was a by-catch on which he was making a ton of money.

[jmac]

were sitting at the bar

.....uhh, that sounds like "bar" talk from a BI dragger; back during the years you mentioned, we had a great buyer for our squetegue (he was up here from MD)....for top quality iced, rod/reel caught fish, our price was 85 cents/lb...which was considered a real good price. we were selling the fish in Galillee....take what the dragger said "with a grain of salt"....

[piemma]

Originally Posted by jmac

.....uhh, that sounds like "bar" talk from a BI dragger; back during the years you mentioned, we had a great buyer for our squetegue (he was up here from MD)....for top quality iced, rod/reel caught fish, our price was 85 cents/lb...which was considered a real good price. we were selling the fish in Galillee....take what the dragger said "with a grain of salt"....

Thanks Mac. You never know what to believe in a bar but he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Anyway, Larry and I "crushed" the bass that week. I think is was late Oct.

[Jim in CT]

The West Haven Sand Bar (West Haven, CT) had dependable spring runs starting around 1995 that lasted several years (I'd love to know why, because I grew up there, and the fishing was never anything special). It was the only place I knew where you could go there, target them, and catch them. As others said, awesome fish to eat fresh, doesn't freeze too well.

The West Haven runs have really tapered off lately...

[MakoMike]

The ASMFC technical committee has no idea what is responsible for the decline, and they admit it. The fish are successfully spawning but something is going wrong between the time they hatch and the time they mature, the young ones are just disappearing. They were a commercially valuable species, but now the ASMFC has effectively shut down the commercial fishery. The stock has always been cyclical as far back as records go. If I recall correctly its a 20-year cycle.

[Nebe]

lets blame the dogfish and seals.

[trapperpierre]

Clammer(correction "white perch=beverage")........not sure of name for Steve's brother(had to be as wacked as Steve to work there)......the "white perch connection. circa 1970's"......... for white perch(one time bonus of eye candy Meridith Viera)....RI Fish for green(beverage money)....compose oneself a bit....hit Senate Cafe for extended stay maybe if we don't croak..another boom of squets in our lifetime ...as for seals & commie birds(those ugly prehistoric remnants-destroyer of small fish with an oversize population) are part of the squets demise(winter flouder too)..........

[Clammer]

Booze

Portuguese Club / Manny Almedia,s / Corner Cafe, & Babe,s on wickenden street /all true fox point [bars]

[intrepid24]

as a kid I would vist family @ the outer banks,NC. one thing i remember seeing was guys setup w/ a small boat they would launch from the beach, and set out a reallllly long gillnet. later the pulled it in w/ trucks, and there were thousands of speckled trout in it, usually 18-24".......
the fish were sold commercially(not knocking com. fishing here !)
and i was just amazed at how many fish would fill the backs of pickups.......i don't know if they were the same exact fish, but i thought they were squet's.....this was a pretty common tradition,
and not unusual to see on a calm day in november.
that might have hurt a little bit over the decades.

[Clammer]

I-24

not the same fish ><><

[l.i.fish.in.vt]

two falls ago i was fishing a few spots on the south shore of LI,if you saw all the little weakfish that the blues and bass were eating you might have an idea were they went before maturing.i also grew up on the south shore of LI.in the early 60's you had to fish the peconics if you wanted to catch weakfish.by the early 70's the bay was fully of small 18 to 24 inch weakfish.by the late 70's there were no small weakfish for the most part but 8 to 15lbers were pretty common.sure the gillnetters caught alot but that doesn't explain why they didn't come back for years.the old timers always said when there were blowfish there weren't any weakfish,what ever happened to our beloved blowfish?

[afterhours]

Originally Posted by Clammer

Booze

Portuguese Club / Manny Almedia,s / Corner Cafe, & Babe,s on wickenden street /all true fox point [bars]

manny almedias ringside lounge - used to serve us when we we're 17 yo - they liked our $$$ and we liked their beer! we were known as the white kids from barrington...

[Clammer]

Don .

that,s after the original Manny Almedia,s // you would have never got served in the original / matter of fact / you would have never gone into the original ...


Jmac ...... JD Teddy saif it was a H/A

whatever happened to Bennie P.

[jmac]

Hey Trapper..remember dropoff at Buttonwoods? Yellow upperman..a fish every third cast..usually started April 10 or so...even before the schoolies; in the little whaler.....by the way, none of that Senate Cafe talk around here...

[Clammer]

WTF are you ;

3/8 yellow upperman drop off @ Bakers creek on the drop ><><

[trapperpierre]

......JMAC.........O.K. on the wagon......and stealth...hehehehe

[trapperpierre]

........can still see the "Trickster" group using yellow half ounce "Touts" off Nausauket and catch'n squets by the dozen.....#^&#^&#^&#^& S Bob S. &George S...............I even see a E.G. Oil truck......

[Clammer]

Did he get back in time ?

GS ..use to be out there when he was on call .................... you would see him go in & then back out ;

I guess helen must have passed by now /she was arching all over last time I saw her .

[bloocrab]

Last blowfish I caught was from the rocky shores of "Sequest Point" or at least that's how my father pronounced it way back when. That's when you could drive your car off the point if you had too much shine in ya.....and if memory serves me right, they'd make quite the racket after being kicked around the rocks too.......that's the price they'd pay for wasting $$$sandworms....they'd bounce pretty good too, not that I ever tried it.


btw....you guys are OLD.

[jmac]

Clammer/Trapper...

Remember GS in his little green boat with live pogies/50lb mono in tight at the corner of Norton's...amongst the sailboats.....many good times in there...we would be laffing our a$$ off at all the commotion with volkswagon sized boils everywhere....

...

[Clammer]

Jmac ;

when I see you / I,m going to run that Alcar [fisherman] over ;

you don,t return PM,s ;wtf we are the last of that group ......... ya got a couple of youngins in your crew Rays kid & Billy B. & they ain,t kids RJ bought a new truck . so that may keep him working a little longer / & a lot of wanna be, s in your wake ;;

thrifty crew / was george & his bunch . we would be jin erickson,s & they would buy 6 -10 hooks at a time .
One day George saw my truck at a yard sale .. the next time he saw me on the water / he stopped & told me to quit buying [his] sinkers .... I don,t think I ever got a sinker @ a y/s

[jmac]

Check your PM's..didn't realize U sent me 1

...I dont' run with nobody....I "associate";
...i liked the old days better.....if you get my drift.

George was one of of kind....if you think about it, they were all one of a kind....Goda, Roland, Tom D. (who recently passed), Ding and Dong brothers, your buddy Earl,,,we could go on and on....

[jmac]

Bennie P? he would be 100 by now.....

Manny Almeida's Fireside Lounge ...also his other one in Warwick-would watch Bruins/Espostito/Orr/Sanderson back then
Another Ulphostered Sewer-McGoverns(?) on the old Canal St...you wiped your feet when U left....

[Clammer]

Where did the Squeteague thread go ?????????????

[Zeal]

Believe it or not South Shore LI does get a short glimpse of weakfish/squeteague each year but it's never pronounced. I have caught them the past few years off of bucktails , shiners, and of course squid. But they only have been in the 15-20" range that I have seen. If anything, Florida's "Sea Trout" population probably is higher than the weakfish here now. I do see blowfish each year but they are tiny yet people have the nerve to keep them which i want to beat them for. But the only run-ins I have gotten in with weakfish are incidental except once, its usually when I am after snappers (yes, I snapper fish. they are good eating and are great bait as well which people use for livelining for fluke and weakfish do eat them like candy)! When ever there is a slight rumor of them around here I go and try to track them down, its like trying to catch bigfoot sadly. If I manage one I'll be sure to get a photo of it before I release it!

Oh and for cooking them my mother would grill them. Dear Lord they are delicious.

[Zeal]

Oh and the reason why they aren't really reported is because the one's caught are rarely keepers! Usually they barely miss the keeper mark for me but again, as long as there is a wiggle at the end of my line I am happy as a pig in poop! Summer usually is their cycle here, used to be Fall for the "Tide Runners". All of my weaks have been always caught in the summer (june-august typically because they are chasing down dredgers and the sand worms) off of docks, Surfcasting never. It's either by boat or by dock early morning or dusk as they have a short window of being active around those times if you run into them.

Glad I am not the only one who misses those gorgeous fish, people around here tease me about going for weakfish even though I usually am the one who does walk away with the experience of "yes, they are around!" Be honored that you guys are the only ones I have actually told this all to!

Btw, the bucktails that worked were white and red with squid for the tail instead of rind, pink bucktails with squid tipped also were really hot a few seasons ago, by boat live-lining snappers got some big ones but those were far and few, and sandworms. Funny though, a bobber with a stinking shiner at dusk or dawn always landed me one for a long time. Drove everyone nuts who couldnt do what I did and fascinated those who never knew what they were.

And yes, blues on top teague on bottom. But also teague behind! Bluefish panick eat and run hehe. But the only way I know they are still around is that with a bobber and hook setup for snapper, the bobber gets yanked underwater so hard it makes bubbles! From experience, the only fish that do that when snappers are around are in fact weakfish, just pray the hook on their is trusty enough to hook it! HINT: USE FLOUNDER OR SMALL BLACKFISH HOOKS FOR ANY CHANCE OF GETTING ONE WHILE GOING FOR ANYTHING ELSE.

If you guys ever get one surfcasting please tell me. I'll be sure to get a photo before releasing a weakfish to ease some of the nostalgia here

Oh and Sea Trout in Florida are literally half weakfish and half trout. They have the signature fangs to prove it!