04-22-2019, 04:28 PM
I Fished off of Vineyard area for two outings this weekend.
Friday I got there about 5:30 and anchored in 2 FOW near where Dave and I had found fish a week ago. Water temp was 65 and air in the low 70’s. Started with two hooks and floating baits on each rod one with shrimp or WB and the other with a piece of crawler to entice a lost white bass. Barely got set up when I got a 19” kitty on a crawler piece. Good sign. Before I even got the rod fishing again the second one took off. I set the hook and this fish had shoulders, or at least it seemed that way in the warmer water. The fish seemed well hooked so I let up for long enough to get the other rod back out and when I started reeling again, the fish was gone. Bad sign. I rarely lose a cat that is well hooked, but I still felt silly that I lost a good one trying to be too greedy.
Then it went dead. I pulled one of the cat rods and tried another rod casting toward the reeds for pan fish. After 45 minutes of nothing on either rod I pulled the anchor and started slow dragging the two double bait rods. Heading south I zigzagged from just under 2 to just over 4 FOW. In the next 2 hours I landed 5 more cats and lost one other that seemed to be hooked and then came off. 3 of the fish hit shrimp, two on crawlers and one on the thawed WB. The wind stayed almost calm the whole evening.
On a side note, about 7 P.M. I saw some people starting to work their way through the reeds and launch paddleboards. It seemed like a great time for it. I was on the shallow side of a zig and fairly close in. One friendly guy paddled out close enough to talk and asked if the cats had started biting yet. I told him I had 3 and they were not red hot, but they were biting. As I got back out to 3’ and just out of visiting range from the paddle boarders I hit a spurt and got the 3 cats in about 5 minutes.
When it hit 8 P.M, I set up the new cleaning station I had just built for my boat. It is high enough that I don’t have to bend over and it worked great. It only took less than 15 minutes to fillet the 6 fish and put the carcasses in a 5 gallon bucket so I wouldn’t be accused of chumming. During the filleting, I had 3 or 4 more pop and drop hits. All pulled free of the line release, but were gone by the time I could get to the rod and reel up the slack.
It was decent evening, except for the one larger fish that I “released.” I had landed 6 cats in just over 3 hours. All were under 23” and were cleaned for future enjoyment. I had lost 2 fish that were hooked and had about 6 more that were solid hits, but spit the bait before I could get set the hook. That meant I had landed about half the fish that hit. The worst part was that 3 of the 6 fish I landed were gut hooked and I lost a fair amount of time (and a little blood) getting them unhooked.
Saturday I headed out of the State park about 10 A.M. with my nephew Terrance and his 4 year old son Kai. This was Kai’s first fishing trip and we were all excited. Before the trip I thought about the fish I had lost and the problems with the gut hooked fish and decided to do a test. I changed the hooks on the bottom/larger FLAT rigs from j-hooks to 3/0 Gamakatsu circle hooks. I was not optimistic that the circles would work because I found that in the shallow water keeping the baits more than 50 feet behind the boat resulted in many more hits. I learned some things though.
We guessed that the fish were likely staying shallow, especially with all the crazy carp activity in the reeds, and that we probably didn’t need to run all the way to Vineyard to find fish. We headed to the shallow flats just north of the dike. The water had cooled to 59 since the day before, but we figured that wouldn’t shut the cats down. It sure didn’t slow the carp, they were everywhere along the reed edges splashing and thrashing.
I should be used to it by now, but every time I take little guys out for the first time, the first fish comes slowly. Right at the point where I’m starting to panic because of their short attention span or right after somebody says “Can we go home now?” we get the first fish. Today was no exception. Almost 40 minutes of dragging and a FLAIT rod went bendo. The circle hook did its job and a few minutes later Kai was grinning ear to ear with his fist cat. Whew! The second one only took another ten minutes to find.
After the first two we went in and anchored within casting distance of the frolicking carp. I thought maybe the cats would be in there cleaning up the eggs, but in 45 minutes we got no love. We couldn’t even get a carp to hit the crawlers. They were a bit distracted though. We pulled the gear and headed back down to the Vineyard area.
Kai’s mom had said he would only last an hour or two, but he was having nothing to do with going home. In the first 3 hours he landed a total of 5 cats that were all 21 to 22 inches, just right for a youngster. Finally, we hit a longer dry spell and he started asking about going home. Now his dad said, “let’s try to get a couple more fish and then we can go.” We got two more, a double, just as Kai asked again, so we ended up with 7 for the morning and I got to catch 1!
It was a great first time outing and fun to be teaching the next generation how to fish. I think he’s hooked!
The hook comparison was also a pleasant surprise. On the circle hooks we landed seven of eight that were hooked and we only had 2 that hit that didn’t stick. So it was under 50% for the j-hooks on Friday and 70 percent for the circle hooks on Saturday. Even when the baits were 120’ behind the boat, the fish usually stuck. We didn’t have to worry about the hook sets and perhaps more importantly, I never had to deal with any hooks way down in the guts. I think I’m going to stick with these circle hooks for a bit longer!
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Friday I got there about 5:30 and anchored in 2 FOW near where Dave and I had found fish a week ago. Water temp was 65 and air in the low 70’s. Started with two hooks and floating baits on each rod one with shrimp or WB and the other with a piece of crawler to entice a lost white bass. Barely got set up when I got a 19” kitty on a crawler piece. Good sign. Before I even got the rod fishing again the second one took off. I set the hook and this fish had shoulders, or at least it seemed that way in the warmer water. The fish seemed well hooked so I let up for long enough to get the other rod back out and when I started reeling again, the fish was gone. Bad sign. I rarely lose a cat that is well hooked, but I still felt silly that I lost a good one trying to be too greedy.
Then it went dead. I pulled one of the cat rods and tried another rod casting toward the reeds for pan fish. After 45 minutes of nothing on either rod I pulled the anchor and started slow dragging the two double bait rods. Heading south I zigzagged from just under 2 to just over 4 FOW. In the next 2 hours I landed 5 more cats and lost one other that seemed to be hooked and then came off. 3 of the fish hit shrimp, two on crawlers and one on the thawed WB. The wind stayed almost calm the whole evening.
On a side note, about 7 P.M. I saw some people starting to work their way through the reeds and launch paddleboards. It seemed like a great time for it. I was on the shallow side of a zig and fairly close in. One friendly guy paddled out close enough to talk and asked if the cats had started biting yet. I told him I had 3 and they were not red hot, but they were biting. As I got back out to 3’ and just out of visiting range from the paddle boarders I hit a spurt and got the 3 cats in about 5 minutes.
When it hit 8 P.M, I set up the new cleaning station I had just built for my boat. It is high enough that I don’t have to bend over and it worked great. It only took less than 15 minutes to fillet the 6 fish and put the carcasses in a 5 gallon bucket so I wouldn’t be accused of chumming. During the filleting, I had 3 or 4 more pop and drop hits. All pulled free of the line release, but were gone by the time I could get to the rod and reel up the slack.
It was decent evening, except for the one larger fish that I “released.” I had landed 6 cats in just over 3 hours. All were under 23” and were cleaned for future enjoyment. I had lost 2 fish that were hooked and had about 6 more that were solid hits, but spit the bait before I could get set the hook. That meant I had landed about half the fish that hit. The worst part was that 3 of the 6 fish I landed were gut hooked and I lost a fair amount of time (and a little blood) getting them unhooked.
Saturday I headed out of the State park about 10 A.M. with my nephew Terrance and his 4 year old son Kai. This was Kai’s first fishing trip and we were all excited. Before the trip I thought about the fish I had lost and the problems with the gut hooked fish and decided to do a test. I changed the hooks on the bottom/larger FLAT rigs from j-hooks to 3/0 Gamakatsu circle hooks. I was not optimistic that the circles would work because I found that in the shallow water keeping the baits more than 50 feet behind the boat resulted in many more hits. I learned some things though.
We guessed that the fish were likely staying shallow, especially with all the crazy carp activity in the reeds, and that we probably didn’t need to run all the way to Vineyard to find fish. We headed to the shallow flats just north of the dike. The water had cooled to 59 since the day before, but we figured that wouldn’t shut the cats down. It sure didn’t slow the carp, they were everywhere along the reed edges splashing and thrashing.
I should be used to it by now, but every time I take little guys out for the first time, the first fish comes slowly. Right at the point where I’m starting to panic because of their short attention span or right after somebody says “Can we go home now?” we get the first fish. Today was no exception. Almost 40 minutes of dragging and a FLAIT rod went bendo. The circle hook did its job and a few minutes later Kai was grinning ear to ear with his fist cat. Whew! The second one only took another ten minutes to find.
After the first two we went in and anchored within casting distance of the frolicking carp. I thought maybe the cats would be in there cleaning up the eggs, but in 45 minutes we got no love. We couldn’t even get a carp to hit the crawlers. They were a bit distracted though. We pulled the gear and headed back down to the Vineyard area.
Kai’s mom had said he would only last an hour or two, but he was having nothing to do with going home. In the first 3 hours he landed a total of 5 cats that were all 21 to 22 inches, just right for a youngster. Finally, we hit a longer dry spell and he started asking about going home. Now his dad said, “let’s try to get a couple more fish and then we can go.” We got two more, a double, just as Kai asked again, so we ended up with 7 for the morning and I got to catch 1!
It was a great first time outing and fun to be teaching the next generation how to fish. I think he’s hooked!
The hook comparison was also a pleasant surprise. On the circle hooks we landed seven of eight that were hooked and we only had 2 that hit that didn’t stick. So it was under 50% for the j-hooks on Friday and 70 percent for the circle hooks on Saturday. Even when the baits were 120’ behind the boat, the fish usually stuck. We didn’t have to worry about the hook sets and perhaps more importantly, I never had to deal with any hooks way down in the guts. I think I’m going to stick with these circle hooks for a bit longer!
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