Scup

I was cleaning up my computer and found an article that I had written concerning the use of lead head jigs. I originally wrote the article with the intent of selling it, but nobody would pay me a nickel for it. Take it or leave it, since it is worthless to me, I am throwing it out to this form. Heaven knows, I have seen so many weekend anglers doing stupid things out there I am surprised that they ever catch anything. This technique was taught to me by a charter boat captain out of Sheepshead Bay more than fifty years ago. The name of the boat was "EdWal". What happened is two guys got together and purchased a surplus Navy Launch and converted it to a fishing boat. Their names were Edward and Walter, hence EdWal. I never met Edward. Walter, in his day, was legend. I watched him in action on the fishing grounds and he was just unbelievable. Allen, my fishing buddy, manage to get a look at the wholesaler's catch log in which all of the commercial catches landed for the week were recorded for payment on Friday. Walter out caught them all by far. Walter was a charter boat captain, and probably the best, but because of the severe competition, and his boat fell far short of what one would expect to see for a charter boat, there were days he could not get a charter. Walter would then turn commercial, and offer to take kids off the slums of Brooklyn for a day of fishing. We loved it, it did not cost us a dime, and Walter ended up with more fish to sell. It was a great arrangement in which everyone involved benefited. I still remember the wholesale price of blues and bass. Blues went for 18 cents and bass 30 cents per pound. The poor bluefish; fifty years later (like last September), blues were only paying 15 cents per pound.

How to make and use lead head jigs


BACKGROUND:

Held a commercial fishing license for more than thirty years. Sold fish for even a longer period, going back to the fifties. Never was cited for keeping an illegal sized fish or keeping anything above the catch limit. Probably was responsible, in part, for the driving the striped bass population to near extinction during the eighties. Favorite commercial method for the taking of striped bass and bluefish is the use of lead heads, sometimes, called the buck tail.

REASON FOR ARTICLE:

Likely coming near to the end of my days and wanted to leave something behind for novice fishermen. This paper is for those who have read articles on jig fishing, written by idiots, who claim to be experts. You must have seen articles written by these so-called experts who have proceeded to misinform the public with poor, incorrect, and down right ridiculous information. Probably the most incorrect publicize fact concerning lead head jigs are in its very name, “Jig Fishing”.

TYPES and SELECTION of JIG HEADS

To the novice, selection of jig heads must seem like a near impossible task. Do not worry; it is really far simpler than you might think. What is nearly impossible to do is to describe every imaginable type of head shape available since there are dozens of styles to choose from. Style of head shape makes very little difference in its ability to catch fish; they all work! Do not get caught up into the belief that you need several different styles to be successful. Let’s talk about the pros and cons of just a few different styles so that you can judge for yourself.

My favorite, and really the most simple, is the common “bullet head”. A very common head that is available in lead molds at very reasonable prices. There is no other jig head that is as streamlined or casts as well as the bullet head. It fishes beautifully when used in conjunction with balanced tackle (more about that later), and can be used in water depths from as little as three feet (believe me as I will tell you how to fish this remarkable lure in shallow waters) to the deepest depths you will ever want to fish in.

Other popular heads are the smiling bill, popped eyed, tear drop, football, and the list goes on. I would not lose any sleep in the use of any of the above shapes since they all fish and cast very well. The advantages are so minor it really does not matter! The smiling bill advantage is that you could easily paint the open mouth red. A little red on the lure can definitely help but you could dip the end of a bullet head in red paint as well. The popped eyed head style makes it easier to paint the bulging eyes, but again, you can attach eyes to the bullet head or paint them on almost as easy. Keep in mind that much of the above is very minor and plain all-white jigs will fish indistinguishably from a beautifully finished lure. However, if you wish to drive yourself nuts for personal satisfaction, go ahead, it will not hurt. The teardrop is supposed to fish a little deeper and present a broader side footprint. This is true, but upping to the next size of the bullet head will do the same. The football head lends itself to weed less operation. I never figured out how to fish an area, after a dragger has cut tons of eelgrass loose from the bottom. Every cast becomes loaded with eelgrass no matter what lure is used, weed less or not. Even when you have a fish on, fishing in the weeds will cause your line to become loaded after a large fish makes his runs. This can really mess things up. Avoid fishing areas loaded with debris!

Weight of Heads

This is a critical and a very important selection. Buy jig head molds that offer you a selection of sizes. For most work the one ounce size is great. However, depending on conditions (will explain later) sizes ranging from one-half to several ounces all have their place. At most, you should not have to buy more than two molds.

Best Molds

Without a doubt, the “Do-it” manufacturer leads the list. They are just made better and thus leave little to do, like cutting away excess lead after pouring. Most of my molds go back to Herter’s (no longer made but sometimes available on auctions), which are decent and originally cost fewer than five dollars. Not as nice as Do-it, but more than satisfactory. The only disadvantage is the molds usually cast only one size per mold.

Color and paint

Use white power paint, end of story! In all my years of fishing, only once did the color yellow out fish white. I have no idea why that happened, but it is not worth the effort to fool around with different colors.

Hair

Originally buck tails were tied with buck tail hair. No surprise! It fishes great but after catching your first Blue fish, it will become obvious that this material is a poor choice. After one or two Blues, most of your hair will be gone. I tried white hair-like nylon material and it too fishes very well and can catch maybe seven or eight blues before needing to be retied. Then I tried crimped nylon, which is the sturdiest material of them all. Does not fish as well as the others, but it is just about impossible to detect any difference in its fishing qualities. Do not worry about the insignificant differences; use the crimped nylon since a well-tied lure, with most of its material intact, fishes better than a denuded lead head.

How to pour

Read the instructions that come with your mold. Will not say anything else about this as lead presents a major health risk on several accounts. Do not sell short the dangers of the use and the pouring of lead.


Hook size

No problem here, match the hook size to the one recommended by the manufacturer. Typically, a 6/0 hook is right for a one-ounce jig. Mustard, is about the best hook supplier for the dollar spent. Eagle Claw is good too. Stay away from hook styles that are thin (Aberdeen), since nothing bothers a commercial fisherman more than having a hook straighten out and the subsequent lost of a fish, not to mention the wasted time and cost of having to replace end tackle. Since you can no longer get the original Herter’s hooks for their molds, substitute Mustard hooks. At worst, you may have to remove a small amount of material from the mold to get the hook to fit. This is not a big deal. I prefer the Mustard, tinned O’Shaughnessy styles, that come in a host of sizes consisting two different lengths and two different bent eye angles. Get the style that best fits your mold. Be prepared to shell out money if your preferences run to hooks such as Gamakatsu, Daiichi, or Owner. These are great hooks but are way too rich for my blood.


ATTRACTORS

In almost all situations an attractor, such as a white pork rind is added to the hook to improve performance. Think about it! The lead forms the head of the baitfish you are trying to imitate. The hair forms its body. The attractor becomes the tail. Sometimes the attractor is not necessary such as when the Bluefish go into a feeding frenzy, but in general, pros use attractors. A four-inch, 3/8-inch wide, white pork rind strip works great. However, I gave up using pork rinds. Do not know why manufacturers insist on using a jar with a metal cap. The cap rusts out, becomes difficult to open, the rust discolors the strips, and they cost like hell. I feel that if the manufacturer cannot figure out how to put a plastic cap on their product, then the heck with them. On several occasions, I used a strip of cut undershirt as an attractor with more than satisfactory results. Currently, I use four-inch white plastic grub tails. Probably the best action of all attractors ever invented. The only negative thing about them is they quickly become history when blues are around. However, they are cheap, easy to store, quick to put on, and if the Blues are in one of their hit anything moods, it will quickly become obvious after a trial cast that an attractor may not needed. Also keep in mind that if the bass are feeding on squid (one of their favorites), there is nothing wrong in using one of Mario's squid strips as the bucktail does a good job of imitating squid as well.



Using Balance Tackle

The most important aspect of using buck tails is to have balanced tackle. Without a doubt, most fisherman come to a nearly “dead-in-the-water situation” because out-of-whack tackle. Let’s start with the most common situation: fishing a water column somewhere between 10 and 40 feet deep, from an anchored boat, with modest currents of about one to two miles per hour. Use the one-ounce buck tail for this situation! Use thirty pound test monofilament line, not twenty-pound test or forty-pound test line. The reason for this is the weight of the buck tail must be balanced to the diameter of the line. What should be foremost in your mind is that a jig is a swimming lure. Yes, you could jig a lead head, but for each fish I catch jigging a lead head, I probably catch more than 100 fish using it as swimming lure. The very special circumstances under which to use it as a jig will be discussed later. The so-called experts will tell you that it is critical to fish at the correct depth. They just happen to correct, but I have always been too stupid to figure out just what the correct depth is. Therefore, I always fish the entire water column. It is simple, and hookup (when fish are feeding) occurs almost, if not always, on every cast. This is how you do it! Picture your boat; pointing into the tide, which will happen at anchor, assuming the wind is not kicking up a fuss. Hopefully, you are over feeding fish. If you are not over fish, then there is not thing you can do to bring them in over the side. Probably someone like me has the biggest advantage over amateurs in knowing where and when to fish. However, when you see other boats next to you hauling them in, and you are not catching, then a light bulb should come on in your head signaling that you are doing something wrong.

This is how you should fish a lead head jig from an anchored boat. Make a moderate cast always (very important) at right angles to the centerline of the boat. No need for heroics here; anything around 100 feet from the boat is more than adequate. Now believe me when I tell you what to do next: always allow the lead head to hit bottom before you do anything else. You really cannot always tell exactly when you hit bottom since you will typically be in free-spool after just completing a cast, but a sensitive touch on the spool with your thumb during the first cast will be an indicator to you. Since your jig will drop at the same rate on subsequent casts, you need not have a great touch after that. Just mentally time the free fall of your jig. One point to be made here is that of using a spinning reel or a conventional reel. I never figured out how to keep my fingers in contact with my line while using a spinning reel. They are simply not built for it. To use thirty-pound test diameter line on a spinning reel forces one to end up with the largest of salt water spinning reels. There is no advantage in casting a one-ounce jig with a spinning reel over using a conventional reel. The only disadvantage in using a conventional reel is the possibility of getting a backlash. I hate to have to admit it, but I can cast a thousand times without getting a backlash when the fish are not around. Put me in the middle of feeding frenzy and it will happen on my first cast every time. All my pro friends still laugh at me for this, but my blood still surges to my head after more than sixty years of fishing. Do not use a spinning reel for working a buck tail under these conditions; you do not need the handicap. Now comes the next and very critical step; point your rod such that the line comes in through the center of your guides. I like a seven-foot rod since this is not too long a length for a boat, yet long enough to get a decent cast off without straining. Again the rod should match your 30-pound test line with a one-ounce lure. The action of the rod is not critical so get whatever action pleases you. When you start your steady slow retrieve, do not forget to always point your rod such that it points directly at the line coming in. Most amateurs retrieve far too quickly. A slow but steady retrieve works best. Always remember, that you are fishing with the best lure mankind has ever developed. Why not let the fish get a good look at it. Try to make a mental picture of what is happening. You let your lure sink to the bottom. The moving tide will belly out your line toward the aft end of your boat. When you start your slow, but steady retrieve (please, no jigging here) your lure will rise off the bottom, and follow the sagging belly in a spiral like motion as it approaches the surface and the aft end of your boat. You have just fished the entire water column. Approximately, ninety percent of the time period starting from when you first made your cast till the time the lure comes in over the side, (hopefully with a fish on) your lead head has been actively fishing. One of the most important advantages a commercial fisherman has over other fisherman is the amount of time his lure is actively fishing as compared to time wasted by amateurs doing stupid things that positions their lures with little prospect of catching anything. Now you should understand why a balance tackle situation is mandatory. For example, supposed you used fifteen-pound test line. After your lure hits the bottom, it will stay too low for most of the retrieve since the belly in the line will lack the muscle (or diameter and subsequent drag) to pull and keep the lure off the bottom. Let’s go the other way and use fifty-pound test line. After you hit the bottom the sag and belly will be well to the aft end of your boat. As soon as you start your retrieve, your lure will rise to the surface far too quickly. Always remember this: for every fish you see on the surface, there will be twenty fish down deep and they will likely be bigger fish. One could now raise the question, if a one ounce buck tail balances with thirty pound test monofilament line, under the same circumstances would a two ounce buck tail balance with say forty pound test line? Yes, it would! What about if one was fishing in 3-knot currents with a one-ounce lure and thirty pound test line? Now the drag and belly on the line is so much greater so the use of a one-ounce lure with thirty-pound test line puts the balance out of whack again. You should up the weight of the buck-tail to 1.5 or 2 ounces to achieve the proper balance. Once you get your frame of mind into maintaining the proper balance you will see your catch production skyrocket; it is really quite simple now that you understand the basics. Now, let me fill you in on the all-important method of hooking the fish. By holding your rod such that it is pointing directly at the line coming in, using a conventional reel, you should have the line passing between the fingers of the non-cranking hand. You could not ask to be in a more sensitive position to set the hook. It becomes ridiculously easy to just quickly raise the tip of your rod at the initiation of a strike. It is not in the makeup of a blue, or a striper, to fool around with a baitfish. If they did, they would never catch themselves a meal. Be alert, and hit them quickly or else you may find yourself with a deep hooked fish, and an unnecessary time waster. It sours my stomach, as a Connecticut commercial fisherman (Connecticut does not allow commercial striper fishing), to see bass thrown back after they have been deep-hooked. I do not ever remember hooking a bass deeply with a buck tail. Almost always, the fish is solidly hooked through upper roof of his mouth. This almost holds true for Blues as well. While rare, they can be so quick that even sharpies sometimes find themselves with a deep hooked Blue. I do not like stainless hooks because if a Blue should bite a jig off, I would like to think that the fish has as least a remote chance of eventually getting free of the lure. While bass do not have the equipment to bite off lures, I have lost many as they ran around lobster pot buoys; so stay away from stainless hooks if at all possible.
One really nice benefit of a lead head is the lead head itself. It provides a nice handle to grab when unhooking a fish. Unlike crank baits with several sets of three way hooks flopping dangerously about ready to nail you or to tangle in a net, the lead head is the greatest. It is nice to have a handle on your lure when your fingers are close to the chopping end of a blue fish. One item of stupidity that can be seen on TV involving crank baits is the practice of grabbing a crank bait to bring a fish in over the railing. The nuts that do this must be out of their minds. After trying to mimic this approach on a small rat bass, I ended up being hooked to a trashing bass with one triple hook in the bass’s mouth and another through my finger. Every time the fish convulsed, I convulsed.

How to tie a jig on to your line

Tie the jig to your line using the improved clinch knot. I do not use a swivel. I do not like to mess around with un-needed hardware. The very nature of the construction of a lead head prevents it from spinning about. I have decided that should the day come when baitfish will be swimming about with a swivel through their nose that will be the same day I will use a swivel on my jigs. About the use of wire leaders! Blues and bass can spot wire leaders. There is no reason to use a wire leader for bass; they really do not have the teeth to chomp through the monofilament. They can abrade the line, but it usually takes a dozen or more bass to do this and can it be easily corrected by retying. For the benefit of the blues, put on a wire leader. You will get more hits without wire. However, not only can they chomp through mono line, they are so vicious that another blue just might come along and chomp at the buck tail hanging out of the first guy’s mouth. This is quite common and is called a bite-off. I considered it to be unfair to leave hardware in the mouths of fish as it almost always means their demise. What to do if you find yourself in the middle of both blues and bass? I use a wire leader. There are two reasons for this: you might get lucky using mono without a wire leader and catch a couple of blues before they cut through your line, but sooner or later they will bite through, and secondly when using wire it seems that the ratio of bass to blues caught drops. As commercial fisherman, I have to release all bass I catch, so reeling in less bass is actually an advantage to me.

How to fish a jig from a drifting boat

Almost all boats turn broadside to the wind. While I own a boat that points downwind, this is actually quite rare. You could always guarantee this position by the use of two small drift socks tied at the stem and the stern. Use the same method as when fishing from an anchored boat. The only exception here is that from an anchored boat you can cast to either side. When drifting, cast into the wind. Let the lure drop to the bottom before starting your slow retrieve. Because of the motion due to the wind, your line will form a belly in a vertical plane as you reel in slowly. If you have no strikes after coming up, say a little more than halfway, you can free spool and let your lure drop to the bottom again to repeat the process. Can you cast in other directions? Sure, but there is usually no advantage in doing this unless you spot a school feeding on the surface. Again, always remember that for every fish you see on the surface, there will be twenty fish running deep. Often I will be surrounded by competing boats and inconsiderate nuts running a muck through the schools of fish, stirring them up, putting them down, and interfering with my livelihood. Inconsiderate fishermen deserve no consideration. A good tactic to employ under these conditions is to stop, think, and watch. Almost always, you will see a pattern to the movement of the game fish and to the schools of bait they are chasing. Even after being put down, most fish will still continue to feed. The nuts chasing them are using visual signs of breaking fish to guide them and almost always will be using poppers or surface swimming lures. They do not know that for every fish you see on the surface there are twenty more running deep. Since you have now made of mental picture of what is happening, power your boat right through the middle of the school at high speed and put the fish down hard. The inconsiderate amateurs would now have lost all advantage, their tackle is geared for surface action, their fish localization process is severely damage since they can no longer visually see any surface action, and with some luck they might even leave your immediate area should they spot birds working a distant feeding school. Of course, you have lost nothing! Your lead head will still fish the entire column of water, and by drifting though the deep school with your engine off (especially in shallow water) you will still be into fish. Do not concern yourself over inconsiderate fishermen, the fish deserve better than to be caught by them.

How to fish a lead head in extremely shallow water

All of the techniques described so far will not work in very shallow waters. Your lead head will simply be dragged through the mud. I tried using very heavy lines with light heads to no avail. What do you do when a school of Bass runs the bait fish into the shallows, or right up to edge of a breakwater where the depth can be as little as three feet? Of course you could go to poppers, or surface lures, but then you lose the advantage of using the greatest lure ever designed. Problem solved using a simple technique! Do not know who first used this method, but the person who dreamed it up must have been a genius.

Buy yourself a couple of those inexpensive wooden eggs you see in various decorative arts and craft stores. An egg about two inches long will do fine. Drill a small hole through the center of the egg. Not that easy to do unless you or a friend has a drill press. Using brass or stainless wire and a round nose pliers, pass the wire through the egg and form two eyes in the wire with the pliers. See sketch below:



The brass wire stuck into the side is another nice feature although not really necessary. Here is how it works: tie your line to the first eyelet that you had made. Tie on a leader about 24 inches long to the second eyelet. Then tie your lead head to the end of the leader. To avoid having the jig and egg flop around during a cast, hang the lead head by using its hook to the wire stuck in the side of the egg. The lead head will not come off during a cast but will drop off just as soon as it hits the water. I paint my eggs white just to prevent them from becoming waterlogged. When retrieved, the wooden egg will ride on the surface, making a racket and holding the lead head off the bottom. The commotion created by the egg always attracts fish, which will then hit the trailing lead head with great zeal. While a little more awkward than I like, it is a low cost fish getter that still allows one to use a lead head in extremely shallow areas.

When to jig a lead head jig

While the above may seem like double talk, a lead head jig can be an effective lure that is jigged. However, when it comes to jigging, I have found lures like the Hopkins (using the ice tong hook arrangement) are better suited for jigging. To implement the ice tong hook arrangement, remove the existing three way hook. For a # 3 lure, get yourself two 6/0 hooks: conventional Mustard O’Shaughnessy hooks with large eyes works fine. Insert them into the split ring as shown:
A kid named Allen Seltzer showed me this nifty idea more than fifty years ago. He was one the greatest fisherman that ever lived but few have ever heard of him. He did not write articles, or books, or tell the world how to catch fish, or even advertise his capabilities. He felt the ocean was his, fished it like it was his, went about his business in a covert manner, and considered every other fisherman an intruder on his turf.

Do yourself a favor and add an extra rugged stainless split ring at the line end of the Hopkins lure. Even the improved clinch knot will become undone if one ties directly to a Hopkins. A good fish can exert too much leverage on the knot because the cross section of where the knot is tied is not round. A split ring solves this problem. I often wondered why Hopkins never corrected this defect? As is, it would force one to purchase more of these effective, but somewhat costly lures. Enough said of using the Hopkins, let’s get back to the lead head.

Up till now, I never mentioned the length of the hair. Don’t use more than four inches on a one-ounce head. The fish will still hit it if longer, but it will interfere with the grub tail, and be a cause, in many cases, for the fish to bite short. Now let’s break a few rules and talk about an exception. While far more popular fifty years ago, when there would be feeding frenzies on shrimp, a very effective method would be to use a jig with short hair and no attractor. Every year I still catch a few shrimp as big as your thumb in Connecticut coves. They taste horrible, but should shrimp ever increase in numbers to become a major target of blues or bass, the lead head can mimic them quite well. If you wish to see how a shrimp swims, get yourself a flashlight and shine it into water, less than foot of depth, at night, in a salt-water marsh, and where eelgrass is present. Likely you will not see anything at first, since they are almost invisible, but grass shrimp eyes always give them away. Look for two small beads that glow an eerie green in the artificial light. Approach them with a stick and you will see that they hover for a second or two and then move a couple of feet in a fraction of a second. Note that it is a very jerky motion quite unlike any other creature. Using a small, no larger than ½ ounce jig, tied with short hair, and no attractor, let the lure down behind your boat. Let out two or three feet of line (fish in free spool) and then quickly thumb the reel and jerk upward. Let out more line and repeat the process till your lure hits the bottom. Repeat the jerky procedure on the way up (in gear of course). Actually it is almost impossible to get to the bottom without hooking up if you are into fish feeding on shrimp.


Here is a special note about jigging for summer flounder. Forgive me, but I have always been a live bait fisherman when it comes to fluking. However, after saying that, jigs fished near the bottom will take fluke effectively. I never really considered fluke much of a game fish but because they are a valued commercial catch, I do take them. Typically, after catching a load of porgies, blues, and released bass, I am too tired to knock myself out jigging for fluke. This is the time for eating lunch, and taking it easy before going in. Live bait usually allows me to quickly take my limit of fluke before heading for home. As of late, there has been so much DEP involvement in setting the fluke limits, for example, currently NY allows the taking of only three fish such that targeting this species is more of a waste of time. Limits could change (less usually) at any time so that fishing for fluke has become more of a time waster and too small of a profit fish for me to go out of my way for. With the exception of draggers, and even these big boys are being driven lately into the poor house, most of the fluke fishing is now catch and release due to the needed but protective regulations. I rarely venture from Connecticut into New York waters because I do not hold a commercial New York fishing permit and it is simply not worth the fuel spent to come back with only three fish. The identical buck tail previously described works almost as good as bait, and works even better if you replace the grub tail, with a strip of fresh squid or fluke belly. No need here to fish anything but the bottom. Fluke rarely come to the surface, although sometimes they will follow a hooked fluke to the top but will always drop back down to the bottom again. Most anglers prefer to drift while jigging on the bottom. Here again, I prefer a jigging type lure like the Hopkins for jigging but the bucktail will always be the best weapon a commercial guy can have. I always cast in the direction the boat is drifting. No need for a far cast. The idea here is to get the lure down deep. Once you hit bottom, quickly raise the lure off the bottom and then let it drop back down again. Repeat the process until the boat passes over the lure. Reel in and repeat the process of casting in the direction you are moving in. Forget about fishing an area that a dragger has recently passed over. They cut eelgrass loose, stir up the bottom, and are in general a fish vacuum cleaner. I prefer to fish near obstructions such as lobster pots, shellfish ground gear, very shallow areas, and generally any area that would prevent a dragger from moving in. One last word on this aspect of using a bucktail for commercial fishing. The best commercial guys usually have licenses for RI, CT, and NY waters. They are not bound by the set recreational limits. Most will used several rods and use the rocking action of the boat to provided the needed movement. They hook up with most of their fish dead stick. All they do is reel in whatever rod has a fish on. The bucktail with a strip of fluke belly on it is what they use. If you are allowed only three fish, you just might be better off with a single rod as it will be soon enough before you will have limited out.

Trolling the lead head

Why not! For trolling, I always preferred lightweight spoons and have used the appropriate in-line weights to achieve proper lure depth. The lead head is still a fine lure for trolling. Since it is such an effective lure, boat speed is not that critical. If they see it, they will hit it. Fishing at the correct depth is critical, however. To get the lure down where it will be most effective forces you to move at slow speeds. Usually too slow a speed for most boats unless they are equipped with an electric trolling motor or a downrigger. I do not use wire lines or lead core lines (unless chunking for bass from an anchored platform) but will add an in-line sinker to obtain the proper depth as needed.


One last word is that I love to fish with no one else around. Quite often I will go out in a fourteen-foot rowboat (that’s right, a rowboat) to obtain my catch limit. No amateur fisherman in a 21-foot Whaler would ever follow a rowboat. Most anglers pass over some of the greatest fishing areas while headed out for the deep water fishing grounds. It is true that one does have to go to big fishing grounds to get big catches; however, with the current heavily regulated fishing limits, size restrictions, and closed seasons, big catch takes are a thing of the past. That is it, go out there and give them hell.

Attached Images

	ice tong.jpg (5.9 KB, 126 views)
	egg.jpg (29.7 KB, 8 views)

Bob & Mag

Scup, Enjoyed your article very much. With all the lures on the market today, the goto still seems to be a bucktail.
Thanks for posting it.

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Andy

Great read scup thanks for sharing

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Special K

very informative read. how often i go out and never even wet one of the many buck-tails in my tackle box. this old standard is often overlooked.

Captrlbagwell

Thanks for the info. Great article

fishcounterbob

Thanks for another one of your great articles. Smilin' Bills and jointed large mullet plugs helped me weigh in plenty of commercially caught Ct bass till the 80's. Even hand lined with some old-school stuff in the East Haven area in the 60's and 70's. Filling a rowboat with bass from 25 - 50+ is still the greatest memories an ex-commercial guy could have. And I still have photos AND some gear!

Scup

If you can find those old pictures, why not post them? It will bring back memories for sure. I never took pictures until recently when I obtained a digital camera and still do not know how to use it right. I did not have a commerical fish license back in the fifties, although I am not sure if a license was needed back then. There were just about no regulations for anything with the exception of Striped Bass and clams. No creel limit in NY, but a 16 inch size limit. It seems strange, but I do not remember any regulations concerning blue claw crabs either. I do remember bitching at some guy who was keeping everything he caught off the North Channel Bridge. When I asked him why in the world was he keeping those small useless blue claw crabs, he replied "they are good for the sauce". I am really surprised the fishing industry has held out as long as it did. Wilcox told me yesterday that the New Bedford boats are tied up at the dock three abreast. If somebody lives out that way, I would like to see a picture of that as well.

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