Category: freshwater fishing

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Let Them Eat Fish … errr Cake!

Let Them Eat Fish … errr Cake!

In light of the global warming and the depletion of our mother earth’s resources, it’s sometimes hard to keep a smile on your face.

Turns out that Marie Antoinette or Marie-Thérèse or whoever it was that made that statement so long ago, was right! What’s this all about, you ask me?

I was just reading an article about how many freshwater fish you should eat that are caught in New Jersey and how many seafood items you should eat. It was very discouraging to read. We really are messing up this great big beautiful world that we live in and it almost seems that no one cares. But I care! Don’t you?

The article gives links to some safe and ecologically sound eating guides for these times we live in. I highly recommend you check it out. (It’s a quick read.)

You can read the article here:

Seafood lover’s dilemma: eat healthy, be eco-friendly

Well try to eat healthy and do something good for our environment and I’ll catch you later!

-Mark

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New World Record Largemouth Bass?

I was reading through some fishing news and this topic caught my eye!

The current IGFA world record largemouth bass weighed 22lbs and 4 oz. The 77-year-old world record bass was caught in June 1932 by George Perry at Montgomery Lake in Georgia. Now apparently someone in Japan caught a fish and had it weighed on certified scales and it was 1 oz more than the current world record. But guess what? It isn’t a new world record!

Bass Masters has the story on this and explains why it’s not a new world record. You can read their article, listen to a discussion and watch a video on the fish and the lucky fellow who caught it by clicking on the “New World Record Largemouth Bass” link below:

New World Record Largemouth Bass

(Editor’s Note: Steve VonBrandt of Delaware Bass Fishing just informed me that he has much more information, photos and videos on the new world record largemouth bass at his website. You can check out his information at:
http://delawaretrophybass.com)

Enjoy! (Wouldn’t it be nice to catch a world record largemouth?!?)

I’ll catch you later!

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For fresh water fishing, what are the best times to go at?

Is their even a certian time fish tend to feed, or just any time during the day?

If you are fishing a lake, it really depends on A: the type of fish (catfish, nighttime; trout; morning or evening; etc.) B: is it raining or sunny? (if it is raining, any time is a good time for trout) and C: how long ago were they planted, if applicable (you usually want to wait anywhere from an hour to a day to let them get acquainted with their new homes).

If you are fishing a river, you will want to monitor your tides. High, outgoing tide is the best time for fishing on the river in my opinion, however, there are a lot of swing moments where the water is not moving at all, this may be a good time for certain types of fish.

Good luck out there.

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Father’s Day Freshwater Fishing

Wow – it seems its been a long time since I was able to go fishing. Too many things going on lately and just too much rain! I can’t remember the last time 24 hours passed without some type of precipitation!

So on my time at home yesterday, and since it was Father’s Day, the boys and I decided to go fishing! With all the rain, it was very easy to find worms. Two minutes and the worm box was full of large squiggling worms …. let’s go!

We went to the local creek since the last time we went to one of the lakes nearby. It was lightly drizzling and the tide was high and starting to go out. The water was murky from all the rain. So I advised my sons that lure selection should be on the bright side. My younger son kept getting snagged and tangled and I spent more time helping him than fishing. So we switched him back to bait and using the worms. My older son changed to worms as well.

Soon after, they started catching sun fish or sunnies as we call them. A couple of pumpkinseed sunnies and a few bluegills. We didn’t catch any bass, pickerel or other game fish. But we had a nice time getting out and finally casting the lines again! Since it was raining, I didn’t take any pictures of the boy’s conquests, much to my younger son’s chagrin! (He likes to brag to Mom!)

Hopefully the rain will stop at some point in the future and we’ll get out again – it’s summer after all! So enough with the April showers already!

On another note, I just read that the In-Fisherman has created a new website – they have lots of good information and I thought you all might like to check it out. So here’s a link for you. Let me know what you think of their new site?

http://www.In-Fisherman.com

Catch you later.

-Mark

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Can A Mussel Affect Freshwater Fishing?

I was reading an interesting article about quagga mussels and how they’re affecting the Great Lakes and their run-off rivers and creeks. It seems they’re also affecting many lakes in California too! Here’s the article I read:

http://www.record-bee.com/sports/ci_12456316

So I was curious and did a look-up of these quagga mussels on wikipedia:
Quagga Mussels on Wikipedia

There’s even a map on wikipedia to show you how bad the spread of the mussels has become throughout the US. Pennsylvania has 2 known locations; none in New Jersey or Maryland yet.

These mussels are VERY prolific and just one mussel can take over a whole lake within a short amount of time. Seems they clean the water by siphoning off the plankton, but this in turn takes away the food that young freshwater fish need. So the fish population is definitely affected by these non-native intruders.

There is one hope though, it seems that yellow perch have developed a liking to these things and may help in the effort in trying to get them under control.

This is just another example of how mankind’s carelessness can cause great devastation on our environment. Let’s all try to be more conscious of our actions and their effect on our environment – what do you say?

Hope you have a great week and I’ll catch you later.

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Springtime Freshwater Fishing Success

After working some OT yesterday, I came home to my younger son asking to go fishing! So of course I was only too happy to oblige!

I decided that we would go to our local lake and try fishing there for a change – rather than going to the creek which is right around the corner.

The usual access to the lake was blocked as the folks who own property adjacent to the lake were doing some construction, so we took the long way around and fished in the coves. My son was using worms for bait and he had his first success using the worms. He caught a nice pumpkin seed sunfish.

After a while, he tried a grub for bait. (We had dug up some worms before we left home and also found three grubs which we threw in for the heck of it.) It was like throwing steak into the middle of a hungry pack of wolves! The bait hardly hit the water before he hooked a nice Roach! (picture below) Another grub on the hook and bam – a nice sun fish. He had a bad cast over some bushes and lost his last grub, but my son’s really excited about using grubs for bait now. Here’s his Roach.


Freshwater Roach

Being the curious 5 year old that he is, he asked me why the fish liked the grubs so much. I showed him how the grubs oozed some of their insides when they went on the hook and explained that the fish could smell that. I asked him if he liked the smell of a nice fresh grilled hamburger? He said “sure Dad”. And I explained that the grub’s oozings smelled like that to the fish! He seemed OK with that explanation and talked about getting more grubs for our next trip. 🙂

After a while, he got tired of fishing and decided he’d sit and watch Dad fish for a bit. So I tried on my old trusty rubber worm and caught a nice Calico Bass – or as southerners call them – a “Crappie”. Here’s a picture:


Freshwater Roach

I tried another cove and had a couple of hits from a large pickerel, but was unsuccessful in setting the hook. (It can very very hard setting a hook with all those teeth in a pickerel!) It was dinner time by then and we headed back home after having a nice successful time freshwater fishing at the lake!

Hope your fishing trip was successful as well!

Catch you later.

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Freshwater Fishermen Pollute The Water?

I like to think that I’m environmentally concscious. But this report I just read is making me re-think my favorite lure!

You can read the reort here:

Study: Soft plastic lures harm trout, salmon

I ocassionally lose a rubber worm in the water, but I’ll try everything I can to get it back. (I hate to lose lures!) Still, there are times that I lose them. I’ve never given much thought to what happens with those lost lures, but this report has made me re-think how and whether I’ll continue to use them.

It certainly makes a stronger case for using natural bait as opposed to rubber/plastic lures!

My hope is that with today’s technology, the lure manufacturers can come up with a new improved rubber worm that will dissolve in the fish’s stomach after coming into contact with the fish’s stomach acid.

I know that may sound a little utopic in light of all the problems our world faces today, but hey … I’m an optomist at heart!

So what do you think about this latest revelation? Still think we should use rubber/plastic worms for fishing?

Catch you later.

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Fresh Water Fishing – Lures vs Bait

It seems that wherever fishermen are, there will always be a debate as to which is better for consistently catching fish – lures or bait.

My brother and I used to fish together very frequently when we were younger. He was a bait fisherman much more so than I. We found a great little freshwater fishing stream close to our house which was crammed full of catfish. We enjoyed fishing there and would even get up early on Sunday mornings, before Sunday School, and go fishing for an hour or more.

He would use a bobber and live worms and I would use my secret spinner (the one I used to catch that mysterious fish in my last post!) Being true Americans, we would always be competing to see who could catch the most fish! It was always very close. Some days he would win, other days I would. We would always catch more than 1 too – never kept them – strictly catch and release.

No one I talked to ever used a spinner to catch catfish and they all looked at me as if I was a little crazy for even thinking about it! 😉 In our area, catfish were considered bait only fish! But trust me, my spinner was deadly for catfishing! I would cast it out, let it sink to the bottom and then slowly reel it in, twitching it every once in a while. The catfish loved it!

So which was better? Our conclusion was that neither was better. It came down to a preference on the fisherman’s part. I still prefer lures over bait. But I’ll use bait when I don’t have what I consider to be an appropriate lure for the type of fish I’m after.

How about you? Which do you prefer, lure or bait? Leave a comment and let me know?

Catch you later!

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What Is This Fresh Water Fish?

With the weather warming up, I grabbed my sons and we did some freshwater fishing on Thursday afternoon. We only had about an hour so we ran down to our local creek. It was high tide, so I had high hopes for the afternoon.

After getting my younger son set-up with some worms, I started using a lure that is about 37 years old! It’s an old spinning lure with a single hook and some flopping silver pieces. I usually only use this for spring fishing and decided to give it a try. After my first few casts, I had a hit and eventually caught a fish. But it was one of those fish we’re just not 100% sure of what type it is!

Here’s a photo of it:
The unknown freshwater fish

So if you think you know what it is, please post a comment here?!?

As it turned out, it was the only fish that we caught in the short amount of time we had. But we had fun and the boys are ready to go again – so maybe this weekend?

Have a great weekend and I’ll catch you later!