Any anglers here in the group?

[mooseman]

i spent many many hours putting around in a wooden boat with a 7 1/2 HP evenrude motor trolling along for lake trout with Pfluger #3 spoons on hand action copper bottom line and old converted victrola record player motors for the take up.
here in the Finger lakes the trout were huge  30 yeas ago but not so much now. a 8 pounder is huge today but back in the day
it was not uncommon when the big one hit it waould tip the scale at half again as much.
great eating, no scales and clean like a charm.

There is nothing like pulling in a saw belly fat laker  on copper wire hand over hand.

we used to get our limit regular back then mid 60's

[mk162]

My favorite type of bass fishing is topwater.  I grew up with a lake in our neighborhood and would fish it all the time with a floating worm.  Worked great.  I would catch 5-6 good sized fish a day that way.  But the crappie in the lake were monsters.  None of them were under 1lb, most of them came in at 2 or better.

[inkman996]

Craps are fun using rooster tails reeling them in as fast as you can.

I found the key to top water fishing for bass was to cast out and let the lure sit for about thirty seconds then twitch it, move it it a few feet at a time. What it did was get the bass interested once it sensed a possible injured frog or fish it would attack explosively.

My favorite was always a jointed rapala, silv bottom ones and extra long.

I used to have luck at night using rubber grubs or rubber worms, night was ok but nothing beats early evening as the sun was setting, or even better after a hard rain the fish would be in a feasting mode trying to eat all the bait fish chewing on all the insects washed in by the rains.

I also used to catch live frogs or toads and toss them out there you never knew if you would get a bass or a pickerel but it sure was fun.

[Prosperi-Tees]

I used to fish alot when I was younger up in Clearlake Ca, didn't do to well but still loved to fish. Would love to get back into it someday.

[alan802]

I grew up fishing for largemouth bass.  I've caught several 7,8,9 pounders and have actually won a few local bass tournaments when I was younger.  My dad and I used to fish in team tournaments at least once a month for the entire time I was in high school.  I grew up 20 miles from Lake Fork, I'm sure some of you largemouth guys have heard about Fork.  I fished it quite a bit once I got older, but it was a very dangerous lake when I was a younger teen and my dad did not want to risk our lives going out there on the weekends, it was extremely over fished in the early 90's.  We fished Lake of the Pines, Bob Sandlin, Toledo Bend, Sam Rayburn, Montecello and Cypress mostly.

I can't wait till my son is old enough so I can take him out like my dad did for me.  Those were the best times of my life, fishing 10 hours a day with my dad.  My dad would enjoy his beers a little too much sometimes so I had to learn how to pull the boat with the truck at an early age, I think I was 14 the first time I drove us home from the lake.  I was 11 when I first started driving the boat, and I think I was 12 or 13 when we got our first serious bass boat with a 200 mercury on it, that boat would do 70 mph but I was limited to 40 when I drove it.

We've got a family bass boat that sits in storage all year. It's a 2003 (I think) Cobra, 20' with a mercury 200.  I've taken it out maybe 4 times in 5 years, it's pretty sad.  It was my father in law's and every year we say we are going to use it but I don't so very well fishing with a wife who doesn't know what she's doing.  I don't ever get to fish, I'm always changing her lures or getting her unstuck from a log, and my favorite, "oh, let's go over to that spot over there, it's looks really fishy", all day long.

[ScreenPrinter123]

All this talk of freshwater!  Any other coastal inshore fishermen out there?  I managed a red and 18 speckled trout this past weekend and it will only get better because the trout are still scattered and in transition getting ready to spawn (most likely the next full moon).  Can't beat South Louisiana, at least until it rains or a hurricane comes and your under water!

[Gilligan]

Nice ScreenPrinter123... I'm in Lafayette... when we going fishing?!

I LOVE fishing for Drum, Reds are obviously my first choice but I don't mind hooking into a monster Black Drum!

I fished and fished fresh water till I was so bored of struggling to catch "large" fish I rarely went.  Then I went with my ex-brother-in-law down to Grand Isle and hooked into a 33" Red with 12lb test... FISH ON!  I was hooked... I laughed at myself and said "What the hell have I been doing waisting my time trying to catch all those small fresh water fish!?!"

This is me in my boat down out of Southwest Pass (Vermillion Bay).. my favorite part of the photo is my brother-in-law's brother-in-law in his boat in the background... it looks like he's scratching his had in wonder (in reality we were all bringing in those big ol' drums at that point.

[ScreenPrinter123]

Hey Gilligan, how about next time you are in the New Orleans area.  I fish both Port Sulphur and Delacroix and cannot wait to do some surf fishing once the beach bite arrives.  I have fished Cypremort Point a few times while staying in the cabins at the state park.  It is not an easy place to learn given the drastic changes in salinity at various times during the year, not to mention the beating you can take making it to the passes around marsh island.  It was still fun and even got to catch some crabs and have us a boil.  Those big drum and bull reds are fun and can really put a hurting on you after a few in a row though I don't target them often as my wife is a fish eating fool so she wants trout and slot size reds.  So I comply because it keeps me out on the water!

[inkman996]

I am going to be in Lafayette sometime this summer, after seeing that pic gilligan I think I am going to be dropping a linen the water downmtheremsome where, I have no idea what a drum is but damn they look fun!

[Gilligan]

Word... now to find an excuse to get to N.O.

Yeah, I don't really care what I catch... I rarely keep any personally because the wife DOESN'T eat fish... I do and she is coming around.  But I'm not gonna clean fish just for myself to occasionally eat.  So I am just as happy filling someone else's ice chest or throwing them back.

When in Grand Isle on a VERY uneventful trip I had a cut up mullet down in a channel while I tried to fight the catfish off my line and hooked in to a Jack Crevelle (sp)... WOW... that was worth the entire trip... took me 45 mins to pull that sucker in!  Loved it!

[Gilligan]

I'll see what I can arrange Mike.

Give me those dates when you get them nailed down.  I don't have a boat but I might can make something happen.

[inkman996]

Gilligan I am a shore fisher by preference nothing against boats but off the surf is a wonderful experience, up here I fish for stripers when in season, I occasionally keep a small striper to eat (they say the older the fish the more polluted) but typically I give everything away especially the blues, I truly cannot people eat them nasty things. Open the gut of a twenty pound blue and smell the nasty rotten bunkers they devour and trust me you will never eat a blue again.


Oh yea when I am lucky enugh to catch a legal flat fish that is always destined for my grill!

My favorite methods for striper on the shore is live eel or mackerel, with mackerel tho you have to bring in a hundred sea robins for one striper.

[ScreenPrinter123]

Sounds like a TSB surf trip is in order!  Grand Isle would be fun if no boats is the preferred method.  The beach I like to fish is only accessible by boat and I can accomodate four with moderate comfort to get there if you don't mind some bumps (even in an 18' bay boat open water can issue a pounding if the winds are up).

Gilligan...I never have personally hooked a Jack Crevalle, but I have watched someone with one on the line and those things are some serious drag pullers.  The closest thing I have experienced to that is hooking into some 40+ inch bull reds while fishing a school of trout and getting pulled around in my old 14 foot jon boat.  That was fun even though it ruined the trout fishing for the next 30 minutes each time I hooked another bull red.  But that still is nothing compared to a jack crevalle.

[repogolfer]

We do a lot of striper trolling here in the Delta.  Here is a 32lb one.  Excuse my cheesy smile and the blued out section behind the scene....it was a honey hole and I didn't want to share my spot on another forum that I frequent.

Jon

[inkman996]

Damn nice Jon! I hope you know most of the world record stripers including the current world record are caught up here in ct! One was caught about. Decade ago that shatters any living record but the dude caught it on N EPA pier illegally which wiped him and his fish from the records, I fish the same spot occasionally myself it always produces nice fish. Oh yea the world record was caught with live eel my favorite bait to use.