Stripers are in at Duxbury Bay

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Adam Bolonsky
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Stripers are in at Duxbury Bay

Post by Adam Bolonsky »

...and apparently blitzing heavily on the flats and near the bridge. For more info check Dave Bitters' reports at baymenoutfitters.com.

This is a fine place to fish without getting hurt. Shallow water (but fast-moving tides) and this time of year fish small enough that they are manageable.

Shad-and-jigheads work really well: cheap, single-hooked, effective and easy to fling a good distance on spincast gear.

To release a striper: grasp and pinch its lower lip. This squeezes a nerve which renders the fish as motionless as a swaddled infant. Remove the hook, place the fish in the water, loosen your grip on the lip. When the fish's jaw spasms you can release it.

Bluefish are another story altogether, however, now matter how small they might be early in season....
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Post by Birdseye »

Adam,
What are the pros/cons of using a short rod over a longer rod??

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Post by Chip »

Umm, if you have to ask. Nevermind. Shouldn't go there. :oops: :wink:
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Adam Bolonsky
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short vs. long rods

Post by Adam Bolonsky »

Birdseye wrote:Adam,
What are the pros/cons of using a short rod over a longer rod??

Nelson


Hi Nelson,
long's good for casting long distances or landing on a beach at night and surfcasting. Also longer rods are stiffer, so you get more contorl over the fish.

Shorter makes every fish seem big. And, with a short rod, you can hold the butt with one end while you clear snags or fouls at the tip. And come time to store a rod, shorts fit more easily on the fore or aft deck, and more easily, when broken down, in the aft hatch.

Give it a shot. Fishing for striped bass is not all that tough. Just fling and yank.
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Post by getnoutside »

Wahooo!!!! Time to try out the new rig I just added to my Skerry

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Post by Adam Bolonsky »

get'n-outside wrote:Wahooo!!!! Time to try out the new rig I just added to my Skerry

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Steve:

Here's a place that often works: Plymouth Bay anywhere from the Mayflower out to as far as Browns Bank, the Bug Light and Cowyard.

Smaller fish are often on the flats. Land the boat and stalk them on foot, or walk and cast into the guzzles and channels and drains.

Bigger fish are often at the mouths of the guzzles and drains.

If you go, give me a shout. I've often wanted to see what a CLC skerry looks like. Having built more CLC boats than I want to remember, I've wondered if they design better rowers than kayaks. Boy do some of their kayak designs have flaws that if not dangerous are sometimes simply poorly thought-out.

Adam

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bhotrum
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Bluefish ?

Post by bhotrum »

Adam,

I heard a story once about a surfer who lost half a pinky toe to a Bluefish that took a bite out of his dangled foot down in North Carolina a couple years back. Is there any credibility to this story ? Makes one a little nervous around the feeding time of 4-7pm down on the beach. I always believed that time of day was a little dangerous with sharks becoming active near shore, the fish starting to feed close to shore on smaller fish etc. It seemed when I lived in NC for 3 months that around 4pm it gets very active in the food chain about 20 yds offshore, and then of course you have the apex predator to be concerned about at the top of the food chain.

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Bluefish

Post by chpaton »

Blues can be nasty and have good sized sharp teeth too! I can't verify the pinky toe story from Carolina, but it does sound plausible. I can attest to any number of fishermen being cut and slashed by flopping & snapping blues in the boat.

Back in my fishing days (powered skiffs) we'd routinely carry billy clubs to pacify the blues as we boated them. It was worrysome enough with them flopping and snapping in the bottom of a 16' long by 4' wide outboard skiff - I for one would not be too keen on having one or two flopping and snapping around in the cockpit of a kayak.
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Blues

Post by Dave »

I have a pair of 6" hemostats in my tackle box, they used to be for northern pike before I moved here. I use them for blues now, they do have nasty teeth. I would not want to wrestle with one in a kayak! The billy club sound like a good idea.
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Post by Birdseye »

I found this article in the Spring 2006 issue of Adventure Kayak magazine.

Beware the blue fish

"I was in Hudson Valley Outfitters in Cold Spring, New York, telling the owner about my fishing experience in Cape Cod and he suggested that I send it to you.

It was late August and time for my Family’s yearly vacation to Provincetown. I longed to kayak the open water and get some alone time. As the late afternoon sun headed toward the horizon I dragged my kayak behind me and I headed off to the water’s edge.

I took along my fishing pole, just in case, I never expected to fish from the kayak. My plan was simple: drag the boat to the water’s edge and fish from there and then ride the tide back to shore in the kayak. But when I got to the water’s edge I saw something I never expected! The water was alive with blue fish jumping completely out of the water after bunker (bait fish).

The fish were just out of reach of my best attempts at casting for them. I started walking until the water got up to my knees. The tide was starting to come in and I knew I only had this one chance to catch the biggest fish I had ever seen. So I sat in the boat and cast into the now closer school of blue fish. As soon as the lure hit the water a huge blue fish grabbed it and I was instantly pulled 100 yards into the center of the feeding frenzy. The water was red with the blood of the bait fish and littered with parts of uneaten bunker.

I had to hold the fishing pole directly in front of the bow, if I let it go a bit to the side the pull was so strong I was afraid that I might be capsized into a school of hungry feeding blue fish. At this point the fish were jumping on the deck of the kayak with their razor sharp teeth biting at anything they could get into their mouths. The paddle fell into the water and I had to hold the fishing pole with one hand (this took almost superhuman strength) and grab the paddle with the other hand. A blue fish almost took off my fingers when I put them in the water, as I pulled the yellow paddle out of the water the corner was bitten off. It was sliced off like a hot knife going through soft butter.

I was starting to panic. Not being a rich person, it never occurred to me that I could just throw my fishing pole overboard and be done with it. It was at that point that the fishing line was bitten off by another fish and I was free, or sot thought. As I slipped my fishing pole into the kayak and started to slowly paddle back toward the shore the ends of my paddle and my drip rings got chewed to bits. Fish were jumping sometimes 12 to 16 inches into the air and landing so close to me that I got the splash on my face, The school had to be at least six to ten square city blocks, For those of you who have been in this position you know that every word here is true."

JONATHAN CALENTE Bronx, New York
Last edited by Birdseye on Fri May 05, 2006 7:28 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by getnoutside »

Yep... sounds like a true Fisherman's story to me. :lol:
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Looks for Adam's Rebuttal Next Issue

Post by Mark »

For those of you who have been in this position you know that every word here is true"


For those who have been there, we know that this is a crock. Adam wrote a letter to the editor in regard to this guy's "report". He's full of it.

The biggest bluefish that I have caught from the yak was a fat 31-incher off Block Island last Fall. (Jason posted a picture of it on the "Fishing with a Handline" thread elsewhere.) I was not towed by this fish, and landed it quite easily, then held it for pictures before dispatching it for our lunch.

Blues aren't that hard to handle, really. Pick them up by the tail (the shape of the tail makes this pretty easy, versus a striped bass, which can't be lifted by the tail), then with the other hand slip your fingers into the gills and you have a firm grip safe from snapping teeth. Unless it is a large one, you can then break their necks with your hands before removing your lure.

Catch and release is a bit more tricky. Don't use treble hooks if you plan catch and release with blues. You can still immobilize them with the fingers in the gills, but getting the hooks out of the mouth is an adventure.
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Re: Looks for Adam's Rebuttal Next Issue

Post by Adam Bolonsky »

Mark wrote:
For those of you who have been in this position you know that every word here is true"


Yeah, I wrote to Adventure Kayak to debunk the guy's story. It was so wholly implausible I realized it must have been an April Fool's joke. At best a bluefish will tow a kayak about three feet before the line snaps or the bluefish breaks off. Come on: 170-pound paddler, fifty-pound boat, 25-pound test line. The only arena in which a 20-pound bluefish could tow that much man and boat 100 yards is in the imagination.

One good thing about bluefish: most people consider them inedible. But that's only becuase they've eaten ones that have rotted. And they rot fast. Blues need to be bled as soon as you decide to keep them. Otherwise their blood oxidizes and then the blue's own powerful digestive enzymes take over.

I wholly agree with Marks's by the tail and then by the throat method, mostly because I taught it to him. Ditto the neck snap. It may sound mean and gruesome, but slaughtering cattle or chickens, I imagine, is a whole hell of a lot crueler.

What works just as well as a billy club is a knike. You really need to cut these fish across the necks, suspend them by the tails, and bleed them. The flesh keeps longer, the work kills the fish, and once the fish is motionless you can remove its gills and stomach integument. Then into the aft hatch with the fish, to keep it out of the sun.

Knock on wood, but the worst cut I got from a bluefish was from brushing a dead one's open mouth with my hand. Yeah, the cut was ragged and deep.

As for someone losing a toe, sure, I can see that. And given all the lacerated sandeels and mummichogs and herring a school of blues litters the water with, I'm not so sure I'd want to be wading around in there in such offal in sharky waters.
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Post by getnoutside »

Caught me a coupla' Stripers this evening while trolling with the Skerry in the Bay. Some guys were landing small schoolies every 5 minutes from shore. All I had was a tube (eel-like lure) which is a bit early in the season to use. But, the two I did catch were close to 2 feet.
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