Ok, reviving a thread. Tired of seeing all the bush whacking, long skinny, flip-it back and forth rods with size 22 hooks wrapped with fuzzy things.
Bring on the big hooks and live bait stories.
Ok, reviving a thread. Tired of seeing all the bush whacking, long skinny, flip-it back and forth rods with size 22 hooks wrapped with fuzzy things.
Bring on the big hooks and live bait stories.
Some of these have been seen before.
My buddy with a big Brown caught in the Apostle Islands, biggest I've ever seen or heard of around here.
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From a few years back, Joe Deloia and I in Northern Ontario mid March. Joe was 90 at the time.
Joe is a world renowned dog trainer, breeder, and sportsman and was my mentor.
We used snowmobiles to get out on the ice. Bait was a Cisco. Line broke as her head came into the hole, and I reached down the hole and got a gill plate and hauled her on the ice. Joe said he thinks its the biggest he'd ever caught.
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I like ice fishing.
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Cant remember if we caught this one using live mackerel or chunks, but was a pretty decent sized striper
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52" musky on 16" sucker 6/0 treble hook quick strike rig. 225 hp on Ranger 621
Looks like we have a winner with the snake like toothy critter!!! Nice catch.
Ken
From Saturday morning. Mere with her first striper of the year. On the jetboat, slinging gizzard shad.
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Her very first striper when she was 12 or 13.
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TNKen, please post a pic of your jet boat as you have it set up.
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Boat is a custom built Edge Marine 23.5' plus swim deck. Has a 383 small block mated to a Hamilton 212 pump. Has a 9hp Yamaha 4-stroke kicker. 1/4 inch aluminum bottom. Closed cooling system with heaters in the console to warm hands. Trim tabs. I added a Minn-Kota Rip-Tide 101lb thrust trolling motor (36 volt w/ onboard charger) that has remote control, GPS navigation, etc. Boat drafts about 13" on float, and runs in about 6" of water at speed. When it was stripped before I added stuff, it would run about 51mph. Probably down to mid 40's with all the weight now.
Boat is set up as a guide boat with 4 seats up front, raised front deck. 6 rod holders on the side, one on the back, five off the T-top. I run a 30 gallon Creek Bait tank for live bait. Have a friend that has a 50 gallon Creek tank we put on the swim deck when we are holding bait fish for multiple days.
Has a Lowrance HDS 12 touch screen fish finder. GPS, sonar, structure side scan, downscan (this thing is the shits). Also a POS hummingbird on the back deck.
I carry about 12 rods, four big Avet SX/Shimano Teramar 7'6" MH rods for trolling, 2 Penn Battle 5000's, 2 Penn Battle 4000's, 3 Penn Battle 2000's for trout, a Shimano Calcutta 400b for casting big Redfins, etc, and a couple of other no name rods.
Usually use gizzard shad, threadfin shad or alewives for bait. Sometimes trout when we are trying to catch really big stripers that are up in the colder rivers. In the hot summer, the stripers run up into the cold dam released water to get out of 80 degree water.
Boat is probably overkill for what I use it around here, but it is big and comfortable. Guy told me last night he had never seen an ocean boat up in the river!!
Off Jacksonville out of the St. Johns River. Kingbuster Tournament, Sunday was kids day. Four adults and 6 kids on the Contender. We put all 6 on the board, 3 in the top 10. No smokers, but a lot of fun.
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From the weekend.
HDS12 lights up
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Mere hooks up
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Fish
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20lbs spring
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Big butts!!!
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Good eating!!
Bait was salmon scraps on big hooks at ~250' deep. Plenty of blood and slime on the 22' gas guzzler.
Great day on the water as we added some tanner crab to the mix as well.
neah bay treated us pretty well last week. pinks were pretty thick inside and my uncle brought in his biggest king to date- just under 40". brought home our limit on sea bass and a couple good ling to boot.
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Last week. I forget to take pics most days.
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Today. Big halibut was 48 next was 46. Attachment 139908
Back on stripers caught on 12" brown trout for bait. #6/0 Octopus hooks.
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Is that legal? Not that I care, just curious.Quote:
Originally Posted by TNKen
This is the White River system, no?
In Tennessee, anything caught legally can be used for bait. Last Friday, in a little less than 2 hours we caught about 45 or so browns from 8 to 15 inches. Kind of like being in a trout pond. Keep them in the baitwell, ice them couple of times a day, throw in an airstone and they will live for a couple of weeks. Limit is 7 per person. Fish in the 16-22" range are protected. Can only keep one fish over 22". Except to fish for stripers, I rarely keep any.
River system is the Holston in upper East Tennessee. Middle and South Fork of the Holston start in Southwest Virginia, dammed up into South Holston Lake, out of the dam the river runs into Boone Lake, then Patrick Henry, and down to Cherokee. We typically fish when Tennessee Valley Authority TVA is releasing water. On this particular day, we got lucky and ran upon some feeding fish on low water. Usually pretty tough to do.
Google Boone Lake, Bluff City, TN and you can see the river system in our area.
It's not like the Rockies. These tailwater fisheries are man made trout fisheries created for the benefit of sportsmen so different sensibilities apply. There's no precious "wild" trout to wring one's hands over. In TN, you have to pay extra for a trout stamp and that money goes towards dumping millions of stockers into the tailwater. Slot limits didn't even exist when I lived in TN and back then one could catch a few hundred dinks before finding a holdover fish longer than 16". Those hog rockfish they catch are a more worthy sport fish. A much tougher quarry than a trout and made much, much tougher if you don't use live bait. My family used dip nets and casting nets to collect gizzard and skipjack shad as my dad firmly believed those bright, oily fish made the superior bait. Then again, we're talking about a guy who distinguished between 3 different types of creek minnows, collected hellgramites and salamanders and would try to use only freshly molted "softshell" crawdads for his smallmouth fishing. He was serious about fishing so he was damn serious about bait.Quote:
Originally Posted by Underoos
Neckdeep, good analysis. Interestingly enough, the brown trout in this part of the Holston do reproduce naturally. They haven't put browns in the river in 8 years. They do dump in some small rainbow, that fatten up the browns!!!
Come back and we'll drag one in the tub.
Monday in the downpour. About 35ish.
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That's a fatty. I keep forgetting my phone on the boat when I go up to hang fish. Killed a 145 yesterday.
I wish I was coming to fish with you or deathvan in a few weeks, oh well I am expecting to have some pictures for this thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chugachjed
Double up from a few hour squeezed in yesterday afternoon. Fellow up for the NASCAR race from Georgina. We managed to boat 8 stripers in about an hour.
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Big hooks check.
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Live bait, not so much.
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Big motors, not really.
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Big fish, definitely.
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