surfers who fish.

Been catching the schoolies here in the MD

 

Historically , some of my best night fishing has been Nov and Dec , this yr has been one of small fish only

 

Been fishin' more than surfin' lately. Getting old and really lazy, I guess.
Plush catching a fish ... ...gets me lunch...

 

Nice catch, nice gaffe job and looks like a real nice boat! I am jealous.

 

Agreed with the above! I have been fishing a lot too... but all I got is an old pair of wadders, no boat! Lol nice fish. I could really go for eating that now!

Also, love the bob the garbage man video lol very funny

Some small small bass around right now, all on the ava or my small boone needle fish plug has been fun on my fresh water rod

 

Funny story.

I go out yesterday to take my 91 y/o father out to fish, who taught me how to fish, but hasn't been out in a few years because he's...well...91.

One hour out, we get a double strike - one on my side of the boat, one on his. Perfect. I bring in mine, while my wife helps him with his.

Two dolphin (mahi, dorado, whatever you like to call 'em), one bull - 32 inches, one cow - 24 inches.

Get to the dock. Hand my dad the smaller one, go to give him the other one - for a pic, you know. Bull slips out of his grip right into the gap between the boat and the dock. I jump in the water and spend half an hour trying to find the darn thing, but between the silt and the current can't see a thing. Couldn't even see the rudders and props until I was 6 inches away.

How's that for the one that got away? Dad says in 85 years of fishing (he started when he was 6, I guess) that has never happened to him.

That smaller one fed four of us that afternoon, and it was fun regardless, but I'm sure as time passes it will actually become a funny story.

 

You had me at, "took my 91 year old dad fishing."

 

Excellent post my friend.. Well written amigo

 

Hoping for good viz today... although the odds are not in my favor. Been driving around with my gear stinking up my truck for the past 3 days.

 

Dredging up this thread due to prolonged ocean flatness. Who's fishing this time of year? Any advise for a small-boat salt-water fisherman?

I have caught my fair share of fish in my life, growing on the Chesapeake Bay, and I know my way around fishing gear. Up there I could drop a lure off the dock, drag it around for a bit, and land a meal-sized white perch or even a striper. That said, I'm kind of overwhelmed by my options down here in NC. Obviously I have the ocean, but I only venture out there when it's calm. So i'm really looking at fishing the salt marshes and tidal creeks, maybe even the Cape Fear River.

What do ya say?

 

There are still some bass around in the surf here in NJ. Tog have moved off to deeper water.

 

I used to live in Raleigh and fished Falls Lake and the tidal pool near the dam where it dumped into the Neuse River. That lake is choke full of big largemouth bass. I caught a 6 lb, 12 oz female from the bank with night crawlers when I was bottom fishing for catfish! She was a beauty. That tidal area at the mouth of the river was pretty awesome too. Caught a bunch of crappy, bluegill and gar there. Also saw a water moccasin swim past me when I was knee deep in the water. I levitated out of the water and got back to shore REALLY fast.

Not sure if that helps, but it was fun to tell the fish stories.

 

Fish stories... When I was a young lad I had a 9ft inflatable dinghy with a 3.3hp outboard. Got it for my 13th birthday, and I was immediately obsessed with my new-found freedom. I was out on the water every single day, fishing, tooling around, and generally annoying the management of my local marina (where I later ended up running the fuel dock for 7 years).

One day I was fishing right out in front of our property. One rod stuck between the seat and the pontoon, with a homemade bucktail lure for bait. There was a 12ft wooden seawall at the end of the land, and rip-rap (huge boulders) for protection from the tides.

My dad insisted I was using too big of gear for where I was fishing, but I was doing my best impression of a charter boat captain, insisting I knew wtf I was doing.

I was only out there for about a half hour when I got a big hit. The fish almost ripped the rod right out of my boat. I grab the rod, set the drag, and held on for dear life. My boat only weighed a couple hundred pounds and the fish was dragging me around without a problem. As I continue to fight the fish turns toward shore. I reel her in but not before the fish drags me into the rocks by the seawall, and a wave does the final job of drydocking me.

I ended up keeping the fish, a 32 inch rockfish (striped bass). I have caught many fish before and since then but never had a moment more gratifying on the water.

 

A few years ago, a friend gives me a call... "bass blitz all day at the tip of the Hook" (Sandy Hook). My daughter, who was only about 11 years old or so at the time, wanted to come with me, so I grabbed my gear and drove up the road. Thinking the fish would be moving south, we stopped and fished a different beach for about a half hour - nothing. Got back in the truck and went out to the tip. Parked in the lot and started the long walk down the trail to the beach. Coming the other way was my buddy with about a 20lb bass in one hand, rod in the other.

"What did you get it on?" I asked. "This..." a white rubber "shad" type bait. He un-clipped it and handed it to me. We get down to the beach and sure enough... a cloud of birds over frothing water about 200 yards out. I remembered by buddy saying, "they're making a big loop, out off the beach, around and back in"... so we hung out and right on cue, here they come! I cast out as far as I could and handed the rod to my daughter. BANG! Her first striped bass.

 

So many great fish stories start with birds going crazy.

 

I had zero luck saltwater fishing with my 11 year old this year. She does great in the local river and ponds, largemouth, pickerel, bluegill, ect.., but we kept getting skunked in the ocean, not even a scup. I wanted to use up some squid I had in the freezer so we went to the beach (this was right before thanksgiving), cast out a chunk, stuck the pole in the sand and went for a walk. On the way back the pole was on the sand, I thought the wind blew it over, my kid ran to it and when she picked it up, sure enough there was a fish on and it was a stripper. It was undersized, so we threw it back, but every cast after that got a fish on within minutes, until we ran out of squid. Mostly schoolies, we kept one that was just at 28 inches, a little skinny but yummy. She ended up reeling in 3 more on her own and lost a couple, you want to talk about a proud poppa