Fishing

Moderator: GreenLake

Fishing

Postby tomodda » Fri May 31, 2019 8:29 am

I had a buddy from work aboard yesterday, with his fishing rig. His first time sailing, my first time fishing. Was great fun, and to my great surprise he caught (and released) 7 striper bass in the course of two hours. Apparently his surprise too, as he was just "fooling around" and was using a "crappie rig", which appears to be for catching lake crappie, not bass - anyway, it's smaller. Some tips for anyone who wants to try taking a fisherman aboard, or doing it themselves:

-Teach them to cast downwind - pretty obvious, but my buddy started off by winding up to cast upwind and I had to holler....

-We were "trolling" at about 3-4 knots, so he used a lure that looked like a little fish and told me all about how a bottom rig or wrigglers would not have worked. Makes sense to me, although what do I know? Apparently the stripers got pretty excited about a "baitfish" zipping along at 3 knots and no engine noise to give us away.

-We soon figured out that it made sense for him to reel the hook in and cast again at each tack. First time we tacked, he "caught" the motor, which made him momentarily happy till he realized....

-Don't drop your fish into the bilges! Much hilarity ensued.

-You don't have to "set" the hook if you get a bite while trolling, and due to our speed, every fish "felt" bigger than it really was. My buddy still "enjoyed the fight" reeling them in, and I didn't have to slow down the boat or change course. Next time, he's bringing his bass rig. And I'm bringing a frying pan!

-For what it's worth, we got our best catches where the lake bottom elevation suddenly changed - the edges of the old river-bed underwater, we were on a reservoir/dammed lake.

Anyway, we had great fun, and it was definitely a first for both of us. Probably a first for the fish too, getting caught by a sailboat!

Tom
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Re: Fishing

Postby Beach4824 » Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:46 pm

Hey Tom good story. I Did go out one day with ambitions of running with the wind and dragging a line with a spinner or something or just letting the sails in irons , throwing an anchor and fishing with worms. Didnt get to do it. brought my pole and tackel, But Bit the sailing bug.
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