Whatcha catchn’?

[WDH]

I see some blackened redfish in your future. 

[SawyerTed]

That redfish was an inch and a half over the upper slot limit size. He went back in the water to grow to be an old drum. 

[WDH]

Is the upper slot 27" or 28"?

[SawyerTed]

27"

[terrifictimbersllc]

Yesterday's afternoon catch, Mooselookmeguntic lake, ME

[JJ]

Nice fat salmon on bottom, how many inch?
Is that a splake in middle?
I have only caught few of those things through the ice. 

  JJ

[terrifictimbersllc]

17 inches. From the bottom, salmon, salmon, brook trout salmon. These are landlocked salmon.

Now you can see that the picnic table is made out of store size two by sixes. :D

[SawyerTed]

So Doc Emily has had a hard time catching sea trout.  She's been a little discouraged about fishing.  I can't have a pouting fishing lady.  So I made a plan.  

We caught 15 or 20 fiddler crabs today. I had to bait her hook because she won't put anything on s hook that goes "crunch!"  

I put Emily on the black drum this afternoon.  She hammered them!


 

[WDH]

Awesome!  Those will be tasty!  Those rascals get big, real big.  But, yours are perfect for dinner. 

[SawyerTed]

They get huge!   The NC Record Black Drum weighted 100 pounds 1 ounce!

[WV Sawmiller]

 

Okay, you guys drove me to it. Also I felt compelled tp stand up for the fishing rights of the little guys out there so I went out to the boathouse and changed out the #10 cricket hooks on several 10' fiberglass crappie poles with #8 and #6 long shank bream hooks. I even outfitted 2 new 13" telescoping fiberglass poles with 14 lb line, a #8 hook, bobber and a bb shot. I even checked out a couple of ultralight spinning outfits and put on jig spinners and greased my fly line and tied a new leader on. About that time my wife came out to check on me and I asked her if she was ready to go fishing. She decided that was a better than usual idea and went and got her camera and a sweat shirt while I took out my bag of frozen grasshoppers I brought back from Fla in May. I also took my cup of sawdust packed night crawlers I caught last night just in case. I guess I'd caught 15-20 of them. We threw some sodas and water in the cooler, loaded Sampson in my truck, hooked up the boat and stopped by a filled one 6 gallon tank with fresh gas. I guess we got to the local boat landing on Bluestone Lake about 4:30 p.m. The place was hopping with boaters, jet skis, swimmers, people fishing along the bank, kayakers, tubers, etc. Lots of pontoon boats and big bass boats creating lots of waves.

I ran across the lake and put a dead grasshopper on a couple of poles, gave one to my wife and I took one and started easing along the bank with my foot controlled electric motor on the bow. Our target species were hand sized bluegills. The big problem in this lake is getting the bait to them before their 2-3 inch cohorts grab it first. I got to a tree top and threaded my bait down and picked up 3-4 decent bluegills. You'd have to just hold steady pressure as the unwound themselves from the underwater limbs and eventually you could lift them out of the water. My wife caught a couple of throwbacks.  I decided to try some treetops down the lake so motored past some campsites accessible only by boat. The place I wanted was occupied by a pontoon boat so we went down the lake to about 1/2 mile above the big COE flood control dam forming the lake just below where the New and Bluestone Rivers merge and 1/4 mile above where the Greenbrier Rive enters the New River.

I was headed upstream along the high rock bank pitching grasshoppers and pieces of night crawler about 3' deep under overhanging trees and sunken treetops. We'd pick up a decent bluegill or other bream (Green sunfish, redbellies and something that looks like a shellcracker) once in a while. Suddenly my wife started screaming about the big one she had on. She was using one of the0 poles. The line was singing and she was yelling while the fish ran where it wanted. I figured she'd hooked a big carp and was not overly concerned. I grabbed the net and finally netted her 2 lb channel cat. They are strong fighters for their size and on a limber pole it was exciting. We caught several more keeper bream and lots of throwbacks. My daughter and her kids called on  a video call and we each caught a bream while they were watching. This was about the time we found a very productive treetop and the soda limit for Becky's bladder so we had to pack up and head back to the campground toilet and then boat landing. I guess we loaded up and left about 8:00 p.m. with plenty of daylight left to put everything away and start cleaning fish. Turns out we had the catfish and had kept 14 small to medium bream with the biggest maybe 12 oz.

Just about a gallon of cleaned bream and catfish fillets. This will make at least 2 good meals for the two of us. We'll likely eat half tomorrow and freeze the others for a later time.

It was a very good, laidback fishing trip.

[WDH]

Pole fishing is the most relaxing fishing for me. 

[Texas Ranger]

Yep, crappie on a cane pole dipping along side logs and in tops.  Fun with kids, and has been too long since I had that fun.

[WV Sawmiller]

  Yeah, this was pretty much the same way I fish for crappie. Ease along the bank pitching a piece of worm or grasshopper instead of a crappie minnow. Toss it under low limbs over the lake, find a sunken treetop and dunk the bait carefully between the limbs and try to pull it straight up to move it if not eaten in a minute or so.

   About as laid back as it gets. Even a small fish feels big on a limber fiberglass or cane pole. It is about the best way to start the fids fishing but be prepared to tie on lots of hooks and get a line out of the treetops every so often. My wife is not much better at it than the kids and my mom is as bad or worse but it is fun to see them get excited. My main function is to position the boat where they can reach a good spot to fish, to bait empty hooks and to remove any fish caught. Your own fishing has to be secondary to the kids, wife and mom.

[caveman]

WV, I was just thinking the other day that you have not posted any fish pictures lately.  I'm glad you were able to go.

[WV Sawmiller]

   We pretty much gorged ourselves on half the catch today and I froze the other half for another meal. My wife was very happy with her catfish. She is like a little kid eating the first fish he ever caught - it is always the best fish they ever ate. Since retiring she gets bored so outings like this are great stress relief and mental health treatments for her. The fact it was pretty much spur of the moment helped.

[firefighter ontheside]

My biggest fish this week was a 38" Muskie.  This is the biggest muskie I have caught.  I have never targeted them and caught this one trolling for whatever would bite on our first day in Canada last week.  It was right in front of the lodge we were staying at.

 

[WDH]

I am giving you a thumbs up, too!

[K-Guy]

Nothing.

Went fishing with my son yesterday and never had a bite but he's doing a lobster imitation day. I told him I had sun block in my truck and we could go back for it just after we got on the water but he said he was fine. Hopefully the lesson was learned. Unfortunately his skin is like his mom's, very white and easy to get a sun burn.

[firefighter ontheside]

My youngest burns so bad and so easy.  I made him wear long sleeves, pants, hat, hood, sunscreeen applied several times per day, but he still got burned on his chin and cheeks so bad that he blistered.  He looks dreadful now even though we' ve been off the water for 3 days.

[SawyerTed]

The student showed the teacher how it's done!

She caught and landed the 28" "gator" Speckled Trout by herself this morning!

I got out fished! :D :D :D

 

[JJ]

That is a nice catch!

       JJ

[WDH]

That is certainly the biggest speckled trout that I have ever seen!

[caveman]

Emily is getting it done.  I have enjoyed seeing your fishing pictures this summer.  This is the only summer in memory that I have not been able to fish.  We used to catch some monster sized trout on occasion while fishing for spawning snook in the passes along the west coast of Florida.  Fresh fried trout is tasty.

Back when JMoore and I were kids (15 and 16), we were fishing off of the Anna Maria City Pier one summer night when a tropical storm was out in the gulf.  The waves were coming up through the pier's boards and each wave was loaded with schools of sardines and they were being pursued by trout.  We were using spinning reels but there was no need to cast.  We just squeezed the trout after we would catch them and several freshly eaten sardines would squirt out of their mouths.  Those rods were covered with fish scales for years following that night. This was before bag limits on trout, and we caught trout until we started seeing the sun rise over Tampa Bay.  

When we turned around to look at our pile of fish, we were surprised to see how big of a pile we had amassed.  John, being 16 and having a driver's license, drove down to Cortez to get some ice while I started cleaning fish.  We caught 364 trout that night.  The oldster locals were accusing us of netting them.  We had fish packed in ice in garbage cans, coolers and whatever else we could find to transport them in the back of my '79 Ford.  John fell asleep at a traffic light in downtown Bradenton on our way home.  I deemed it safer for me to drive the 70 miles back home even though I did not have a license at the time.

[WDH]

Amazing trout experience.  I have had it happen once on Hatteras with bluefish chopping up the water.  The baitfish were jumping onto the beach. We caught hundreds in the 3 to 6 pound range casting metal spoons from the beach at Cape Point in the course of an afternoon.  The blues would drive the baitfish to the beach then the school would go back out only to return driving more baitfish into the beach.  Happened multiple times.