Holliday's World Famous Fishing Thread - 2023 Version

[oldslowandugly]

 

[The Best Holliday]

Got back out to my favorite walk-in LMB lake and everything went well with the re-rigging.
. 12 hits, 12 hookups, 12 landed.
A lovely day of showers and not too distant thunder.
7 on Slug-Gos, then switched to my worm rig - Creme and Mann's 6", Texas rigged with Lazer Auto .45 and a nail wt. First of the 5 I caught on that set-up was on the favorite color of my yute - blue (Mann's), the others on purple Creme.

Meaning to ask you @oldslowandugly what you might have concluded regarding your hook choices if you made the comparison.

Keep thinking about them crabs me and my bro used to catch.
Too far to go though.

 

[oldslowandugly]

A lovely day of showers and not too distant thunder.

I feel crappy weather makes for better fishing. The biggest Fluke I ever caught [ 8 lbs ] was on a drizzly day with a thunderstorm off in the distance. No boats, just big fish out that day.

I have had little luck with the hooks I tried. I can't seem to find the right conditions to use them. The weighted ones snag too much stuff on the bottom. I fall back on the wide gap Kahle hooks. They get the fish in the side of the mouth most of the time.

The Bluefish are back from spawning early this year. Normally they are gone in August but this year there were gone in July. Heat? Even the babies [snappers] will tear your baits to pieces.

 

[The Best Holliday]

I feel crappy weather makes for better fishing.

Well today was a bright sunny day, and I had a bit of a longish hike to the river spot I wanted to fish.
Long short, landed 33 Smallies, lost 8 - none of any consequence sizewise. 3.5 hrs between 12 and 3:30 in the afternoon.
...but, I had caught about half the total number and decided to give topwater a go.
Was about to tie on a Pop-R then thought, why do I have this Dalton Special in here and never use it, so on it went. I was also thinking I wanted to give any larger fish something appealing - even though it was a river Smallie sized lure. 3rd cast I get a big hit and this fish starts peeling line in a dash for the middle of the river. 10 seconds, no jump - I don't think it's a Smallie. What could it be?...a Striper? it never breaks the surface and keeps taking line.
I work her in easy on my 6lb line and 6'6" medium action spinning gear. Shernuff - a nice Striper. I don't know - 5 lbs? I had one hook in this fish and it was bent out 90 degrees. I have no idea how it stayed on.
I unhook it which was easy, it falls into the water at my feet and lingers there like "duh fuck was that? Mom never said dis shit". Then swims gently away. I see one of these a year.

Nice day.

 

[oldslowandugly]

A 5lb Striper on 6lb line? Wowsers! Yeah, they put their head down and just pull. A beautiful fish to be sure.

You have Stripers that far upriver? Amazing. Then again, my cousin in Pittsburgh says he sees them in the Ohio River. That means they came up the Mississippi? Or maybe some big lake that was stocked with Stripers and they got past a spillway?There are many big fresh water lakes stocked with Stripers all across the country. They are anadromous fish, able to live in both fresh and salt water.

I read a story about when they transplanted Stripers from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast. They used rail cars with water tanks. It seems that when the train crossed the Mississippi, they tossed some fish into the river- 'for good luck'. Could they have survived and prospered? The fish that made it to California did, and there are Stripers from central Cali to Oregon. The Golden Gate Bridge is a big Striper hot spot.

 

[The Best Holliday]

Striper

. Yes, they are an impressive fish. I've only caught 3 of that size, all in the river and each time the hooks were mangled.
. There are two thoughts on why we are seeing them 200 miles up river, and well passed spawn also.
All that I have caught have been in large eddies, the earliest in June or early July. People have been catching them more regularly and the thought is they are coming further up river do to warming climate. These of course are not the giants like 30 lbs but consistently in that 5-6 to 8 lb range. They can linger in the eddies before returning to the ocean I suppose. I also caught a 1 pounder though - I don't think that one was migrating.
. Another thought is that some have made their way down through the reservoir system where Wipers had been stocked, but two points on that. One is that they were stocked decades ago and the idea that somehow they have only recently made their way through seems far fetched, and 2 - from my personal catches they are not the deeper bodied fish with broken horizontal stripes that would suggest hybrids. So - I think these are Stripers coming up river.
..and yeah, they are raw power like a big fullback. Dig and pull as you say. No horsing them on light gear, they put up a fierce fight but without the dynamics of a Smallie, just steady power so in that sense it's easier to play being patient.
. I'd like to target them in the lower Delaware or Hudson one day.

 

[oldslowandugly]

I'd like to target them in the lower Delaware or Hudson one day

I know of guys who catch Stripers right in front of the Statue of Liberty. In the fall, they migrate up the Hudson, and spend time in lower NY harbor. They have done a good job of taking shitty old waterfront and making public parks right on the water. Stripers, Fluke, Blackfish, Bluefish, all kinds of fish in NYC waters. The water is MUCH cleaner then when I was a kid. Hell, every once in a while a Dolphin or Whale wanders in.

Today we targeted Fluke, used a throw net to grab a bunch of baby Bunkers for bait. We got zilch, then started chasing the birds. BIG splashes on top in the shallows had us casting our arms off. We thought Blues. Not a single strike. My grandson started Fluking again, and caught a bunch of shorties in 3-4 feet of water. I kept casting, and caught several Fluke- on the Bluefish jig! WTF?!? I have seen this before. Surf casting- birds crashing the wash- and it was FLUKE that had the bait trapped in the wash. It was the FLUKE crashing the bait on top. True predators.

 

[oldslowandugly]

I went down to the dock to check out a used fish finder I got on Fleabay. It is the same model I use that is hard to find nowadays. It worked, better than mine, so I got lucky grabbing it. I went drifting for Fluke, got one nice one, then as it got dark I headed back in.
I spotted some baby bunker splashing around a weedy island near the docks. I used my heavy duty Bluefish rod to toss a jig and almost immediately got a huge wind knot that was way too complicated to mess with. That left me with the light weight spinning rod I was Fluking with. There was a big school of baby Bunker splashing nervously by the weeds and I saw several big boils that indicated predators attacking from below. I tied on a Knucklehead popper to get their attention. BANG! A big Bluefish grabbed it. The rod was barely able to handle this fish. Too big to swing aboard and I had a hard time trying to net it by myself. I finally got it into the boat but the treble hooks were all twisted up in the net. By the time I got it untangled the fish were popping up all over. I nailed one more Blue and I was able to swing it in without the net. Then it got totally dark and the action stopped. I left with the two big Blues and one fat Fluke. Dinner!

 

[oldslowandugly]

I went back out early today with my Grandson before the Labor Day nuts had a chance to ruin things. We netted some baby Bunker off the docks so we had plenty of bait. Hit the flats and were getting small Fluke on the Bunkers. Very little boat traffic and they were all out fishing too. We tried everywhere from the inlet to the flats- no keepers. So at high tide we went back in to a small lagoon where I knew the baby Bunker were leaping nervously. About a half hour after the tide started to move out- some big splashes. He was using a two ounce spoon [looks exactly like a baby bunker] and I was using the Knucklehead popper. A Bluefish hit mine and did not get hooked. Rats. I kept casting and another Bluefish made a swipe and missed it. I stopped the lure and the fish hit it again and got hooked. A very nice fat Bluefish and I swung him aboard. That was all. Tons of baitfish popping about- nothing chasing them. Now, was it only two Bluefish that were there chasing the bait? Or was it just one fish, that hit me and missed, came back and hit me again, and missed, and then hit me a third time and got hooked? Because after that fish was boated- nada. Hmmmmm. As we left, the asshat navy showed up, flying around like drunk idiots, and I was glad we got out early. As we left the wind picked up, and got chilly, and the day went downhill fast. We went home and had a Bluefish dinner.

 

[The Best Holliday]

I went back out early today with my Grandson before the Labor Day nuts had a chance to ruin things. We netted some baby Bunker off the docks so we had plenty of bait. Hit the flats and were getting small Fluke on the Bunkers. Very little boat traffic and they were all out fishing too. We tried everywhere from the inlet to the flats- no keepers. So at high tide we went back in to a small lagoon where I knew the baby Bunker were leaping nervously. About a half hour after the tide started to move out- some big splashes. He was using a two ounce spoon [looks exactly like a baby bunker] and I was using the Knucklehead popper. A Bluefish hit mine and did not get hooked. Rats. I kept casting and another Bluefish made a swipe and missed it. I stopped the lure and the fish hit it again and got hooked. A very nice fat Bluefish and I swung him aboard. That was all. Tons of baitfish popping about- nothing chasing them. Now, was it only two Bluefish that were there chasing the bait? Or was it just one fish, that hit me and missed, came back and hit me again, and missed, and then hit me a third time and got hooked? Because after that fish was boated- nada. Hmmmmm. As we left, the asshat navy showed up, flying around like drunk idiots, and I was glad we got out early. As we left the wind picked up, and got chilly, and the day went downhill fast. We went home and had a Bluefish dinner.

You've put me on a quest to find fresh Bluefish, which I love but haven't had since the late 90s.
. The last time was at a place in Ocean Grove, NJ (a very interesting town in itself) on the edge of Asbury right there on the water, which I read burned down not long ago. Long way to go these days. It's never in the local grocery stores.
. Last w/e, this being the last before school starts, I never saw so many rafts, canoes and kayaks on the river. Like huge armadas - one of Hasidic kids took 30 minutes to pass. I have just picked up a couple of Bass on my first 3 casts into the area when they reached me. Nothing after that, but it's the young men and women (boys and girls really) who are the worst...always screaming and shouting, like it was a contest by the boys to bellow the loudest and by the girls to be in most distress and in need of rescue. Anyway, I will forgo fishing this w/e and watch some football. It's been a bit slow lately anyway. Should pick up shortly. Thinking of taking a trip up to the big reservoirs around mid September for the first time this year. Water's a little lower this year which has always signaled better catch rates. Kids gone...river mine.

 

[oldslowandugly]

Kids gone...river mine.

That is my plan. Wait until they are back in school and then get serious. By me, a chilly drizzly day is the best. Zero boats, maximum fish. Sept thru Oct right into Nov is my time. The biggest Bass I ever caught was in December. We went twice in three days, skipped the second day because it was blowing below freezing. Three bass over the two days, biggest 41". This was at Charles Park on Jamaica Bay behind Kennedy Airport. At night. Cold, but productive. Strange event- a couple of adult Bunker had gotten their gills caught on my buddy's line. He pulled them in, we cut them up, sent the chunks out, and the Bass inhaled them. We lost one rig because a huge Bluefish ate the entire rig, hook, line, and sinker. In DECEMBER!