2022 Fishing Thread

[45collector]

I never get out on a boat these days. Strictly shore fishing for this guy. Pulled in my 2nd keeper of the season yesterday in Dennis. Raking sand eels then putting them on a hi low rig has always done pretty well for this area.

 

[Dennis in MA]

Terrible news. The striped bass commercial quota has been filled.

2022 Commercial Striped Bass Fishery is Closed

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Considering they catch such a small amount overall, it’s not a big deal. As evidenced in this thread, locals are still hammering them.

Wait for the summer limits in the Chesapeake next year and ease of finding keepers around here will go up exponentially. Gonna have to import herring and squid to feed them all.

 

[DW357]

Considering they catch such a small amount overall, it’s not a big deal. As evidenced in this thread, locals are still hammering them.

Wait for the summer limits in the Chesapeake next year and ease of finding keepers around here will go up exponentially. Gonna have to import herring and squid to feed them all.

Well now my buddy isn’t really going out anymore since he can’t sell them. He said he’ll fool around a bit but not put in 10 hour days like he was for commercial striper fishing. Now I won’t be going out

 

[Mountain]

Well now my buddy isn’t really going out anymore since he can’t sell them. He said he’ll fool around a bit but not put in 10 hour days like he was for commercial striper fishing. Now I won’t be going out

I'd love to go out this season. I would have liked to chartered your Dad but a buddy of mine who I would have split the cost with is not available. If anyone needs a random old jackass in the boat and wants someone to take a generous share of the fuel cost, I'm the guy.

I wouldn't mind kayaking either, but I think it would be best to either start with a guide or someone with patience to coach a newb. I have the freshwater kayak fishing tactics down just fine and don't go out with at least hooking something fun, but I wouldn't want to go to the trouble of heading to the coast only to flounder around in the salt. Wish I was closer to the coast.

 

[Dennis in MA]

I recall an old article in F&S about guys putting on wetsuits for buoyancy and driving out off of LI for stripers. Like a half mile off shore. At night.

My SIL went out of Newport a few weekends ago. A mike out on a kayak. The next weekend someone drowned. Hopefully that stopped him.

 

[Mesatchornug]

I'd love to go out this season. I would have liked to chartered your Dad but a buddy of mine who I would have split the cost with is not available. If anyone needs a random old jackass in the boat and wants someone to take a generous share of the fuel cost, I'm the guy.

I wouldn't mind kayaking either, but I think it would be best to either start with a guide or someone with patience to coach a newb. I have the freshwater kayak fishing tactics down just fine and don't go out with at least hooking something fun, but I wouldn't want to go to the trouble of heading to the coast only to flounder around in the salt. Wish I was closer to the coast.

I was thinking about trying to put together a trip with my dad...

 

[TLB]

Considering they catch such a small amount overall, it’s not a big deal. As evidenced in this thread, locals are still hammering them.

Wait for the summer limits in the Chesapeake next year and ease of finding keepers around here will go up exponentially. Gonna have to import herring and squid to feed them all.

I'm not well informed enough to say what should be done, but I'm hoping the fishery gets managed appropriately to protect it....I have some concerns.

 

[Dennis in MA]

So Saturday night was a once-in-5-year event.

1. It was summer
2. It was near the full moon
3. It was clear
4. It was calm
5. My SIL was NOT still in the Air Force.

So about 3am we went fishing. Damn it was cold. I actually wasn't cold until we quit around 5:30 just before dawn. At that point, I started to shiver. LOL. Bed never looked so goooood.

We caught 2 whole fish. (Which is 2 more than we did 5 years ago.) Two. We had such high hopes. We were in high percentage areas. We used high percentage baits. Two fish. Both good sized (4#) Larrys, but only 2. We thought for sure we'd nab several smallmouth. None materialized. Not even a bite.

It was JUST dark enough (the cold caused the lake to fog over) that you couldn't SEE your casts. It's amazing how accurate you get at casting when you can't see anything. Your release has to be perfect. So you just let your instincts take over. I had 3 separate rods with different weights and actions and within a cast I was putting them in the exact direction I wanted.

I was also pretty impressed with my knowledge of the lake. I struggle-bus a lot when the wind is up. I'm never sure if I'm in the right spot when you can't see the lily-pads to know where the grass edges are. In the dark I motored to the edge, turned and ran parallel to it for a good while (granted, this was due to the trolling motor and GPS) then made the turn to the inside edge, found the inside edge and ran that back. All with minimal visibility. Just taking rough estimates from people's night lights and such. LOL

The good news: Two trips - 5 or so hours of fishing - two fish. We will sleep in until 5 next time and hit them differently. Seems a wiser choice. I think overnight full moon is a good saltwater technique. We had zip luck with it.

 

[pupchow]

Been out a few times with the new Hobie & Garmin UHD 73, in search of yellow perch. I've set the fly gear aside for now and have been trying this drop-shotting stuff (Gulp 2.5" minnow). The Hobie pedal drive is perfect for this. Although I've yet to locate the deep water perch I'm after, I've picked up plenty of largemouth, smallmouth and sunfish. It took me a bit to dial in the Garmin, and I'm still figuring it out, but I'm finding fish in deeper water that I used to ignore. Today, I pulled a 2.5lb Larry from 30' down. This vertical fishing thing is pretty cool.

Recording Sonar Data with a Garmin Marine Device | Garmin Customer Support

Garmin Support Center is where you will find answers to frequently asked questions and resources to help with all of your Garmin products.

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Screen shot of the Garmin app playing some recorded sonar I captured while trying to sort it out.

 

[pupchow]

I still haven't located lunker perch, but... What are the odds of these fish on the bottom biting? This is in a freshwater reservoir, and I'm assuming they're rainbow trout. I was thinking of trying a lake trout method, dropping a downsized tube jig.

 

[Admin]

Get something down there. If they are trout they are probably at the bottom because the water temps are so high.

 

[Dennis in MA]

Damn. Deep for me is about 10' right now. LOL. There is a hole that's 40' or so deep. but it's pretty small. I should run the finder over it to see what I see.

 

[HorizontalHunter]

I still haven't located lunker perch, but... What are the odds of these fish on the bottom biting? This is in a freshwater reservoir, and I'm assuming they're rainbow trout. I was thinking of trying a lake trout method, dropping a downsized tube jig.

View attachment 653137

I would probably drop a live shiner down on them.

 

[RDG]

My lab Emmit turns 6 today.
He wanted to chase some birds to celebrate but we’ve got a couple weeks to wait before we can do that.
So we compromised on some fly fishing and swimming.
Funny enough some ducks decided to swim near us so he got to chase those.

Nice rainbow on a bead head prince nymph. Pics don't do it justice...Was a nice sized fish. Really just wanted to get it back in the water quickly.


Mr. Emmit hanging out and swimming. It amazes me how he'll just sit next to me in the river and hang watching me fish.

 

[Mountain]

My lab Emmit turns 6 today.
He wanted to chase some birds to celebrate but we’ve got a couple weeks to wait before we can do that.
So we compromised on some fly fishing and swimming.
Funny enough some ducks decided to swim near us so he got to chase those.

Nice rainbow on a bead head prince nymph. Pics don't do it justice...Was a nice sized fish. Really just wanted to get it back in the water quickly.


Mr. Emmit hanging out and swimming. It amazes me how he'll just sit next to me in the river and hang watching me fish.

Beautiful fish. Deerfield?

 

[RDG]

Beautiful fish. Deerfield?

Westfield

 

[tuna]

The bite is really on this week. My son and I have been hitting the places between places that are a little work to get to. Last night in two hours we caught 8 nice sized trout, and brought home 5 for tonight's supper. He's really getting the idea of getting away from the easy places and getting where no one else is. T-shirts, bathing suits and old sneakers with a couple Thomas Bouyant lures and we're all set.
No pics, I "forgot" my phone when I left the house.

 

[Dip Dungles]

Might not be as extravagant as some of the fish you guys have caught, but here’s what mini Dip caught this past weekend. Check out what kind of pole he used. I’m surprised the line didn’t snap.

Older brother wasn’t to happy that he didn’t catch it. Still a hell of a first fishing trip for my youngest.

 

[Dennis in MA]

We hit the lake at sunrise yesterday AM. Fished for about 2 hours. We caught 8 healthy bass - all but one sallies and lost two. OK, I caught three and my Son in Law caught 5, had a HUGE Larry break off and then lose a good sized sally on the way back to the boat. It was a fun two hours.

I'll say this, I've really struggled maneuvering the pontoon. Trolling motor in on a hand-held on a lanyard around my neck. What a pain when trying to move around from A to B. With a foot-pedal, you can have your upper body on fishing and lower body on boat-movement. Not so with a hand-held. You're constantly adjusting things by taking a hand off of the rod.

But there's 2 settings that are great. First is the spot-lock, obviously. We hit a spot where there seemed to be sallies around. Spotlocked and stayed there and fished until we were sure it wasn't a whole school district of them. (It wasn't.)

But the even better one is the Auto Pilot. I get a rough heading by sighting on the motor and hit the AutoPilot button. It'll maintain that heading at all costs. I need to control for speed depending on conditions, but it will move in that direction. Far easier than monkeying with a trolling motor while trying to run a grass line. Which is exactly what we were doing. I've got a few waypoints in the electronics. But running this certain grass line I can just motor out to the where I know the end of it is, turn, point the trolling motor at a specific house in the distance and BAM. I can just fish. If we are on a good fish and I don't want it getting caught up in the spinning propeller, one button shuts off the prop while maintaining the coordinates to restart once the fish is aboard.

Only a few more weeks left in the season. I'd extend it as long as possible, but the kids are closing on a house on Oct 7 so I'm assuming all hands will be on deck for a few weeks cleaning and painting and remodeling.

 

[pupchow]

Previously, I'd loaded this CC Redfin with 0.912 ounces of water (by weight). Casting distance was enhanced but the lure's flight was inconsistent. As was its action. I dumped the water out, and am now repurposeing the payload of an ancient Winchester shell as ballast.

 

[pj150]

Might not be as extravagant as some of the fish you guys have caught, but here’s what mini Dip caught this past weekend. Check out what kind of pole he used. I’m surprised the line didn’t snap.

Older brother wasn’t to happy that he didn’t catch it. Still a hell of a first fishing trip for my youngest.

That is a huge bait!

 

[Dennis in MA]

It was a calm day. Convinced my son Tom one out for an hour. Missed a huge Larry. He bagged this. His first fish of the year.

 

[weatherby]

Westfield

Me and you are pretty close by the sound.
My dog accompanies me fishing also.

My son loves eating fish so I keep some.
This was the ugliest rainbow I think I've ever caught.

 

[Mountain]

Me and you are pretty close by the sound.
My dog accompanies me fishing also.

My son loves eating fish so I keep some.
This was the ugliest rainbow I think I've ever caught.


View attachment 657823

It has that "FML" look to it. Would make a funny meme. I bet it looks pretty good after it's been in the pan or grill...

 

[Dennis in MA]

Another Sat with the boy. Nailed another decent Sally. I caught a fat FAT Pik. Ick. Found out why I missed the Larry last week. I missed 4 more the next am - my drag was set to next-to-nothing. d’OH!

 

[Sauer Grapes]

My lab Emmit turns 6 today.
He wanted to chase some birds to celebrate but we’ve got a couple weeks to wait before we can do that.
So we compromised on some fly fishing and swimming.
Funny enough some ducks decided to swim near us so he got to chase those.

Nice rainbow on a bead head prince nymph. Pics don't do it justice...Was a nice sized fish. Really just wanted to get it back in the water quickly.


Mr. Emmit hanging out and swimming. It amazes me how he'll just sit next to me in the river and hang watching me fish.

Reminds me of my girl Gracie, RIP 05.11.22 14+ years

 

[tuna]

Great weekend with my son! Saturday we got into a bunch of nice rainbows - lost the pill box I had my lures in when it floated out of my shorts. We not only found it downstream (high fast water, it got hung in a log) we also found the right trail to get in and out of the water instead of bushwhacking like I've been doing.

Sunday we hit the Magalloway looking for hornpout - didn't find any, but my son got both a large and smallmouth bass, and we got some 7 - 9 inch perch. Last spot we hit we got a bunch of 10 inch dace! Can't remember getting perch and dace that size in a long time. Just a fun day with the boy.

 

[RDG]

State Stocking website doesn’t indicate they stocked the Westfield yet so I’m going to guess this is just a nice holdover from the spring.
Water flow was better and colder.
Pup tagged along to get some swimming in.
Got him on a Frenchie looking fly.

 

[Dennis in MA]

What did you catch the huge brown furry one on?


We pulled the boat last Saturday. Glad I did. Supposed to rain all this weekend. Following weekend sorta cold. It's not a fun time of year when you have to go in mid-thigh to get the boat out. Sometimes for a while. (North side of the lake - so it's great for beaching. Sucks for pulling a boat out - it goes from 0 to about 2' in 10' and then stays at 2' for the next 60 feet or so. You can't get any depth on the trailer so you end up digging the wheels in and hope the truck can pull it all out.)

Sad that I didn't get fishing one more time. But fall fishing for me is hit or miss. Between increased rain and increased wind, it's hard to find time to get out.

 

[flippinfleck]

Reeled in this monster today. Son wanted to get out of the house and I figured fresh air would do us both some good.