Weakfish!
Just got back from shooting Episode VIII of the Brownie Troop Fishing Show. We had some great action today out on the water and last night from the surf.
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2008 Trash Fish Derby--Final Results
Well, it was a fun ride, I have to admit. The Inaugural Brownie Troop Trash Fish Derby is now over. We had a grand total of about 90 anglers and I now have hundreds of pictures of Catfish, Sunnies, and Carp all over my computer. The great thing about fishing is that you learn something new every time you fish, even for shit fish. Personally, I caught a lot of beauties along the way, for example I learned that Striped Bass love chicken livers! Who woulda thunk it. Anyway, here we go:
Dave Hughs won the panfish category with this nice 12.5 inch Crappie. We had a submission last night after the deadline which we had to disqualify, but this a a hell of a nice Crappie. Congrats Dave.
This 29.5 inch Channel Catfish won category B. There was a lot of early chatter about 100 pound flatheads but we never saw any entries like that. I caught a lot of channel Cats during the derby so I can appreciate how nice this fish is. I maxed out at 26 inches and my fish was a monster. This was a hotly contested category. Congratulations to Jeff Spear for this fish which is the largest overall. Your Zebco rod and reel are on their way.
Doug Avery wins the Carp category with this 28 inch brute. I learned that these fish are finicky--there will be dozens sitting right in front of you and you can drop the bait right in front of their noses and they won't hit, at least not for a long time. Nice job Doug.
This was a lot of fun. I'm going to open up the Ning site as an online community for this site, complete with permanent threads to post pictures of fish. I really want to hear your feedback on how we can conduct future derbies, I'd like to up the ante next time and qualify proper gamefish, like smallmouth and largemouth. Any comments are welcome. thanks,
Mickey
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A good fish tale
I normally don't post my own fishing stories but last night I experienced something so cool that I'm still buzzing about it today. There were no pictures taken so I had to draw the one above to help recreate the moment.
We went offshore yesterday to go Tuna fishing, unfortunately the Tuna didn't show up. We got skunked, every boat out there got skunked actually, no fish around anywhere. We did have a good time though and we drank an assload of booze. We continued when we got back to the dock. I didn't want to drive in such shape so I called home and told my wife I was staying an extra night. Nick and I then went and bought 2 dozen clams and decided that we were gonna go surfcasting, this is after being awake since 5am in the sun, on a boat in the middle of the sea, drinking all day right? So we head down to the beach with our clams and our rods and sand spikes and we set up shop.
This guy comes walking down the beach with a Doberman puppy and we start playing with the dog, two drunken assholes. After a few minutes the dog and his owner move on and I realize that something is not right, my rod and reel are gone and the sand spike is laying on the ground.
While we were playing with the puppy a huge fish had attacked my bait and pulled the rod and the reel out of the sand spike and dragged it into the sea. There was a huge trench where the rod and reel had been dragged. We started cracking up, because hey, that's some pretty funny shit right? We take the two remaining rods and we start casting, hoping that we'll get lucky and snag the line. After a bunch of tosses Nick says "I think I got it" and I see my rod tip come out of the water about 35 yards out. Nick had crossed my line. So in the water I go, fully clothed, out into the breakers on an incoming tide at sunset, completely wasted. I get the rod and Nick is laughing his ass off at me. The reel is completely seized, packed with sand, it won't even hardly turn. I grab the spool and I turn it manually, the sound of the sand grinding is painful for me to hear. This reel is my go-to reel, A Shimano Baitrunner 4500, the best all around reel in the world in my opinion.
I get it to crank a few times and then I feel him, the fucking fish is still on the line. I had never even considered the possibility of the fish still being there. I start cranking and out he comes, a beautiful Striped Bass in the 31 inch range. Nick and I were losing it, completely, like a bunch of little girls on x-mas morning, screaming, cheerin, high-fiving, all that stuff. After quick deliberation I decide that this fish has to be released, having survived that whole ordeal. Pretty wild shit.
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72 hours of fishing-9/30/08-10/2/08---4 towns on the Jersey Shore
I just got home from a Fall Surfcasting Marathon. I was supposed to do this last week for my birthday but it rained all week so I did it from Tuesday til tonight this week. On the first cast I caught a monster Bluefish. When I wear my “mad bomber” hat I always catch fish.
My first Striped Bass of the Fall. I put in the wrong picture, this is Nick. I caught this on my new new 11 foot Shimano Tiralejo surf rod with Penn 525 mag conventional reel. We caught 5 stripers on Tuesday, two keepers. I also caught this nice fat ass Fluke which you can't keep this time of year. What a bunch of crap that is. This fish put me one Weakfish away from the Surfcasting Grand Slam.
To top off our trip Nick and I went out to his secret spot for Blackfish, Tautog. We caught a million of them.
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EXCELLENT SMALLMOUTH FISHING ON THE BIG D.
i've gotten completely reacquainted with my home stretch of river this past year and have had a great time with the smallmouth bass. the past few weeks have brought about some change here, the fish have gotten significantly bigger, to the point where i can't resist spending a few hours every day out there on my boat.
it's like someone threw a switch. instead of the normal 1-2 lbers, we've had them consistently pushing 3-5 lbs, which is a great size for around here. i'm talking about the whole deal, the thing that makes smallie fishing so popular--rod tip in the water, fish swimming under and around the boat, lots of aerial acrobatics, all that good stuff.
i fish ultra-light tackle and i have been almost exclusively fishing with gary yamamoto senko worms in whatever color pattern the bass seem to want. today i got into some nice smallies very quickly so i called a buddy to meet me. i picked him up on the riverbank and we proceeded to give 'em hell.
after awhile we stopped taking pictures because all the fish were photo-worthy. soon most of my time will be spent hunting stripers in the ocean, but for now i'm getting the most out of my home town of new hope, pa and the mighty delaware river. if you live anywhere near the delaware and love to fish, now is as good of a time as any.
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