Tag: freshwater fishing

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A Freshwater Fishing Weekend Bonus!

I went to Somerset, NJ this past weekend with my wife for the FLENJ conference. That’s the Foreign Language Educators of New Jersey – for those not in the know! 😉 I was looking forward to a nice relaxing time – spending quality time with my 5 year old son at the pool and jacuzzi!

I was surprised to see that the building next to where we were staying – the Garden State Exhibit Center was having a Saltwater Fishing Expo. Now, I’m not a big saltwater fishing fan, as you may have guessed by now, but I do like to go saltwater fishing ocassionally. So I looked up the event on the Internet and found that they were giving the kids a free Plano tackle box for the first 100 that showed up on Saturday. I asked my son if he wanted a new tackle box and sure enough he said yes!

So we went to the Expo and he got a new tacklebox. And even though it was a saltwater fishing expo, we were able to find some fresh water fishing lures and bobbers. The Nikon exhibitors even gave my son a new Nikon Frisbee!

In addition to all the exhibitors with rods, reels, lures and the other paraphenalia – there were large fishing power boats to be looked at and even kayaks for those with less offshore endeavors in mind! They also had casting contests for the kids and fish cooking sessions with other numerous instructional workshops. My son was getting tired after a while and we headed back to our hotel for some more swimming, but we had a very enjoyable time at the Expo.

We opened all the lures and put them in their “correct” spots (the way my son wanted them!) once we returned home and now he can hardly wait to go try them out! I’ll get my fishing license this week and hopefully we can start the new year off with a successful freshwater fishing trip next weekend.

Catch you later.

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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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Freshwater Fishermen vs Saltwater Fishing License

Freshwater fishing is my favorite, but once in a while I may go saltwater fishing.

It’s not a common occurence, but when I do go, it’s usually in Townsend’s Inlet, NJ or Cape Cod for stripers. But it looks like there’ll soon be no more unlicensed saltwater fishing for me and anyone else living in the USA!

Tough times and all the mess that the economy is in are being used as the latest excuse to grab more of our money. What do you think about that? I’m not real happy about it.

I was reading a post about the subject in the Times of Trenton Sports News section. You can check it out here: http://www.nj.com/sports/times/index.ssf?/base/sports-1/1233464727155740.xml&coll=5

Unfortunately, it looks inevitable for a saltwater fishing license, but it’s still not too late to write your state representatives and let them know your thoughts!

Catch you later.

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Snow and Ice – Freshwater Fishing Spots

My 2 sons and I took a hike through our local trail system yesterday and visited some of our freshwater fishing spots. The creek was partially iced over and it was easy to get to places that are unpassable in the summer when the bushes and weeds are just too thick.

My younger son loves to talk and in spite of my efforts to try and quiet him, he kept on talking. I explained that they’d see more wildlife if they kept quiet … but he gets excited about almost everything he sees! Oh to be five years old again!

So we were blazing our own trail along the creek bank (hoping to keep it open once spring and summer comes) and finding good spots to go fishing once the ice and snow melt off. Much to my surprise, my older son spotted something and asked me what it was. Turns out it was a muskrat. We had apparently blocked off his return top the creek and he seemed a little lost. I happened to have my camera with me and snapped a photo:

 

I told the boys how I used to trap muskrats in my younger days and used the money for Christmas presents. We walked for another 20 minutes and actually saw another muskrat! This one was able to get to the water and swam away as we watched. So we followed his tracks in the snow to see where he came from. And of course as we walked my younger son and I both got our feet wet! So we decided it was a good time to head home and grab some lunch.

It was snowing lightly through most of our walk through the creek and as we headed home we talked about fishing during the cold weather… and decided that it was more fun when it was warmer.  Hopefully we’ll have some more snowy walks before the spring returns and we’re back fishing in our favorite spots!

Catch you later.

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Pennsylvania Smallmouth Bass

Calling all freshwater smallmouth bass fishermen.

I found this article posted on the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission’s website. If you live in or near Pennsylvania and fish on the Susquehanna river, you’ll probably be interested in reading this. Here’s an excerpt:

Harrisburg, PA - The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) is inviting anglers
and others with an interest in the management and protection of smallmouth bass in the
Susquehanna River to a free public meeting on Saturday, January 31, at the River Rescue
Building in Harrisburg. The meeting will touch upon subjects such as fish disease, fish
population monitoring results, trends in consumptive water use and water quality
trends. A question and answer session will follow...

If you’d like to read the rest of the article, you’ll find it here:


http://www.fish.state.pa.us/newsreleases/2009/smb_symposium.htm

Hey – almost forgot ….. here’s wishing you all a very happy and prosperous New Year!
May your lines be tight and your creels be full!

Catch you later.

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The Twelfth Day Of Christmas – Fresh Water Fishing Style

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me twelve tackle boxes, 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.

Merry Christmas to you all! While twelve tackle boxes may seem like a lot of tackleboxes – it’s not really! I like to keep my things organized and this includes my fishing gear. So I have 2 huge tackle boxes – one for salt water fishing and the other for fresh water fishing!

I further divide my tackle by the type of fish I’m going to be fishing for. I have small compartmented plastic tackle boxes which I place in or next to the big tackle boxes. The rubber worms in one box, the spinners in another, the spoons in another … you get the idea! Then in the individual tackle boxes, I have separate compartments for the different colored lures. I hate it when the red colored worms are sitting with the green worms and their color bleeds into each other! Makes for some real weird colored worms! 😉

So keeping things organized can get to be quite a chore. But if you have a box like this one shown below, it’s not very hard at all.

Notice that you can pull out one of the trays and just take that for the day’s fishing trip. Very cool idea! Of course, if you’re not sure what you’ll find when you go to a new lake or stream, then you can take the whole box. What do you think? Cool eh?

Well this concludes my twelve days of Christmas for freshwater fishing. Hope you enjoyed it and that you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you don’t happen to celebrate Christmas, then I hope you have a happy holiday – whichever one you celebrate!

Catch you later.

-Mark

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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