Fishing!

[Shwagger]

If forced to choose, I’d pick eating saltwater fish over freshwater fish. But I don’t dig saltwater fishing.

Motoring for hours on end over a featureless seascape just isn’t worth relatively brief time in the catch zone.

With freshwater, you’re generally enwrapped with nature as soon as you get out of your vehicle. If you need to hike for a while to get to the hole it’s a bonus.

If you fish the flats your essentially fishing docks, mangrove shorelines, oyster bars, grass, etc. It's similar to bass fishing I suppose.

But anything else you're out on the open ocean. But realing in a 15lb gag grouper... Oh boy!

 

[Zuljin]

Panko is good. So is coarse cornmeal so it has a crunch.

Far off shore is featureless. I did mostly lake, marsh, and near shore. Rigs, too. The marsh is fun.

 

[NeoBrew]

What happened to this thread???

I've really missed being able to go to Canada this year. I've made a few trips to the Minnesota/Canadian border in Voyageurs National Park. The fishing was not fantastic, but it was fun to get out on the water.

I'm excited now as I'm gearing up for some ice fishing. I bought a new insulated hub tent and am shopping now for portable heaters. The plan is to do some overnight winter camping/ice fishing. Hopefully the border will open back up before spring and I can do some of that up in the great white north!

Anybody here have experience with hot tent camping? I am loving the look of this wood stove, but not sure it's worth the money.

 

[Desert_Sky]

It was a ****** here this year. Everything was closed so so many new people decided to take up fishing for a new hobby. Everywhere was over run and over fished, I stopped taking the kayak out by June it was just too crowded and not worth it. Next year I hope to get back to normal

 

[Kharnynb]

I've just been too busy with renovations at the cottage that the boat has just sat there on the beach.....sad, but next year at least the dock will be good enough for just docking the boat instead of having to drag it on land every time.

 

[passedpawn]

Any y'all use a castable fish finder like Deeper or similar? I see the videos and reviews. Deeper looks good. I want to hear it from people I know are drunken fishermen.

I used one on a fishing trip in MI a couple years ago. Might have been called an iBobber (it looked like a round white/red bobber). I did work, sorta. It saw things. I don't think it helps us catch fish though.

 

[day_trippr]

Castable sonar now? Jeeze

2020 was supposed to be my year of fishing. From the jump it didn't happen - our March trip to Cat Island in the Bahamas for some bonefishing got cancelled and it was all downhill from there.

Did manage to do a few days of salt water fishing on our Cape Week with the whole family, lots of fish caught, a couple of stripers kept.
And I did get my boys on a small lake up in Cow Hampster a couple of weeks ago right after the NH F&W dumped 500 two year old rainbows in (we flattened our barbs and were like kids in an arcade for an afternoon ).

But that's it for 2020...

Cheers! (2021 sure AF better be better than this...)

 

[passedpawn]

Castable sonar now? Jeeze

2020 was supposed to be my year of fishing. From the jump it didn't happen - our March trip to Cat Island in the Bahamas for some bonefishing got cancelled and it was all downhill from there.

Did manage to do a few days of salt water fishing on our Cape Week with the whole family, lots of fish caught, a couple of stripers kept.
And I did get my boys on a small lake up in Cow Hampster a couple of weeks ago right after the NH F&W dumped 500 two year old rainbows in (we flattened our barbs and were like kids in an arcade for an afternoon ).

But that's it for 2020...

Cheers! (2021 sure AF better be better than this...)

Well, fishing should not be affected by the panicdemic, but otherwise I'd shoot for normalcy in 2022.

 

[day_trippr]

Two of my favorite Maine lodges did not open this year due to the pandemic.
Americans were not welcome in the Bahamas for months (even assuming one could find a flight and then conjure up the cojones to fly).
Then there's the general reluctance to avoid travel and association with those outside of one's "circle".

Definitely affected...

Anyway...I shot this video before the NH F&W tanker showed up. There were trout already working a small tan caddis-like hatch right at the end of the ramp, picking the bugs off before they could get airborne...



Cheers!

 

[passedpawn]

Ah man I really want to get out and fish right now.

 

[day_trippr]

Seriously. Ironically I fished my brains out while I was a captive hire for years and years. I could bail out at noon and either wade a stream or drag the boat out to the salt. Now I'm off the hook, but screwed?

It makes....no....sense

Anyway...I have friends in NC that are killing false albacore on fly rods right now. I would love to join them, but it'd mean driving because there's no way I'm getting on a plane anytime soon, and that's a healthy ~16 hour trip by road, and we're supposed to get snow up here ffs.

Sigh...

Cheers! (2021. One way or the other, it's gonna happen...)

 

[CKuhns]

I try to get in a Thompson Manitoba fly-in every year and at least trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe area. Unfortunately Canada closed the boarder. However, did get my share of fishing in made it to the BWCA this fall.

Own a cabin in "lake country" in NW WI. With many other lakes easily accessed was able to get on-the-water a good bit.

Captured a video of an eagle out fishing me a month or so back.
- That was the second pass - He missed the first one (Scared me half to death as he came from behind me the first time.), but allowed me to get my phone out for his next attempt. (He then sat in a huge pine along the water and had dinner.)

 

[passedpawn]

My boys and I are hitting a lake cabin in Tennessee in May. Getting the gear ready. Fishing!

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

My dad and I took our Kentucky relatives to the Bahamas to fish. When they saw the size of the bait, they said we had already caught the fish.

 

[fluketamer]

its striper season up here in the northeast for us. we do very well in the spring

 

[hilljack13]

Going camping all next week and getting to test my three new rod/reel setups!

 

[CKuhns]

Heading out tomorrow for our annual trip to the Rainy River to try to catch some sturgeon. If we are lucky enough to get some worthy of a picture will post. Largest lake sturgeon for me to date 65". State record is at 78". (Plan to crush it this year.)

 

[CKuhns]

Lake Sturgeon, 59.5" and a 60" Annual trip to the Rainy River into Lake Of The Woods. US side. (The Rainy is part of the US Canada Boarder)

 

[fluketamer]

Any y'all use a castable fish finder like Deeper or similar? I see the videos and reviews. Deeper looks good. I want to hear it from people I know are drunken fishermen.

i use vexilar t-pod on the skiff . i tie it on but it is also castable. it works great and is color . but it uses up the phone battery fast. a portable charger or an outlet on a boat solves this

https://www.amazon.com/Vexilar-SP10...ZOKpsl4mP4kBI-n6KHjH4NVKMawaAi_REALw_wcB&th=1

i paid about 70$ for it.


they getting bigger now

 

[Agent]

Lake Sturgeon, 59.5" and a 60" Annual trip to the Rainy River into Lake Of The Woods. US side. (The Rainy is part of the US Canada Boarder)

Is it really an accomplishment to just reach in there and grab a sturgeon or two??


I jest. Nice fish!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

View attachment 848349

Is it really an accomplishment to just reach in there and grab a sturgeon or two??


I jest. Nice fish!

I think you'd have to wrestle one with the ones I've seen

We had a big one wash up on a public beach north of Boston last year. Initial news had "unknown dinosaur like creature washes up on beach" I'm like who doesn't know about caviar or fish?

 

[fluketamer]

I think you'd have to wrestle one with the ones I've seen

yes if you can get it on shore and get to its roe. lol

and smoked sturgeon is the absolute best cold smoked fish even better than sable

around us they are ultra protected species cant fish for them or even possess.

i have caught a few in the hudson river and i have seen a few in the new york bight area finning.

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

yes if you can get it on shore and get to its roe. lol

and smoked sturgeon is the absolute best cold smoked fish even better than sable

around us they are ultra protected species cant fish for them or even possess.

i have caught a few in the hudson river and i have seen a few in the new york bight area finning.

They're getting a lot more common around here. Especially up in Maine.. Both in freshwater rivers and oceans. We've also started to take down a lot of dams which seemed to have helped them. Now. A sign of getting old but I remember the great log drives that choked the rivers too

I've got all the equipment to start saltwater fly fishing. Seeing those things I don't know what I'd do if I latched onto one of them. I remember hearing they're protected around here as in cut line but I keep seeing people landing them so maybe things have changed

 

[day_trippr]

A sign of getting old but I remember the great log drives that choked the rivers too

My dad would always take me with his gang of elders for flyfishing Maine trips and I vividly remember following the Penobscot and the Androscoggin for miles and seeing them choked bank-to-bank with pulp logs. Sometimes we'd get treated to seeing the tiny tugs they used to pull massive log booms to the mills and see wiry dudes dancing on the logs to form up the booms.

Decades later I still come across pulp logs on the Andy...

Cheers!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

My dad would always take me with his gang of elders for flyfishing Maine trips and I vividly remember following the Penobscot and the Androscoggin for miles and seeing them choked bank-to-bank with pulp logs. Sometimes we'd get treated to seeing the tiny tugs they used to pull massive log booms to the mills and see wiry dudes dancing on the logs to form up the booms.

Decades later I still come across pulp logs on the Andy...

Cheers!

Maine is my happy place. There's a business that is pulling ancient forest logs that have sunk and sat in 40° water in pristine shape.

Here's my happy place up on Rangeley and the Dead River. I've come to realize I'm a brooky person I just like to wander and get lost in the woods

This first pic is without filters. Turned around just to take the pic

 

[day_trippr]

Ever fished the Rapid River between Middle Dam and the top of Umbagog Lake? That stretch is my happy place. World class brookie and land locked salmon fishing, at least when I was two~three decades younger There's a great book - "We Took To The Woods" by Louise Dickinson Rich - that aptly describes life on the Rapid back when logging was still big.

I fished a lot of Maine and NH waters in my life. I had a handful of friends with cabins in northern NH and western Maine, one near Gorham, another up in Errol, one over in Oxford and a couple in between, so I never had a lack of flyfishing opportunities.

If I can get my body back together after being sliced and diced twice in 10 months I'm hoping to get back up there in earnest, though right now I'm just aiming to get a canoe on a local lake for an afternoon. Baby steps...

Cheers!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Ever fished the Rapid River between Middle Dam and the top of Umbagog Lake? That stretch is my happy place. World class brookie and land locked salmon fishing, at least when I was two~three decades younger There's a great book - "We Took To The Woods" by Louise Dickinson Rich - that aptly describes life on the Rapid back when logging was still big.

I fished a lot of Maine and NH waters in my life. I had a handful of friends with cabins in northern NH and western Maine, one near Gorham, another up in Errol, one over in Oxford and a couple in between, so I never had a lack of flyfishing opportunities.

If I can get my body back together after being sliced and diced twice in 10 months I'm hoping to get back up there in earnest, though right now I'm just aiming to get a canoe on a local lake for an afternoon. Baby steps...

Cheers!

No I haven't hit the Middle Dam but that was one of the first places I marked on my bucket list when I first started going back there. I wanted to visit before they did the reconstruction but it never happened. Has a lot of history and sounds very secluded. I travel the extra distance going thru the white mountains and Errol instead of Portland because it's so beautiful. Sounds like it's a good hike to get in. Just the Upper Dam is a pita with a car I ran into the new owners that reopened the camp on the Rapid.

 

[day_trippr]

Lakewood Camps. My dad and I stayed there a few times over the years, back when the owners were Sue and Stan Milton. I think my last stay there was in 1999. After that I met a coworker at DEC who owned a camp just west of Errol on Little Akers Pond and we would drive in to a point just south of the Rapid where it dumps into "Pond In The River", park the truck and walk the rest of the way, which took maybe 15~20 minutes (and contrary to Google you can drive right to a parking area).

We'd ford the river just above "Pondy" then depending on conditions either walk up to the dam or fish the gravel "island" right at the drop off. We also had another parking spot just south of Lower Dam (its remains were removed in 2004) but that one's a bit more complicated to draw out

Sadly the brookies have been threatened by "bucket biology" as some ********* planted small mouth bass in Lake Umbagog and they worked their way up to Pond In The River and predate on fry as well as what's left of the alewife population. Haven't been up there in a few years so don't know what the status is but I know there was a "please kill the bass!" effort made...

Cheers!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Lakewood Camps. My dad and I stayed there a few times over the years, back when the owners were Sue and Stan Milton. I think my last stay there was in 1999. After that I met a coworker at DEC who owned a camp just west of Errol on Little Akers Pond and we would drive in to a point just south of the Rapid where it dumps into "Pond In The River", park the truck and walk the rest of the way, which took maybe 15~20 minutes (and contrary to Google you can drive right to a parking area).

We'd ford the river just above "Pondy" then depending on conditions either walk up to the dam or fish the gravel "island" right at the drop off. We also had another parking spot just south of Lower Dam (its remains were removed in 2004) but that one's a bit more complicated to draw out

View attachment 848405


View attachment 848406

Sadly the brookies have been threatened by "bucket biology" as some ********* planted small mouth bass in Lake Umbagog and they worked their way up to Pond In The River and predate on fry as well as what's left of the alewife population. Haven't been up there in a few years so don't know what the status is but I know there was a "please kill the bass!" effort made...

Cheers!

Hmmm.. thanks. Satellite is my friend. I've found a lot of good spots using it. Looking at Rapids satellite looks like there's tons of good spots to go along with it's reputation.

I do know a lot of guides still go there and I'm all for a good mainer can't get there from here misdirection to a visitor. Ive been told about the evasives and it isn't that great. Which probably means it's the locals fav spot

I was told the Upper was easier to get to but it was dirt and boulder and probably changed day to day with rain. The funny thing is the first time I visited some local move the road sign. I used satellite to find the dam road.

Is the road to mid paved? One of these times I'm renting a truck for some joy rides

 

[passedpawn]

Going camping all next week and getting to test my three new rod/reel setups!

me too. I already had more gear than I needed, but my boys have nothing so good excuse to get two new reels (one spinner and one baitcaster), two new rods, and some tackle. Sure is fun buying that sort of stuff. I took the braid off my baitcaster. Been too long since I've used it - was practicing in the pool and had a few nasty rats nests, so I'm gonna get started with mono.

Douglass lake in TN tomorrow. Have a place right on the water and boat too. Woot!