2023 Fish-Pic-O-Rama

[teleee]

that's not the gill plate ....

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^ This


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[swimmy]

Been a minute since I checked in. Love the activity in this thread. Really fun seeing what y'all are up to.

Damn Roos, that's a crazy looking brown.

Weather here has been spectacular.

[romeo tango]

sturgeon can be very challenging to unhook, especially if they suck the bait down and are hooked deep
hook removal can resemble minor surgery. fishing from a boat adds to the complexity ....

I caught this guy from shore, hooked in the corner of the mouth and shallow.
very simple to pull the hook and send him on his way
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[The Suit]

especially if they suck the bait down and are hooked deep
hook removal can resemble minor surgery.

Have you tried or are you using circle hooks?

Back in the day 20+ years ago we mostly used J-hooks when dead-bait fishing for billfish (sailfish especially), and had very high rates of gut hooking fish. I first started using circle hooks around 1998 or 1999, sailfishing out of Isla Mujeres and the difference was night and day. Fish get hooked in the corner of the jaw, every time.

There were a bunch of studies run around then that showed circle hooks reducing sailfish mortality by an order of magnitude at least.

[romeo tango]

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Have you tried or are you using circle hooks?...

yes, and no ....

circle hooks vs. octopus hooks is a sure-fire way to get the locals all riled up around the whiskey fire!

I use Gamakatsu 5/0 octopus hooks with the barb ground down
circle hooks have a curved, angled tip (as opposed to straight tip). the type of hook commercial long-liners use

you can set the hook when using an octopus. this helps prevent the fish from chugging the bait down deep.
you can't set the hook with a circle hook. the fish has to hook itself and usually results in deeply embedded hooks

of all the arguments I've heard concerning sturgeon fishing, this is a very common one. feel free to comment
PS: i'd like to hear some of your stories

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[romeo tango]

.notice the different points
I think marketing and regional lingo is the basis for the arguments I hear


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[ColMan]

That 36" brown is insane! They look more healthy and less like overfed pellet heads this year. Wonder if Jones is doing something different these days. Anyhow, congrats Roo. Going to be hard to ever top that thing.

Been slacking on taking pics on trips this year. Took a few over the past weekend at least.









Fishing was a bit slow but had zero wind and 80deg temps for 3 days straight so no complaints.

[romeo tango]

.
reading about hooks a bit this evening ....

the Okuma website states that Gamakatsu Octopus hooks are J-hooks

well, that helps clear things up
.

[plugboots]

It’s been a long long time since I fished with bait and it was right when circle hooks came out and it was just so trippy not setting the hook

[tgapp]

okay so this post is a little late coming - i've been reeling from the biggest depressive episode of my life, and as much as i've wanted to post on here, it's been, well, hard to do things like that. it's more than time though.

i think most of y'all know that i got into fishing like a year and a half ago, when Dibs dragged my ass to the green and BobMC fed me and put me up and treated me like family, and somehow Dibs managed to even row my ass into some fish, in spite of my complete inability to fucking throw to save my life.

tonight, while fishing my local skinny water, i had an aggressive candy brown smash my hopper, and i was absolutely overcome with gratitude - first towards the fish for an incredible fight (though small, he knew exactly where the fast water was & he wasted no time in running hard for the current), and then to the community here that has been so supportive.



feel like it's time to thank a bunch of you for everything you've done for me. so, in no particular order:

thanks marsB - for showing me local water and for helping me get my kit dialed. dude's a fucking gem of a human. like two weeks ago, i had covid and i noticed marsB's car at one of the local TH's. found him out in a riffle and he told me that the only thing that had been working was big green hoppers. he threw me his last one (made green by a sharpie), and, i shit you not, two minutes after we said goodbye i had this absolute beauty of a brown slam him:



fucking killer, one of my best local fish, caught like 6 minutes from my house. thanks dude.

other mags - harry for turning me on to Ivan Doig (not fishing related but also extremely fishing related), jcpnm for teaching me how to actually row properly, underoos for being such a fucking standup dude and making me feel included even when i am a mega jong (and for making incredible content), telee for giving me my absolute favorite streamer of all time (gonna throw that tomorrow morning) - and bobmc; who unfortunately i haven't fished with for a few months because of my lame-ass job, but bobmc is the fucking kindest, most talented camping cook i know, and i'm psyched to get to spend some time with him this weekend

really though - i have an incredible debt of gratitude towards dibs, and i can't express that enough. the man is the very fucking spirit of this community; kind, patient, endlessly stoked, generous, and super fucking talented too.


dibs with a football of a rainbow last weekend

fish on!!

we had a banger day at local stillwater - easily 35+ fish in the boat, with a species first on a flyrod for me:





managed to double up a few times, even got one "two species special" in one net.

thanks man. i owe you so much.

alright i'm done being sappy here's a picture of sheldon with the crawdad i caught with a fly rod

[The Suit]

of all the arguments I've heard concerning sturgeon fishing, this is a very common one. feel free to comment
PS: i'd like to hear some of your stories

.

Back when the sportfishing community was figuring out circle hooks for billfish, one of the things people learned was that “offset” circle hooks — meaning the point is not in line with the hook’s main shaft — would still gut hook a fish. I can’t tell if those Gamekatsu octopus circles are offset are not, but that could be a reason why people are gut hooking sturgeon with circle hooks. Another possibility is that the bent eye is a problem. I’m not the hook buyer on my boat, but I’m pretty sure we’re using this eagle claw circle hook:

You can see that the point is 90 degrees from the direction of the eye. I think that’s important, too. Circle hook rigging is pretty finicky, although usually when we get it wrong these days it just means we miss more fish.

I’m pretty one-dimensional as a fisherman — my friend and I have been trolling dead baits, pulling the same spread from the same boat in the same part of the Pacific targeting the same fish, for a dozen years.

We generally drag four or five “teasers,” which are artificial lures that don’t have hooks in them, and four dead baits, which are almost always a baitfish called a ballyhoo, rigged with a circle hook. We also have two “pitch baits” which are rods that are also rigged with a bait, but that bait is just dangling over the gunwale, not in the water.

If a fish comes up and starts trying to eat a teaser, an angler grabs one of the pitch bait rods, throws the bait in the water, puts the reel into free-spool, and lets the bait drop back next to the teaser. Once the bait is next to the teaser, the angler puts his or her thumb on the spool to hold the bait in position, and someone else (mate, captain, other angler) yanks the teaser away.

If everything goes right, the riled up billfish looks around for something else to eat, sees the pitch bait, and grabs it.

When that happens, the angler takes his/her thumb off the spool so the fish can turn and swallow the bait with minimal resistance. After a count of five seconds or so, the angler engages the drag (slowly if they’re not too excited) and the circle hook should catch in the corner of the fish’s jaw as the bait is getting pulled out of its mouth. Anglers who insist on “settting the hook” inevitably have lower hook up ratios than the one’s who just ease the reel into gear.

If a fish comes up behind one of the hooked baits, it’s much the same, except the angler has to get to the rod and get the reel into free spool before the fish grabs the bait. After a few hundred hours staring out the back of the boat you start to get good at seeing them in time. People who haven’t put in those hours usually don’t see shit and have no idea what’s going on until the fish is hooked.

I’ve done this literally thousands of times (one-dimensional, remember). A skilled angler who is paying attention probably catches about 70% of the fish that actually try to grab a bait.

[Rasputin]

I had a surprisingly good day on the river yesterday, the little fish I usually catch weren't biting for much of the day, but I got plenty of action from mid sized fish, 9-12 inchers kept finding their way onto my line, and some relatively thick ones for their length. Also, I caught a beautiful cutbow of around 15". At one point I caught two whitefish in two casts (each were a foot long), on the surface no less (I looked it up, so as to be educated and not ignorant, they are "benthic predators" which makes them primarily bottomfeeders. I caught fifteen fish in around seven hours, the smallest showing up toward the end of the day, taking BWOs, which are coming on in these parts.

Yesterday was thoroughly satisfying, especially in the wake of breaking my preferred fly rod last week (9 ft. graphite #5). Instead I tried out an old, 8 ft., slow-action glass rod, which has been in my possession for many years, but which I've never really fished. It's heavy, and a bit forward weighted, but mends softer than my quick-action graphite (also 8 ft., and a #5). The broken rod is of a long defunct company (Albright), so if my likely futile attempt at repairing it fails (I haven't wrapped it yet), it's a goner, which really sucks, because it was a gift from my dad, and it was the perfect all around rod for my needs (crap).

I didn't bring my camera, which is better for the fish, and I think I've posted plenty of fish pics. It was just a phase I was going through, feeling the need to show evidence to myself that I was still out doing something. Yesterday was comfortable (I wore a sweatshit all day, I've had plenty of heat for the year), and I felt at peace. I got used to the heft of the different rod after a while, just like getting on a different pair of skis, however my shoulder and arm is a bit sore from the additional muscle needed to offset the tip-heavy beast. I'm thinking of adding some ballast to the butt.

[GiantManta]

Holy crap Roos and JCPM!! I have seen some footballs from Jurassic but dang!!

I too played hooky the other day and hit the Ark. A bunch of brownies and this healthy Bow which was maybe half the size but sure had some nice colors. ll

[Percy Rideout]

Holy crap Roos and JCPM!! I have seen some footballs from Jurassic but dang!!

I too played hooky the other day and hit the Ark. A bunch of brownies and this healthy Bow which was maybe half the size but sure had some nice colors. ll

Beautiful color on that bow. Headed over that way to ride dirtbikes, but going to get a line wet on the upper ark today or Sunday. What were they biting on?

[GiantManta]

Sad but true but 80% of my action came on the squirmy. I rotated through a lot of nymphs and was not getting much action so I resorted to the squirmy. A little action on the streamer side in the deeper pools.

[romeo tango]

.
thanks for the feedback Suit

i've seen very few sturgeon gut-hooked, sorry my description indicated that
when a fish sucks a baited hook into it's fleshy, cavernous mouth,
removing the hook can get complicated
navigating past the siphon (protrusible mouth) to extract a hook gets complicated FAST

the best case scenario is that you are paying attention to your rod tip and
set the hook before it goes down deep into the mouth

again, thanks for the beta
i'm going to end this before the dentists TechTalkJongs me
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[plugboots]

2-8 pm. All the big ones were LDR.

[Rasputin]

Another great day on the river. In an area which previously has yielded nothing but small fish, today a burly Cutthroat came up and inhaled a tan chubby, as in I had to reach inside of his mouth just to reach the hook, he was pretty sure he had a score. The recent rains had the river colder and slightly higher. I caught another whitefish on the surface, this time with a trico spinner. I also caught the same big dumb fish that I've caught six times previously, again, lucky seven. Sigh.

I saw mahoganies flying today, and caught two fish on mahogany parachutes, also had one break off. Trico spinners produced a few fish. Later I caught a few on green crystal cadis, and then trailed a BWO, and got a few more fish. Then it was almost dark, another seven or so hours and fourteen fish. I'm liking what fall is doing to the fishing.

[plugboots]

I thought it was too late for Tricos.

[::: :::]

Got out to the other side of the cascades to take advantage of overcast skies for a daytime effort. Still kinda smoky.
I got some action on droppers; olive cdc emerger & a jig pheasant tail variant were the favorites




Seems like October caddis are out/about but an orange stimulator & an orange ehc as my hopper didn’t provoke any surface action…maybe had i stayed for the evening

[BobMc]

Quick trip to Wyoming with SFB, Tgapp, and my buddy John.

Fishing was somewhat slow, but the company was stellar.

My buddy John stuck a 22 inch tank soon after the put in. He caught it on a spinner and six pound test, did a damn fine job of getting it to the boat.



Tgapp got one on.



We got another decent cutt.



Saw sites.



Ate good food.



All in all, a damn fine time.

[plugboots]

Not Rasputin level, but:
Big flat with one fish rising. I hooked him near the right of this pic.

He was a pig, I was alone w/ 6X.

He never came close enough, even though I tried. I had to follow him under the bridge on the left.
I netted him here:

20+

[::: :::]

Dang, what a chunk

[Rasputin]

Meaty football! It would have been a great video to see you fight him under the bridge.

[tgapp]

good times and slow fishing

got a decent snake river cutty on a hopper but that's it. otherwise, enjoyed amazing dry fly Moscow mules courtesy of Dibs, Bob's burgers, Ross teaching me to throw spey, and a beautiful equinox

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