10-21-2003, 10:21 PM
Hi tubeN2,
Forgot to mention how nice it must be to have the family take interest in heading out with you to the fishing grounds and even fishing!
As to our little anchovie friends. I choose to make this a two part question. Yes, I'm a bit pushy. ha ha
Freshwater: If you're using anchovies for freshwater and gunning for catfish and stripers I'd think frozen would be your bet for cats while live or frozen would be best for stripers. I'd think that chovies could live in brackish water for at least a while (they fish them in the delta bigtime). And...the stripers at Lake Pyramid love frozen chovies just right along the big bouy 60ft down. Fresh dead anchovies are the worst to stay on the hook unless you fish chunk style!!
Saltwater: There are four smaller finbaits popular in southern cal. 1) The Pacific (I believe longjawed) Anchovie (different from the black or blue backed anchovie, it's smaller cousin. 2) Sardines in the juvenile stage and 3)the Mackerel in the juvenile stage (greenie). 4) Our smelt are usually a bit bigger than the usually 4 to 5 inch anchovies.
Anchovies are fished live, fresh dead when one has to, frozen, dried, and or dried and salted. Depending on what your fishing for, size of the bait, where, and how, the choice will vary. I've seen dried and salted catch fish after fish while nothing else worked. I prefer the frozen and sometimes only use the last 1/3 of the chovie for short biters above everything but live.
JapanRon
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