Tag: fresh water fishing

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What Are They Doing With All Those Fish?

I was reading through some articles today on freshwater fishing and found this one:

FOUR SOUTH CAROLINA ANGLERS ON HOOK, 1,268 FISH SEIZED

So what were 4 people going to do with 1268 freshwater fish? Maybe since these are hard economic times, they were going to clean them and save them in their freezer? Or maybe they were going to sell them to their friends and neighbors? They certainly couldn’t eat all of them at once!

Regardless, I had always wondered if the local game wardens ever did their job and cited folks for game law violations. Looks like the Florida wardens are doing their jobs! 🙂 The article mentions that Florida has an anonymous tip line that people can use to report violators – and that’s what led to these folks getting caught!

Does your state have an anonymous tip line? Have any of you ever seen your local game warden or know of anyone having a run-in with him/her? Just curious – personally, I’ve never seen our local game warden – ever! Some of my friends have – when he came to check their fishing licenses, but I’ve never been that lucky!

Have a good day and I’ll catch you later.

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Largest Fresh Water Fish Ever Caught

Reading through the news today I saw this article about the largest fresh water fish ever caught with a rod and reel. Actually I wouldn’t call it a fish, but that’s just a technicality I suppose!

It was a stingray! You know the kind that caused the “croc hunter” Steve Irwin’s death. This one was caught in Thailand. It weighed 55 stones, which converts to 770 pounds! Check out the article below:

World Record Fresh Water Fish

Maybe some day you or I will get that lucky!

Here’s to our success!

Catch you later.

PS – Markel Boat Insurance has sponsored this post!

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Freshwater Fishing Report for Maryland

I was reading through some reports on last year’s fishing and found a great summary for the state of Maryland.

Did you know that Maryland has muskies in it? I didn’t! I’ve always thought of maryland as a warmer southern state, but this report has shown me otherwise.

There are also some excellent pictures of anglers with their catches on the site. If you have a few minutes, go check this out! I’m sure you’ll enjoy this as much as I did!

Maryland State Fishing Report

Catch you later.

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Catfish Recipes Anyone?

I have to admint I always cringe when someone orders catfish when we’re at a restaurant. Being a freshwater fisherman in the north-eastern US, I’ve always looked at catfish as a sort of trash fish. Something that’s fun to catch but you’d never dream of cooking up and eating!

Perhaps it’s their ugly whiskers and tough gristly mouth – I’m not sure, but I know that lots of folks truly enjoy a good catfish meal. So being non-prejudicial in my blogging, I’ve found something while cruising the web that I thought I’d share with all of you who enjoy cooking up catfish. God bless you all! 🙂

Check out this post from the Mooresville Tribune:
Favorite Catfish Recipes

Hope you enjoy these and I’ll catch you later.

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The Eleventh Day Of Christmas – Freshwater Fishing Style

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me eleven snap swivels, ten spinners spinning, nine jigs a jigging, eight bobbers bobbing, seven sinkers sinking, six kits for rigging, … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

In this day and age, when everything is green, snap swivels are a perfect fit! You know that monofilament fishing line stays around forever and creates quite a bad litter problem. So rather than constantly cutting the line and re-tying a knot every time you change your lure/hook – use a snap swivel instead!

I’m your typical fisherman. I enjoy taking it easy and spending as much time fishing as possible. And having to cut the line and re-tie a knot just takes up too much time and keeps my lures out of the water too long! 🙂 So I almost always use snap swivels when fishing. Just push the latch open, pull off your old lure and put on a new one, push the snap closed and away you go. Very easy!

You can get snap swivels in all sizes to suit your fishing needs too! I use the heavy ones for salt water fishing (on the rare occasion that I do that!) and the smaller ones for freshwater fishing. I like ultra-lite fishing, so I usually use the smallest ones I can find. That way, they don’t weigh down the lure I’m using and the additional flash or reflection that they provide helps attract more fish. It’s a win – win situation!

Never tried sanp swivels? They’re cheap and available just about every fishing store you go to. Look at this – even amazon has some available!

So do yourself and the environment a favor and get some snap swivels today!

Catch you later.

-Mark

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Garden State Outdoors Sportsmen’s Show

Winter getting you down? Miss fishing in the nice warm sun? I’ve got just the cure for you! Go to the Garden State Outdoors Sportsmen’s Show!

They have lots of fishing as well as other outdoor activities for you to check out. You can also browse through the vendor’s exhibits and get yourself some new freshwater fishing gear!

It’s held in the NJ Convention Center in Edison, NJ. And guys, you’ll like this – women get in for 1/2 price and children under 15 are free! So grab everyone and head on over. When is it? Glad you asked! It will be open on January 8th through the 11th.

For more details including directions and phone numbers, visit their website at:

Garden State Outdoors Sportsmen’s Show.

Catch you later.

-Mark

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The Ninth Day of Christmas

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me nine jigs a jigging, eight bobbers bobbing, seven sinkers sinking, six kits for rigging, … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

I’ve always read about how effective jigs are. But most of the water near my home is too shallow for those lead headed jigs. The ones that look like this:

Lead Head Jig

Though I will admit that once when I fished at the Tuckahoe-Corbin City Fish and Game Preserve in Cape May County, New Jersey, I did actually use lead headed jigs with moderate success. It was also the first time I ever caught a yellow perch. It seemed that the jig I used was exactly what they were looking for! It was a lead head jig with an inch and a half of deer hair tied to it.

That was back in the 1970’s and time has marched on. Now there are smaller jigs that are weedless and have rattles built right into them. Very nice! Berkley makes some real nice jigs with great color variations. If you’re interested, you can read about them here:

My older son was using a jig this past summer and caught some bass in our local creek. So jigs are effective if used properly. (Even here in our shallow East Coast freshwater creeks and lakes.)

What about your area? Have any of you ever fished with jigs and had success?

Here’s to a succeful day of freshwater fishing for each one of us!

Catch you later.

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The Fifth Day Of Christmas

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Purple worms? Yes, purple worms! I love fishing with rubber worms and my most favorite color for them is purple. I’ve caught so many large bass and pickerel on purple worms. Don’t ask me why the fish like purple – they just do! When the water is clear and it’s sunny or cloudy, purple worms out-fish the other colors by almost 2 to 1! The only other color that I’ve found that comes close is a black rubber worm.

So what kind of rubber worm do I use? My favorite has always been the Mann’s grape jelly worm. Here’s a picture of what it looks like:

grape jelly worm

I also like the Berkley power bait rubber worms. In fact, I have a whole tackle box full of different color and different manufacturer’s rubber worms! You can never have enough rubber worms!

So what about you? Do you have a favorite color worm? Drop me a comment please?

Catch you later.

-Mark

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The Second Day Of Christmas

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 2 spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel!

You know, I still have spools of mono filament line from back in the 70’s! Really! I used to buy the 1000 yard spools at J M Fields and they still have lots of line on them! What line do I recommend? Well I use 4 pound test for most of my freshwater fishing. If I’m going into weeds and lily pads, I’ll use a 6 lb. test. Sure it’s challenging using a lighter test line – that’s why I do it!

Do you need a “big name” fishing line? Not really. I’ve heard complaints about some cheap types of line always creating birds nests but my experience hasn’t proven this. So go ahead – get yourself one of those big spools of fishing line. I found some online here:

So … what will the third day bring? Stay tuned!

Catch you later.

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The Fresh Water Fishing 12 Days Of Christmas

I was thinking about Christmas and more specificlly the 12 Days of Christmas and relating that to fresh water fishing. So what would you get for the fresh water fishing enthusiast in your life? So … here’s what i was thinking.

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me … “a fishing pole complete with a reel”. Now to make this more authentic, you’ll have to sing the original tune while using my lyrics! LOL – didn’t know I was a song writer eh?

So what kind of fishing pole?  I’ll leave that to you! But don’t get cheap now! A nice rod and reel combo can usually be found for $20 on up! I’m partial to the old Garcia-Mitchell combos, but they are no longer together. 🙁 However check out the item below – it’s only a suggestion though!

 

So what will the second day of Christmas bring?  We’ll discuss that tomorrow!

Catch you later.