Fish on! - The Fishing Thread

Happy hour starts in 5 minutes
I'm at the OBX to do some surf fishing with the wifey and some friends. We caught a total of 11 red drum 30" long over two days this week at ramp 23 close to Salvo, NC.

I had one bite that we couldn't reel in. I'm using Penn 7500 long casting reels on 12' rods, which are big enough to bring in 6' sharks but I had trouble with one bite that was too heavy for that reel. After a 30-minute fight, the monster slipped my shock leader.

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I love to fish but my knowledge (especially in regards to surf fishing) is minimal. Will you eat those?
 
Red Drum are 'slotted' so you can only keep those in the slot. The slot for red drum are 17"-28" so you can keep any between that. Our smallest was 29.5" so we had to throw them all back. Red drum taste similar to a stripper/rock fish so very nice fish to broil with some butter and almonds.
 
Glad to see this thread as well.

I like to fish for bass in freshwater, although surf fishing at sunset with a beer can't be beat. I have good success at my friend's lake house in the Poconos, back home my thing during the summer is to take my bike just south of Harper's Ferry with a fishing rod and lunch and spend the day. But I wasn't serious about the fishing, the bike ride and hanging out on the river was more important. So I would just throw out a small spinner or Rapala and if I caught a bluegill that was fine, I was just there to have a good time.

Then someone on another message board spoke of a Ned Rig, a way to rig a small plastic worm and since then I have been slaying smallmouths. They are so much more fun to catch than a 4" sunny, now I spend more time fishing and less time looking for eagles and have a much better time. Can't wait for warm weather.
 
We used to take our boys canoeing down the Shenandoah River fishing for small mouth bass. We would use one of those rafting outfitters around Winchester or Harpers Ferry. They would ride us up the river and then we would fish and canoe back down to them. We would drag a gallon jug filled with stones and water behind the canoes to slow them down in the good areas to fish and then we had to store gear going over any rapids. Those were the best times.
 
My brother and I used to take our kids canoeing out to an island a buddy of his owned on the James River. We’d camp right on the beach and the fishing was amazing. Wish we’d done more of it now that I’m older…
 
Speaking of fishing in the OBX, I started fishing there, at a very young age.
Caught this flounder before I was old enough to know how to hold it right.

But the cool thing is, just to share this secret in case anyone hasn't tried this, is we fried them in Pancake Batter. This could go in the cooking thread.
It was incredible. And ever since then, Pancake-Fried Flounder has been my absolute favorite fish dish. I insist on it.

But no flounder has ever compared to the fresh ones caught in the OBX.
The second pic, was clearly a really good night at the pier.

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Lookin to get back into fishing. Did a lot of fishing when I first relocated here 30 years ago. Here's a blast from the past.... my gear is antiquated, I shit you not. Surf fishing with, 52 year old Mitchell 302 on a 12' ugly stick, which is my newest rod at 17 years old. 54 year old Mitchell 304 on a 1973 5' custom built ( 2 piece ) ultra lite for back packing, and another 304 on a 5.5 ugly stick for the flats and mangroves. All the reels were purchased new, but have had some different rods over time that I used the reels on. I have my tarpon set up, which is at least 25 years old.

Seems that there are more places you can't fish from shore then you can around here these days. Don't have any friends with a boat at this point, and I hate depending on anybody. Sanibel causeway is finally opening up soon, as construction is wrapping up. Of course, they went and ruined it by putting rows of poles so you can't pull up to the water any more. Much more fisherman friendly prior to hurricane Ian. Most of the piers are still wiped out, but fishing around the pilings good... but too many folks know that. Over development has taken it's toll for sure.

So I'm going to try something new... It's a long term plan. I got my hands on a fishing kayak this past weekend. Nothing special, a Field and Stream 12' that needs some love, but free is hard to beat. Working on the repairs, and it should be ready for a water test in a week or so. Not worried about the yak sinking, the test is to make sure I can get back on it in water over my head. I'm not so agile these days, and don't swim well. I'll test it in the pool:ROFLMAO: It's missing the seat / backrest, so I need to rig something... likely a 10 dollar beach chair. Then I take it to a fresh water ramp into the canal system, and see if my bitchy shoulder can take paddling. If that all goes well, then I'll spend some time getting my skills sharp before attempting the gulf waters. If the shoulder doesn't cooperate, but I find the yak stable and comfortable I'll look into buying a foot peddler or electric set up.

The trick is to invest little to nothing on the experiment... I'm $40 into it at this point.
 
Boone said:
My brother and I used to take our kids canoeing out to an island a buddy of his owned on the James River. We’d camp right on the beach and the fishing was amazing. Wish we’d done more of it now that I’m older…
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OMG that sounds like a great time. We sold our canoe after many years of happiness, just didn't use it and we thought at the time we were moving to Tennessee. Wife and I only tipped over once in all those years, not sure I'd fell all that stable today.
 
True story.
One time I caught a fish without even trying. The fish literally came to me. Flopped out of the water and practically into my lap.
One day, I pulled my beach chair up to the water, just close enough for the waves to come and soothe my feet.
A Spanish Mackerel flopped out of the water and landed in the wet sand just a few feet from my chair.
It seems it was escaping into the highly shallow water, to try and evade a predator.
I grabbed him, put him in my drink cooler, enjoyed a little more of the beach, went home, cooked and ate him
Easiest catch & eat ever
 
So it about 2am, no moon, and perfectly flat water on the pine island sound / causeway beach. I was standing in about 4' of water maybe 30' of the shore line. All of a sudden I'm almost thrown off balance from behind by a wave of sorts. I'm not the skittish type, and it didn't instantly click that something large passed behind me. A moment later, about 40' to my right, a "fin" came up out of the water heading towards me... I did my best impression of JC, and did more then walk on the water. Get onto the beach, run to get my spot light from the truck. I'm scanning around where my rod and bait buck still sat out in the water with the light when I see the fin come up from the opposite direction, and goes past the rod... and blows out a big puff of misty breath... Friggin dolphin ( bottle nosed porpoise ) scared the living hell out of me, and haven't waded out into the water at night ever since.
 
Yea dolphins do pre
iheartskins said:
Love fly fishing...this is from one of the rivers on the Seward Peninsula near Nome from a couple years ago. Going back this summer!
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Beauty.
Have you ever been to Exit Glacier Park in Seward ? (Not for the fishing, but for the views)
 
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