fishing reports

[bigbendmarine]

Usually try and get out late in April to target cobia as they enter our area waters, but lots of work and weather got in the way until last week when I was lucky enough to sneak a trip in the very day before Alberto started hitting us.

Managed to put a couple of friends on keepers... one a M.D. student who shadowed with my wife's practice before going to med school, the other his friend who just graduated dentistry school. Downside to granting their wish for a celebratory trip is I was a lot more generous handing them the rods than I typically would be, so now I'm itching to get back out ASAP so I can fight a few myself.

 

[Telemark]

Opening day of bass season in Ontario was Saturday. Got out and got some limits.

 

[Telemark]

5.25 lb brook trout. Beautiful dark orange filets.

 

[Catscratch]

Usually try and get out late in April to target cobia as they enter our area waters, but lots of work and weather got in the way until last week when I was lucky enough to sneak a trip in the very day before Alberto started hitting us.

Managed to put a couple of friends on keepers... one a M.D. student who shadowed with my wife's practice before going to med school, the other his friend who just graduated dentistry school. Downside to granting their wish for a celebratory trip is I was a lot more generous handing them the rods than I typically would be, so now I'm itching to get back out ASAP so I can fight a few myself.

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You post some pics from a different world than I frequent... but last week we made a trip to Virginia and got to fish on the ocean a little. Once in a lifetime experience and it was awesome!

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[Mortenson]

Is the bottom one a trigger fish?

 

[Catscratch]

Is the bottom one a trigger fish?

They call them Spade. Great fighters and tasted good too!

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[S.T.Fanatic]

I made it out for several hours Saturday morning. I fished a local creek that I haven’t hit since before the “general opener”. I managed a couple nice browns with the biggest being 18.5”. The trophy of the day was much smaller though.

My second Tiger of the year!!

For those of you who don’t know,a tiger trout in Minnesota is a naturally occurring hybrid between a male brook trout and a female brown trout. Very rare!


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[bigbendmarine]

For those of you who don’t know,a tiger trout in Minnesota is a naturally occurring hybrid between a male brook trout and a female brown trout. Very rare!

A true trophy indeed! What BEAUTIFUL / INCREDIBLE markings!!!

 

[bigbendmarine]

You post some pics from a different world than I frequent... but last week we made a trip to Virginia and got to fish on the ocean a little. Once in a lifetime experience and it was awesome!

Those cobes are fun to catch, aren't they?! Pound for pound, they really put up a good fight! We see lots of spades down in our neck of the woods too. Like cobia, they LOVE structure and will even hang around anchor lines some days. Awesome share!

 

[bigbendmarine]

On the cobia note, made my second salt trip of the year a week and a half ago. Friend of mine had a crew of 5 friends from Atlanta who all work for the CDC down and lined it up so I took 2 of them out of 1 landing and he took 3 from another landing in his boat for a face-off at a rendezvous spot. We put 4 in the boat (kept limit of 2 per boat and tagged 2 short fish) while they failed to land any, though they had a few good hits.




Last one we landed was a real bruiser! We threw our anchor line over (float attached to end for later retrieval) and chased it in order to help assure we landed it. All three of us in the boat took turns fighting it for about a 30 minute period before I finally snagged and pulled it over the gunnels.



Couple of videos guessing a few folks might enjoy. First the gaff strike...

Next clip shows why you get them off the deck and on ice ASAP... they can do some real damage to gear AND folks if brought on the least bit green and not contained. And forgive the "WOOOOOOO!"s... friend who took the other boat out is a real trash talker so we enjoyed playing it up each time we landed another fish!

 

[H20fwler]

Ha...the WOOOO's are funny! We have done the same on lake Erie catching walleye making a fuss just to ruffle the loud boat next to us.
Nice fish, looks like an awesome day.

 

[H20fwler]

Opening day of bass season in Ontario was Saturday. Got out and got some limits.

Some of those look like HAWGS! Smallies are great fighting fish, what did the biggest weigh?

 

[Telemark]

Biggest smallmouth was 4 lbs. Smallest was 3/4 lb.

Caught six more since then. Waiting for some calm water to spot fish some giants.

More brookies in the mean time.

 

[Telemark]

My girlfriend and I limited out on smallmouth yesterday. Smallest was 1.5 lbs., biggest was just over 3 lbs. Plus i got another brook trout.

 

[bigbendmarine]

So this happened yesterday... finally able to cross off an item that'd been on my bucket list for years!

 

[Catscratch]

^^^ That is.... AWESOME!!!!

 

[Tree Spud]

So this happened yesterday... finally able to cross off an item that'd been on my bucket list for years!

That is an absolute monster Grouper on a hand line .. did you release?

 

[bigbendmarine]

That is an absolute monster Grouper on a hand line .. did you release?

Yep. Well, actually it self-released.

It's a goliath grouper and they've been protected against harvest in Florida for almost 30 years. While populations were once threatened, reefs are covered with them now. They can be real nuisances, gobbling up game fish off rod and reel lines in a flash.

Though fighting them by handline is legal you arent allowed to actually bring them aboard a boat. So most people who bring one up get in the water to pose with them / put their massive size to scale.

I was getting ready to jump in when it shook the line aggressively enough to throw the hook.

 

[Tree Spud]

Yep. Well, actually it self-released.

It's a goliath grouper and they've been protected against harvest in Florida for almost 30 years. While populations were once threatened, reefs are covered with them now. They can be real nuisances, gobbling up game fish off rod and reel lines in a flash.

Though fighting them by handline is legal you arent allowed to actually bring them aboard a boat. So most people who bring one up get in the water to pose with them / put their massive size to scale.

I was getting ready to jump in when it shook the line aggressively enough to throw the hook.

Wow ... on my BID list ... man vs big azz creature ... very cool ... congrats!

 

[Telemark]