Product Review - Fishin' Magician's Skid Stik Lures

Take a look at the Fishin' Magician's Skid Stik lure as I fish it for stripers in the mouth of the Connecticut River.

Another One Slips Away

I'm always trying to work my fishing obsession around my full time Dad and job duties, so if I can kill two birds with one stone on the way to ballet lessons, I will. I needed a new #AFTCO roller tip top, so I decided to run by one of the better tackle shops in the state that happens to be about 15 minutes away from the studio. It's not my go to, as I'm never headed in that direction to fish, but over the years I'd purchased a few rods, terminal tackle and the like. The shop was a staple in the local fishing community, the owner not only stocking a range of quality products, but also supporting the growth of the sport and contributing to the community in countless ways. I was surprised to pull up and find the door locked, the shop empty and a sign on the door saying it would not be reopening. I've watched a number of local shops close their doors over the years, but I never thought this one was on the way out.

Two weeks prior I had driven up as there was a "40% Off Everything-Spring Cleanout" sale. I felt great having scored some deals on gear prior to heading to Florida. I'd have loaded up on a lot more had I not just bought a plane ticket, rented a boat and charged a bunch of other crap to my card. Now I just felt crappy.

I went home and checked online as word was just starting to spread across several fishing forums. Everyone expressed shock, lamented its loss, and wondered where they were going to get their bait from. Lots of questions were flying around. Now, I don't know the details of the store's closing, though the owner said he was exploring possibilities including someone else taking over. I sure the Cabelas built 15 minutes away a few years back and the Bass Pro opening in the state this year didn't help. Big Box Marts, Amazon and other online outlets make every retail business ultra competitive.

I can't sit here and bash people for buying from Cabelas, Bass Pro or Amazon without being a complete hypocrite. I get points for my Cabelas credit card which I never let go to waste, and have and Amazon Prime account. However, I rarely purchase fishing or shooting gear from Cabelas unless it's with points, on closeout, or isn't carried locally, and spend far more in independent tackle shops than in any large chain. Still, every dollar spent locally has far more of an impact than one spent in a large chain store. For a local tackle shop, a small drop (or increase) in revenue can be the difference in keeping the doors open or closing them for good. Is a $5-$10 difference a really big deal to you? Perhaps it is at the time, but then again maybe not. I believe we should all spend a little more time considering just where and on what we spend our money. Support your local retailers and manufacturers. Buy American when you can. Keep in mind that Cabelas or Bass Pro aren't going to hand out their CEOs private numbers and open that extra hour early for you when you really need bait.   

The irony is, I drove that additional 15 minutes to Cabelas to be told by a sales associate that they didn't carry roller guides, but they did have rods with roller guides that I could buy. Thanks for the help.      

Let's all try to Shop a little more Local, Buy a little more American!

Northern Road Trip

Danny and I had a great fishing road trip to upstate NY. With my boat out of action and Doug coming up to fish, we went to a Plan B - fishing Lake Ontario. I've never fished out on the lake, and thought this would be a fun change of pace. Doug and I are each about 4-1/2 hours drive time from Oswego, NY. Of course Danny and I had to find a new diner for lunch on the way, stopping at Crazy Otto's Empire Diner. We arrived at Feeder Creek Lodge in the mid-afternoon, and after getting settled, headed out for some smallie fishing on the Salmon River. We met up with Uncle Doug at Eddie's for dinner. Today we fished with Capt. Bill VanWormer/Lucky Dutchman Charters. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day or better company that Capt. Bill and his grandson Dylan. Yesterday's conditions were described as a washing machine and a non-existent bite, and the wind is supposed to build back tomorrow and Tuesday. We hit a nice window and landed some fish, lost a few. Doug's 23lb. king was the high hook for the day. Watching him bring it in with 500ft. of line out was fun! Danny was ready to relieve him if he wussed out. Ad Danny said afterward, "Dad, this was a whole lot of fun." I can't ask for better than that.

$6.66

That's how much our two coffees at the Shell station range up as at 3:30 a.m. this morning. The clerk laughed about the devil's number. Should we just buy something else? No, the die had been cast. I joked to Jeff that if we slammed the fish, I'd have to buy $6.66 worth of coffee every morning. We put in at Baldwin Bridge and I tied up as the place was empty, filling my live well and checking out some of the new lighting I had installed. After ten minutes, we began to motor slowly down river. Passing under the bridge, we headed towards North Cove to look for bunker.

I was running slow until the sky started to lighten more to the east and I could better see the water surface. Having had the worst luck this season with submerged objects in the river, I was in no hurry. By the time we were three quarters of a mile below the bridge, I throttled up with no response. My stern was sitting alarmingly low in the water. Had I put the two plugs in before we left? Yes, I had left them in after yesterday and seen both in before launching. I immediately turned on both bilges, the second having been installed earlier in the season as I was worried about just having one and a hand bilge. We were taking on water rapidly, and my fear was a blown connection in the live well system. Jeff started working the Whale Gusher hand bilge and I turned straight in to shore, praying we could make it up on the flats above North Cove and beach. We were holding our own against the water as we approached the flats. The tide was nearing the top of the flood and as we made the edge of the flats, I slammed a rock with my prop, shearing it off. I knew they were in the area, but it was dark and priority #1 had been to get to shallow water before swamping. I threw out the anchor and went overboard into the waist deep water. My prop was gone, and to my surprise, so was one of the rear plugs. We were at least making headway against the flooding, so I retrieved a spare plug and put it in place. The only explanation I can come up with is that I had unscrewed one of the two plugs yesterday to see if there was any water and perhaps didn't fully tighten it, allowing it to work loose and pop out as we motored down river. If we had been taking on water since the time we launched, I wouldn't have made it 100 yards off the dock.

We were dry again within a few minutes and sitting three hundred yards above North Cove. The tide was still moving in, but nearing slack. I dropped my stern mounted trolling motor and kept my fingers crossed that it could get us back up river before the tide started out. It was no small irony that this was the first time I had brought the trolling motor along in the last month or two. Slogging back up river was going to take forever, so I told Jeff to go ahead and fish. He did manage a schoolie and a few swirls on a top water plug. The Gemma Rose II avoided the skunk! It was touch and go getting past the railroad bridge and up towards Baldwin Bridge as the tide had started to flow out, but we eventually managed to get back to the dock without calling Boats US.

The lost prop was not a big deal, as it was dinged up and a replacement is already sitting in the garage. I get to fish quite a bit, so there's always next weekend. I feel terrible for Jeff, with whom I haven't been able to get out on the water all season as he's always working his ass off. I really hope we get a few more chances before the end of the season.

Obviously, I'll be checking not only that the plugs are in, but also double checking that they are tight. The second lesson is that a spare prop isn't very useful sitting in my garage. Finally, if the morning coffee rings up to $6.66, just turn around, go home and go back to sleep.

PS - Think of how much worse it could have been if there was a banana on board!

Eastern LIS Report 6-30-13

My fishing has been so hit or miss.  Only able to get out 1-2 times a week, and with the current weather and a few billion gallons of fresh water dumped into the sound, it's been hard to figure out patterns.  My brother came up from Philly this weekend, and we got skunked today. We ran out of Old Saybrook at 4:30am, but couldn't find the bunker in the mouth of the CT River in any large concentrations. Headed west to Clinton again. Got down there and still couldn't spot any bunker.  Both places were crawling yesterday.  Decided we would have to rely on artificials. The second we tried to move, fog rolled in. We were down to 100ft of visibility in minutes. This was 6:30 in the morning. We crawled back to Saybrook as I didn't want to get run over in my skiff. It sucked. We threw some topwaters on the flats. Zip. By 8-8:30 we discussed calling it a day, but the fog started lifting. Forecasts still had thunderstorms moving in around 10-11am, but I wasn't seeing anything on radar.  I decided to take a peek at Long Sand Shoal. Nothing. Not a bird in the air. On the way back in, lo and behold, big bunker all over. We debated whether to snag a few as the tide was crapping out, and ended up grabbing a half a dozen. We ran over to Hatchet's, but had no tide. I threw one on a line and let it swim. We sat there for forty minutes and drifted a few yards. I told my brother we weren't likely to do much until the tide got going, which meant waiting, and he wanted to get on the road. I started ditching the rest of the baits in the livewell. As I dumped the last one, I caught a big swirl out of the corner of my eye. I had just provided a free meal to a big striper. I quickly reeled in the last bait and pitched it in the area. It was taken in about ten seconds. I let it run for a bit then engaged the reel and came tight. Fish took off down the edge of the reef. It broke me off in the rocks. That was it. Day over.

Reports from a few other boats were that Bartlett's and the Niantic area was also tough, though Valiant Rock in the Race yielded some small bass.  The Blues are MIA, and I worry that many just continued past the LIS as there was so much fresh water dumped in.  

Nice day, crappy fishing in the eastern Long Island Sound.

Went out a 5:00am with a buddy and fished the flood in the eastern sound from Watch Hill back west to Bartlett's. The fishing sucked. Thanks to Andrea, the water was the color of black coffee throughout most of the area inside Fisher's. There were a bunch of boats out around Valiant Rock in the Race, as per usual, but I don't fish my skiff out there. Only real signs of life were the bait balls above Bartlett's, but nothing biting. There were a few small blues around the outflow, but I really didn't feel like spending time there. It looks like 4-5" of rain did a number on the bite. Took my friend sightseeing up the Thames and called it a day by 10:00a.m. Maybe it got better on the ebb tide. Hindsight being 20/20, maybe I should have launched in RI and tried for some cleaner water. Maybe I should have just stayed in bed!  Now I have to go rinse everything down:( Hopefully I can sneak out an evening this week, or next weekend's weather will cooperate enough for an Saturday night/Sunday morning trip.

The best part of the day.  It was down hill from here, but hey, I promised to post the bad with the good.  Not even a little fish to make look like big fish!   


 

Fisher's Island Report 6/1/2013

 

The Long Island Sound is quickly filling with bass and blues, with fish close to 60lbs. being taken this past week.  Drifting 3-way rigs with bunker has been the way to go.  While I like to get out and do this every once and a while, it's typically at night and looking for monster bass.  I much prefer light tackle and fly fishing from my skiff, targeting top water bites and fish on the smaller rips and reefs.  I simply can't safely venture out onto the big rips when the tide gets moving, and find it more fun to catch a bunch of 20-30 pound bass on 12-20lb. line setups or my 8wt.  Fisher's Island and its surroundings are usually my go-to spots.  

Saturday morning I overslept, waking at 4:09 a.m., about the time I had planned to arrive at the launch to catch both the start of the outgoing tide and predawn.  By the time I gassed up, stopped at Dunkin Donuts and got on the water it was after 6 a.m.   I decided to bypass the Clumps and make straight for the reefs around Watch Hill.  The wind was finally cooperating, and the run out was smooth.  I arrived to find more than a dozen boats on Sugar, including Jack Balint and Steve Burnett, both with charter trips.  As I mentioned in the past, Jack has been my go to captain when chartering in the LIS, and I'll be headed across to Montauk again with him this fall. 

The tide was flowing nicely, but the fish that you often see breaking on the surface were nowhere to be seen.  I marked a few bait balls, but fishing this reef solo in the Gemma Rose II is tough as I can't let her drift stern first back into the rip.  It's nice when I've got someone aboard so we can take turns casting and holding the boat in position.  I wasn't there long when both Jack and Steve took off west.  This was a clear indication that nothing was going on around here or Watch Hill, as neither would be leaving fish with customers on board. 

I decided against continuing the battle with the current, and started west along the north side of Fisher's.  Last year from mid-May to late July, this area produced solid action along the many reefs and rocky shores, particularly on the ebb.  On this day, the water was filthy and I got nothin' at any of the stops I made until a short fish at North Point.  I worked back along the south side with the same results.  (The fluke fleet was out in force, anchored south of the island.)  By the time I'd circumnavigated Fisher's, Jack and Steve were back on Sugar, and then east to Watch Hill.  I managed another short bass off of Catumb Rocks as the ebb tide was finally giving way. 

I wasn't ready to head in, as despite the slow fishing, it was a really nice day on the water.  Just for the hell of it, I decided to run over to Bartlett's.  By this time, the tide was completely slack, and there were only a few boats anchored fishing scup.  It was time to head back to Avery Point and call it a day.  On the way back, I landed my best catch of the afternoon!  My favorite Bud-n-Mary's (Islamorada, FL) cap blew off.  I motored back around, and as I don't carry a landing net, I leaned over the bow to grab it as I idled forward.  I had my hands on it, but then lost it under the boat.  The prop wash sent it down and I figured it was lost.  I cut my engine and let the Gemma Rose drift with the current.  Sure enough, after a couple of minutes it came up not 20 ft. from the boat.     

 

Conditions:

6/1/13

Mostly Sunny

Wind SW 5-10knots

Seas less than 1 ft.

Outgoing tide

Water Temp 58-59 degrees, dirty

 

Gear Used:

12-20 lb. spinning gear setups

7" Hogy's in amber, pink and white

White Zoom Super Flukes w. Kalin jig heads

247 Squid-Zee in amber

 

      

Bait, bait everywhere, and nary a striper to see. (5/19/13 on the Lower Connecticut River)

Bait, bait everywhere, and nary a striper to see.  I decided to move down river this weekend, despite the stripers still hanging north of Middletown.  This was my first trip to the mouth of the CT River, as I had heard that action was pretty decent around Great Island the last week or so.  After yesterday afternoon's trip cut short (20 min. total) by a problem with the Lowrance, I was back on the water at 5am this morning.  The tide was coming in until about 7:30, and it was dead calm.  I'll never get tired of a sunrise over the water. 

 

I started throwing pearl Sluggos and some swim baits, and had a few swirls and swipes, but no hooksets.  Close to and hour and a half of work did not produce a fish, nor did I see any pulled in by anyone else in the area. I decided to motor north and see what I could find.  A few swirls above the 95 bridge, but I just couldn't get a fish to bite. 

 

Just below Hamburg Cove, the water exploded with herring.  I was marking a school so thick It looked like the bottom was at 10 feet in 30+ feet of water.  Surely, bass had to be beneath.  I dropped  soft plastics through the school, bouncing them of fish as they descended.  I fished swimbaits at every level and sluggos on top.  Nada.  Nothing.  I wasn't marking any big fish either.  Same story with two or three other boats that had been working the school for a while.  Livelining may have been the trick, but also illegal with river run herring. 

   

 

Time running short, I ran back to the mouth where the earlier action repeated itself.  Swirls, but no takers.  I'm sure I could have ground out a fish or two, but I had to be in early.  This was my first, and hopefully last, skunk of the season.

 

Schoolies and Hypothermia

That's about all I had to show for my night out on the CT River Saturday and early Sunday. The game plan was straight forward. Fish the outgoing tide from Hartford down to Haddam, catch a few hours of sleep in the truck, and then get back out before dawn to fish Haddam down towards the mouth. I put in around 5:30 pm and worked up with the incoming tide through Middletown. The banks were lined with folks building fires and getting set for a night of soaking worms. I caught a few small schoolies near the powerplant, but wasn't seeing much action, so I continued north. While the banks were dotted most of the way up, not too many boats until north of the Rocky Hill launch. Pretty soon I came across half a dozen anchored up and fishing the bends. I saw a few hook-ups, including one decent keeper, but I just don't like to sit still. I wanted more action, and was willing to poke around more. Just south of the Rt. 3 Glastonbury bridge, things started to improve. Bait was popping all over the surface, and I was marking schools below. A couple of soft plastics on Kalin lead heads yielded a few quick schoolies. Now, I wouldn't normally leave biting fish, but this was also a scouting trip, so I decided to push on up to Hartford. I must admit, I rarely fish up here, and the move was a mistake because I went as far north as the rail bridge without finding another hot spot. I also noted the temperature was rapidly dropping. At this point, let me give a shout out to the folks at weather.com, because once again, you were so far from right. I was expecting a low still in the 40's, and it was already getting down there by ten or so. I was not relishing a night run all the way back down to Haddam, as it is impossible to hunker down behind the windscreen and still see anything other than the reflection of gauges. In the winter I wear a mask and goggles, which were of course at home. At this point, I just wanted off the water. I had to switch fuel tanks around the Pratt dock, meaning I didn't really have enough to fish in the a.m. without refueling. By the time I reached Salmon Cove, I was miserable. I pulled the boat, threw stuff in the truck, and crawled into my weekend fishing season accommodations (the bed with a shell). I'd left my damn sleeping bag in the garage! I chose the air mattress and stadium blanket over the drivers seat and heat. I managed a few hours of shut-eye. I did a walk around before pulling out of the lot, noticing that ice had formed on my decks. My entire body shaking from cold convinced me to turn north on Rt. 9 and a nice warm bed instead of south to the Baldwin Bridge launch. The temperature on the bank at the intersection of Rt. 154 and Rt. 82 in Haddam read 32 degrees as I drove past at 4 a.m.. Could we PLEASE just have some warmer weather?


A beautiful sunset south of Wethersfield, CT. This is when I should have called it quits.