new to tubing

[Pitman]

At the end of August I am going to up to Cape Cod for two weeks and there are literally hundreds of ponds to fish. I decided that the best way for me to do "pond hopping" would be to buy a float tube. I was lucky to find this great web site and message board. I just ordered a TU Bighorn and am starting from there. I live in NW New York City (the Bronx) and do a lot of fishing in the Croton Reservoir System in Westchester and Putnam counties. There is fantastic lake and stream fishing. Much to my dissapointment one is not allowed to use a tube in the reservoirs so I will begin searching out new venues in my area in order to begin to get the hang of things before my two week pond bonanaza at the end of August. In the spirit of sharing internet fishing sites, I am a frequent visitor to the [url "http://www.nybass.com"]www.nybass.com[/url] site. We had a fishing get-together today and there are a great bunch of people and the site has lots of very good information. Much on the site isn't applicable to people fishing out West for non-bass species but there are a lot of reviews of equipment and discussion of bass-fishing techniques (especially the "Classic Threads" and "Writer's Cove" section. Again, thanks for the great board and I look forward to starting a new type of fishing.

Pitman
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[JapanRon]

Hey there Pitman,

Welcome to BFT and to the many boards and stores here. Congrats on becoming tubinated!

We've got a whole bunch of individual boards you will want to hit besides the TUBE board including the freshwater,NY state, and the MASS board for your Cape Cod trip to name just a few.

The mods here and members like me will jump on your questions like a hen on a june bug.

JapanRon
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[TubeDude]

[url "javascript: addTag('cool')"][cool][/url][blue][size 1]Hey, Pitman, welcome to our little forum. I have spent time in your part of the country, having worked for a company based in New Haven Connecticut. I can assure you that if you do some driving and some homework you will have no difficulty finding water in which to launch your new craft.[/size][/blue]
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[#0000ff][size 1]As you have discovered, many of the reservoirs have restrictions on swimming and float tubing, when they are used for municipal water supply. However, there are plenty of natural lakes and farm ponds that are ideal for tubing.[/size][/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff][size 1]You might also consider launching in some of the protected areas of Long Island Sound. Good stripers and bluefish at times, with lots of flounder and other inshore bay species. Ideal for light tackle.[/size][/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff][size 1]I got your PM and I will be sending you some introductory writing for you to soak up. Hope we can help you get well "launched". We would like to hear from you from time to time, even though you will probably be spending a lot of time with the more local boards.[/size][/#0000ff]
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[tubeN2]

Hey Pitman, Hi and welcome to the BFT message boards. We are always glad to have new members. New tubers are a bonus to this site as well.

We will look forward to any of your tubing reports as you are able to get them to share. Please feel free to drop by anytime. We can help you with just about every aspect from how to gear up and even cook some of your catch.
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[hustler898]

Hey Pitman,

I miss NY, lived in Queens all my life till I moved out to UT about 2 years ago. There's some spots on the sound, North shore that offer some good porgie action. I never fished it with a tube but it is more than possible. Oyster bay is my favorite. Just park in the marina and take your tube down the dock to launch. Fish near the mored boats about 100 feet or so straight out from the dock just to the left of the channel. The catching is fast and furious!!! There are some other spots in the area that offer some good black fishing like Center Island Reef and a barge wreck all close to shore.
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[Dryrod]

[url "javascript: addTag('')"][][/url]Hey there hustler898, Unlike you the only thing that I miss about NY is the great fishing along the Neversink River upstate. I too was born in Queens in an area that is now Astoria Park. Although Queens was a nice place to live in the olden days I left the city as soon as I was of legal age. Use to swim at North Beach which is now La Guardia Airport.
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[Pitman]

The LI Sound is a much better fishery today than it was 20 years ago. This past year the NY Times had a series of articles on the Sound and saw it as an example of how with enough money and planning a seemingly "lost" body of water can be brought back to life. Believe it or not the East River of Manhattan is teeming with fish. You can see charter boats for blues and stripers near the southern tip. Despite the good fishing, I don't think anyone is going to be eating any of it. Also Jamaica Bay is very popular for people with yaks so I'll have to get my soon to be arriving Fishcat 4 out there soon.
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[hustler898]

The summer after I left there were news segments about the sound and how the porgies were literally jumping in the boat!!! They were so plentiful and nice and fat thanks to the ban on comercial fishing during the migratory months at the Montauk side of the sound. I believe that happened the year before I left and I got into some good ones. Before that the porgies all but dissapeared from the Western Sound.

The comercial fisherman would set nets that all but spanned the entire entrance to the sound. They were almost responsible for puttin porgies on the endangered species list . I'm glad the fishery is coming back. How are the bluefish doing? When I left they were getting scarce.
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