10-25-2014, 01:44 PM
[#0000FF]Joined up with HighNDry and his son Daniel for a tube and toon trip to Huntington (Mammoth) Friday. Air temp mid thirties and water temp mid forties as we launched about 8 am.
GoFish435 from Price stopped to chat on his way to launch further up the lake. His walkie talkie wasn't working so didn't get to exchange info with him on the water. Got an email from him later saying his two person group left Huntington early...because of poor fishing...and went to Cleveland.
My day got off to a bad start. After fishing along the dam and seeing very little on sonar...and nothing on my jig-fly combo rigs...I kicked toward the southern shoreline to see if there were any fish in deeper water. Was using the electric motor on low setting for better speed when I got a monstrous strike on my right side rod. It bounced once and then catapulted out of my "quick-draw" rod holder and out into the water. Gone forever. Made that rod over 25 years ago and just finished rewrapping the guides on it. Had one of my best Okuma ultralight reels on it...and freshly respooled line. %@#$&%#
Didn't get another hit for a couple of hours. Saw only a very few individual fish here and there. Rarely a double or a triple. No schools or concentrations. And couldn't coax any bites out of the fish I did see.
Glenn (HND) did better. He had brought his fly rod and was fishing an intermediate line with a black marabou leech. A few of the widely scattered fish found it interesting and rewarded him with some tugs and acrobatics. He was glad he had brought the fly rod.
I kept switching jigs and flies on my usually killer jig/fly rigs. All the stuff that has produced well in the past went completely unmolested. I was developing a complexion...or whatever.
Couldn't believe the number of other anglers on the lake. Several other tubers and tooners and 3 or four boats trolling all around us. Also a few bank tanglers but never saw them catch anything. I did see several trout brought in by the guys in the boats. Usually small ones cranked in across the surface and then tossed carelessly out of the boat, with a comment such as "damned rats". Rats is evidently the colorful local colloquial term for the small planters from this year's restocking efforts. With treatment like that you gotta wonder about the survival rate of the newbie planters.
The early morning breeze got stronger as the day wore on...as forecast. Blowing in gusts, first from one direction and then another. Concerned about being stranded at one end of the lake if the wind kicked up blowing the wrong direction I headed back toward the ramp and the dam.
Finally went over some marks on sonar and got some tentative ticks. Missed the first few. Then finally hooked and brought in a "rat". Jiggled him off at the tube without lifting it from the water. I think he had a better chance at survival.
Then, in quick succession, I hooked and lost two pretty decent tigers. One was a beautifully colored "male phase" fish that would have probably gone over 18". Fought it all the way to the tube before he forgot how to hold on. The second was a high jumping lighter colored fish that let go at the top of the second jump. About the same size as the first one. I began to think that maybe I could salvage the day after all. Nope.
I did end up catching about 10-12 more of the smaller fish...with the biggest maybe a footlong. When I got back near the dam I suddenly started seeing some schools of fish. Now that was more like it. In past times the schools of fish are more competitive and bite more aggressively. Not these. They were all swimming around with mouths tightly closed and upraised fins. Only a very few bites and more missed bites than hookups.
I used the walkie talkie to advise HND and Daniel that there were now more fish by the dam and they soon joined me...HND towing his son behind his motorized toon. They also got into a few of the more aggressive rats. We decided that even catching a few of the small ones was better than catching nothing. So we played with them until the wind got serious in early afternoon and then headed back for the big city.
UNPAID POLITICAL COMMENTARY: I think I am done with Huntington. There are fewer tigers being planted and there is a lot more pressure...from other tubers, from boaters, from bank tanglers and especially from ice anglers. That poor lake gets hammered these days. Many of the anglers fish to keep a limit. But all the rats they throw back likely have a poor survival rate and that further reduces the available population.
I reviewed my records going back to 2006. My worst trip prior to this year was last year...when I only caught 15 fish, but almost all of them were bigger than 14 inches...with some over 16 and one 18. Other years I have had days of 50 to 75 fish, with multiple catches over 18 inches.
I have joked that Huntington is the only water I fish anymore that holds only trout. After a bit of reflection...after yesterday's trip...I think I have made my last trip to Huntington.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
GoFish435 from Price stopped to chat on his way to launch further up the lake. His walkie talkie wasn't working so didn't get to exchange info with him on the water. Got an email from him later saying his two person group left Huntington early...because of poor fishing...and went to Cleveland.
My day got off to a bad start. After fishing along the dam and seeing very little on sonar...and nothing on my jig-fly combo rigs...I kicked toward the southern shoreline to see if there were any fish in deeper water. Was using the electric motor on low setting for better speed when I got a monstrous strike on my right side rod. It bounced once and then catapulted out of my "quick-draw" rod holder and out into the water. Gone forever. Made that rod over 25 years ago and just finished rewrapping the guides on it. Had one of my best Okuma ultralight reels on it...and freshly respooled line. %@#$&%#
Didn't get another hit for a couple of hours. Saw only a very few individual fish here and there. Rarely a double or a triple. No schools or concentrations. And couldn't coax any bites out of the fish I did see.
Glenn (HND) did better. He had brought his fly rod and was fishing an intermediate line with a black marabou leech. A few of the widely scattered fish found it interesting and rewarded him with some tugs and acrobatics. He was glad he had brought the fly rod.
I kept switching jigs and flies on my usually killer jig/fly rigs. All the stuff that has produced well in the past went completely unmolested. I was developing a complexion...or whatever.
Couldn't believe the number of other anglers on the lake. Several other tubers and tooners and 3 or four boats trolling all around us. Also a few bank tanglers but never saw them catch anything. I did see several trout brought in by the guys in the boats. Usually small ones cranked in across the surface and then tossed carelessly out of the boat, with a comment such as "damned rats". Rats is evidently the colorful local colloquial term for the small planters from this year's restocking efforts. With treatment like that you gotta wonder about the survival rate of the newbie planters.
The early morning breeze got stronger as the day wore on...as forecast. Blowing in gusts, first from one direction and then another. Concerned about being stranded at one end of the lake if the wind kicked up blowing the wrong direction I headed back toward the ramp and the dam.
Finally went over some marks on sonar and got some tentative ticks. Missed the first few. Then finally hooked and brought in a "rat". Jiggled him off at the tube without lifting it from the water. I think he had a better chance at survival.
Then, in quick succession, I hooked and lost two pretty decent tigers. One was a beautifully colored "male phase" fish that would have probably gone over 18". Fought it all the way to the tube before he forgot how to hold on. The second was a high jumping lighter colored fish that let go at the top of the second jump. About the same size as the first one. I began to think that maybe I could salvage the day after all. Nope.
I did end up catching about 10-12 more of the smaller fish...with the biggest maybe a footlong. When I got back near the dam I suddenly started seeing some schools of fish. Now that was more like it. In past times the schools of fish are more competitive and bite more aggressively. Not these. They were all swimming around with mouths tightly closed and upraised fins. Only a very few bites and more missed bites than hookups.
I used the walkie talkie to advise HND and Daniel that there were now more fish by the dam and they soon joined me...HND towing his son behind his motorized toon. They also got into a few of the more aggressive rats. We decided that even catching a few of the small ones was better than catching nothing. So we played with them until the wind got serious in early afternoon and then headed back for the big city.
UNPAID POLITICAL COMMENTARY: I think I am done with Huntington. There are fewer tigers being planted and there is a lot more pressure...from other tubers, from boaters, from bank tanglers and especially from ice anglers. That poor lake gets hammered these days. Many of the anglers fish to keep a limit. But all the rats they throw back likely have a poor survival rate and that further reduces the available population.
I reviewed my records going back to 2006. My worst trip prior to this year was last year...when I only caught 15 fish, but almost all of them were bigger than 14 inches...with some over 16 and one 18. Other years I have had days of 50 to 75 fish, with multiple catches over 18 inches.
I have joked that Huntington is the only water I fish anymore that holds only trout. After a bit of reflection...after yesterday's trip...I think I have made my last trip to Huntington.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]