Stress Reeliever

Holy S%&T these are two ugly crews. I guess I had better have the forward berth prepared for the Plumeister/Whatever excercise session.


Branford rules this contest.

ReelCrazySportfishing

We shall see

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Whatever

Our boat is stacked!!!!!!!!!!!!

Geez, I don't think you guys should even get out of bed!!

I'm so excited I could Sh!t!!! LMFHAO

And I probably will ! LOL Two or three times.

ReelCrazySportfishing

Hopefully Matt emptied the potti for you

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Stress Reeliever

We have a 5 gallon pail and Toilet paper ready. Thats how ya do it.

Philly Doug

Just got out of the car and am feet dry gazing at the beautiful sound.......and thinking of the beating we are going to put on you tomorrow. Sleep well gentlemen, see you on the salt in the a.m.

ReelCrazySportfishing

Matt i hope you have a couple of pails and even more rolls of TP

he does a hell of a job on a live well and the way he is talking you guys may be standing in the stuff

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ReelCrazySportfishing

Doug
you wont see them Where we are going, they would never dream of it..

its make pergatory cove on golden pond look like matts swimming pool

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Scup

My favorite Fish,

I hold commercial CT fin fish License, and mostly target Scup, but Blacks are # 1 on my list for enjoyable species to catch. If what is shown is a picture of your boat, its too big to do what I am going to describe, but for guys in little boats there is a couple of great spots in the New London area. I am out of Stonington now, so I do not mind sharing these great spots with the form and how to fish for them.

I had to learn how to fish shallow rock piles on my own. It started more than 40 years ago, when I was returning home after having a good day of bass fishing. It was dusk, very little sunlight left, and as I passed the rockpile marked by a buoy just to the East of New London Light, I saw fish fins sticking out of the water right at the edge of the visible rocks. The water is only a few inches deep where I saw the fish fins moving about. In other words, the bellies of the fish were scraping the bottom. Thought they were bass but after several casts with no results, I gave up and went home. Bothered me all night long as to what I had seen and what could those fish be. Next day, at dusk, armed with green crabs and a bait casting outfit, I headed for the same rockpile again. Using two anchors, bow and stern, I ended up within 15 of the dangerous rocks. My terminal tackle consisted of a single Virgina hook (Blackfish hook size 3) which is a good sized hook for Blackfish. Nothing else, no weight, no swivels, no beads, no leader, no hardware at all. Since I could not cast the cut green crab very well, I stripped off around 10 feet of line and threw the crab at the rocks. What a dusk that turned out to be. Instant action almost as fast as the crab hit the water. Must have hooked around three dozen fish and lost three fish for every four hooked. Biggest going a little over 8 pounds. The high loss rate was do the fish running to the far side of the rock pile and even with me standing on my seat to gain height, I could not prevent fish from doing their bulldog like run and with my line scraping over the top of the visible rocks. Large amounts of kelp did not help the fishing conditions much either.

I tried this technique in other nearby places as well. Pequot Lighthouse is another great blackfish spot. Do not bother to go there during daylight hours. In fact, I never had much luck at dawn either, only at dust and at ebb tide. Both, high and low ebb work, with high having a slight edge. To fish Pequot light, I mean going right into the rocks. Standoff a bit, and wait until the ferry goes by at low tide. You will see the submerged rocks when the lull of the ferries' wake reaches them. I used to mark the rock with an old worthless lobster pot. Use two anchors, fore and aft, to hold your boat steady. Green crabs, fiddle crabs, and hermit crabs work well. The best are the mud fiddle crabs which you can catch in almost any cove on the edge of the mud flats at low tide. Bring a kid along to do the dirty work for you as these crabs can move. Do not bother to buy store bought imported China Back fiddlers from Florida as they will catch but our local green crabs work far better. Our local hermit crabs are without a doubt a Blackfish's favorite meal. However, I never did figure how to keep these tender morsels on the hook. Blacks seem to get to them even before I can get my reel in gear.

My terminal tackle has evolved somewhat since those days, but not by much. I still use an old Penn 99, a conventional reel, low gear ratio, and without Penn's horrible level wind system which has always been a pain. They fail, shorten your cast, and interfere with my fingers from holding the line. A heavy 7 foot single piece rod, such as one of those ugly sticks works fine. I did have a heavy one piece Penn rod, but a black made it a two piece rod. I use 65 lb test power-pro line. I do not need the strength of this line, but because these new braids are so thin, I cannot feel the line with my fingers unless I move up to 65 pound test. In any event, when a 15 lb black heads for the rocks, you will be glad that you have the power to stop him (maybe). Next I use a four foot leader (50 pound test) tied with an Albright knot to my line. Slip on a egg sinker for the conditions at hand (for the spots I described weights between 1/2 and 1 ounce will suffice. If you move out to deep water, this rig will still work perfectly, but you will have to use a larger egg sinker. Next I slip on a 5mm bead before tying the end of the leader to 130 pound power swivel by Spro (size 4). Somehow, I think I might have been responsible for the standard two hook blackfish rig having those silly red beads attached to them. I used the red bead to prevent my sliding sinker from snagging on the knot (improved clinch knot) that attaches my leader to the swivel. Should the sinker snag on the knot, then you no longer have a fish finder rig. Do not think that 130 pound test swivel is ridiculous. These new stainless power swivels are so strong, that diameter of the wire used to form the swivel's eye is so thin in the smaller sizes, the swivel itself will stress your leader at the knot. Do not fool around with with tackle having weak links in it if you are fishing for Blacks. If it can break, they will break it. Lastly, about 14 inches of 40 pound leader tied to a #3 or #4 Virgina hook. Again, do not fool around with a fancy and expensive Japanese hook. Mustard makes a great hook and this particular hook did not become famous for blacks without cause. It is not forged but they make up for it in using a massive wire size to form the hook. It is blued, which is the poorest finish known, but so what! I lose, on the average, two or three rigs every time I go out. It will be unlikely you have the rig at the end of the day.

While this is a single hook rig, I cannot understand why anyone would want to use a two hook rig. Two hook rigs tend to tangle more in a tide, always present a danger when you bring a fish aboard since you have that second free hook ready to nail you when you reach for your fish, two hooks get fouled on the bottom with greater frequency, and lastly, I have trouble enough getting in a single 6 pound black using the gear described. Cannot imagine what would happen if I tied into a team of big blacks but it would not be good.

Lastly, the blacks have not yet moved into the shallow reefs. This should happen very soon, perhaps even as you are reading this. Good luck!

ReelCrazySportfishing

Scup

WE got most of our action deep today. We tried a couple of shallow areas with very little action but there are some there. another couple weeks i feel they will be strong.

We ended up with 5 keepers

how did team branford bozo's do?????

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