The fishing thread

In reply to Apis_Mellifera:

You came down here for a very rainy week. Hope you managed to still get some decent beach time.

T.J. wrote: In reply to Brett_Murphy: I have a couple fishing poles, some hooks and assorted tackle. Just no time to sit around and wait for a fish to bite.

I'm still jealous.

<img src="" /> The catch of the day last week. I think that the loons had scared the fish away.

<img src="" /> 4 of these devils surrounded us for about an hour. They approached within 50 feet. They would hunt by swimming on the surface with their head under water. They appeared to be mom, dad and 2 youngsters. They were interesting, fearless and noisy birds.

I'm by no means a fisherman, but I bought my house with an abundantly stocked pond. Here's today's big catch - 41" and about 28 lbs. Caught with a live crappy that was caught with a worm earlier in the day.

That is big for a pond!

In reply to cdowd:

The pond has some real monsters in it. Two 40+ lb channel cats were pulled out last summer and I catch something in the 20lb range every day I put a line in the water. The previous owner of the house really worked to have a healthy system and stocked some huge fish.

I spent the week at the beach. The fishing was slow, most people were reporting getting skunked, but I still got a couple worth photographing.

The trout was taken from a kayak on a jig on the rising tide. It was 19" and fat. Sea trout are delicious with lemon, butter and dill.

The blue was taken on live bait in the surf on a falling tide. It was bigger than my foot, that's about all I can say, since I forgot my measuring board at the house. A black tip shark ate the blue in the foam when I put it back into the water. I suspect it followed it in when I was fighting it and hung around. It then swam off at speed in between some teenagers that were wading in the surf. They never saw it. As a bonus, there were plenty of big shrimp in the canal that couldn't avoid the cast net. Shrimp are delicious in lemon and garlic.

That is a nice sea trout

nice work, Brett. I got skunked on anything worthwhile last week. fished every day for various lengths of time in the wrightsville beach area. tried surf, kayak, from the dock on the inlet where we had the house rented and a 3/4 day fishing charter. did land a few rays that were fun on the line at least. I'll try to get a picture up of one of them. was pretty easy to catch bait from the dock with my cast net. lots of finger mullet running and a few spots. I spent a few hours on the mercer peir that were at least exciting from other people's catches. they included a 52" 26lb "barracuda", a 30" diameter shell sea turtle (cut him off pretty quick), and most entertainingly an about 5' long black tip shark that they pulled into the beach to get the line cut off. the tourists loved that one! I got a good video if I can ever figure out how to share it.

In reply to Brett_Murphy:

Do you eat the blues? I've heard conflicting stories of how good/bad they taste. When we were drilling for the Bonner Bridge, we caught at least 100 blues one night.

ScreaminE,

I can't answer for Brett but I like eating Blue fish. They have a reputation of being "fishy" tasting or strong. I like filleting them then putting them skin side down over a hot wood or charcoal fire. Peel them off the grill, leaving the skin behind. Serve with a little vinegar (cider or wine) and dust them with black pepper.

Bluefish are fatty. Any bluefish that is not immediately gilled, gutted and put on ice is going to taste awful. I mean immediately, too. The fish should still be kicking when it goes on the ice, even without its gills and guts.

Small blues (up to about that size, what I've always heard called "Cocktail size") are not terribly strong but they do have a flavor and require cooking methods to support that. Pilotbraden's method will work, teriyaki sauce works on them and I find ginger/light garlic also works.

Sunday on the Shiawassee river near Byron Michigan. The river was extremely high but we caught a few small smallmouth bass.

I recently returned from a fishing trip up in Minocqua WI. While I only caught a few nice smallmouth bass---my buddy Mike (who gets up at dawn and pounds the water) brought in this nice Musky on a spinnerbait. 43" I believe. Hard work pays off!

In reply to Joe Gearin:

Nice fish.

I need to get my boat water worthy

That really is a nice musky.

Sunday morning I went fishing in the Trenton channel of the Detroit river. We got to the launching ramp at 530 am, there were about 60 boats ahead of us. The line moved fast and we were on the water just after 6 am. We drifted with the current while jigging vertically in 8'-12' of water. The water is 41 degrees. The jigs are 3/4 oz. with a 4" black rubber worm and a 3"-4" shiner minnow. We caught 3 nice fish, the largest being the 27" male that I am holding. We saw many boats of all varieties and many fish being landed.

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Total catch

My fishing buddy Mark had good luck this past weekend. Yes.....fishing can be pretty intense down here in FL.

That channel looks to be small enough that kayaking bait out wouldn't be necessary.

I'm in a Catch-Photo-Release tournament with my local kayaking club this year. The format is that each month has a target species of fish, with the largest overall length winning and other prizes being awarded for lesser fish. Unfortunately, life has been keeping me off of the water in my kayak.

I've been doing some ad-hoc bank fishing for 15 minutes at a time when I am able, and I've caught four fish that would have scored points if I was in my kayak, but I wasn't, so they didn't.

I went out one time during the first month (crappie) and didn't catch anything. I missed largemouth bass month completely. Yesterday I went out after my rallycross and managed to at least get two fish scored and on the board, even if they were small.