The post Fishing the Connecticut River in Early Spring: A Guide to the Enfield-Windsor Locks Stretch appeared first on Jay's Outdoor Life.

It’s been nearly two years since Uncle Josh Bait Company announced that they would no longer be offering fishing lures made from pork products. This ended a 93-year run of producing pork rind lures that began with Allen P. Jones and Urban Schreiner carving “frogs” out of fatback during a summer when the actual amphibians were tough to come by. The official reason was that pigs today are being brought to slaughter at a younger age, and the fatback and skin that Uncle Josh required was too thin to make durable fishing lures.

Pork rind was (and is) in my opinion, without equal as a bucktail jig trailer. The fluttering action of the natural material can’t be matched by even the most supple soft plastic, but as we enter the second half of the 2017 surfcasting season, my supply of stockpiled pork rinds has reached a perilous low. In May, I found a forgotten rind dried and shriveled on a bucktail jig hook and wept for an hour. I’m exaggerating, of course. I only cried for 45 minutes.

Durability was always the downside of the pork trailers. Forget to return one to the jar after a fishing trip and you’d find it turned to leather the following day. I’ve been experimenting with reanimating these shriveled rinds with limited success, but even after an extensive soak in brine or fresh water, most are simply too far gone.

With my jars of remaining pork rinds countable on one hand, this spring I got serious about finding replacement trailers.

The first thing I considered was raising a pig and making my own trailers. This might work financially if I find a non-fishing friend to split the costs with me in exchange for however much organic bacon and pork chops you can carve out of a two-year-old hog. Still, this sounds like a time-consuming and messy process, but I haven’t taken it off the table just yet.

The most realistic option, of course, is to settle on synthetic trailers, and the good news is that a few companies have produced suitable alternatives to pork rinds.

Another big striper falls to an Otter Tail and Otter Tube combination.

Otter Tails have been around for several years now. Captain Bruce Millar designed them as an alternative to seaworms when trolling tube-and-worm rigs. The original trailer was cut in a C shape that flaps through the water like the curly tail on a soft-plastic grub. It is made of a soft-plastic-coated mesh that holds the hook well and resists bite-offs from bluefish. The added benefit of the mesh is that it absorbs scents such as bunker oil or the Otter Tails Otter Combo Scent.

Surfcasters quickly caught on to Otter Tails, and had good luck with them. Nonetheless, the original, C-shaped Otter Tail differs greatly from a pork rind trailer. It doesn’t slow the sink rate as much, and the action is much more pronounced, a constant vibrating as opposed to the subtle flick and undulation of a straight pork trailer. Still, they work well and catch fish, and I’ve been packing them along with my last remaining pork rinds. More recently, Otter Tails came out with straight- and fork-tail trailers in multiple lengths and widths that look promising as pork rind alternatives.

@domrosello Taming the Gorillas with a white Skinny Tail Jig Strip and all white bucktail ??? #bluefish #gorillablues #fatcowfishing #jigstrips #fishing #fishingislife #fishingpicoftheday #surfcasterjournal #surfcasting #surffishing #bucktails #jigs #lures #vanstaal #pennfishing #thefishermanmag #onthewatermagazine #spring #angler

A post shared by Fat Cow Fishing – Official (@fatcowfishing) on May 4, 2017 at 2:49pm PDT

The Fat Cow Fishing Jig Strips have potential as well. These trailers borrow the classic pork rind shapes of the discontinued Uncle Josh products, and make them out of a flexible, durable material. They closely match the flutter of a pork rind, slow the fall of a bucktail jig and, like Otter Tails, won’t dry out. I first used them while bucktailing some surprisingly picky spring bluefish back in May, and the first trailer held up to multiple fish before a short-striking blue sliced it in half. The other casters who were using soft-plastic grubs were replacing their trailers after every fish. Another thing I like about Fat Cow Jig Strips is that they come in the same jars as pork rinds, ensuring that the pork rind holder on my plug bag won’t be “just for show” after my last Uncle Josh trailer gives up the ghost.

Since using these alternatives, I’ve felt much better about my impending pork-free plug bag. The improved durability and wider range of colors more than make up for the slight difference in action between the synthetic trailers and natural pork rinds. After a month of using the Jig Strips and Otter Tails regularly, I have enough confidence in them to squirrel away my remaining Uncle Josh jars for special occasions, new moons, and Nor’easters.

The post Pork Rind Replacements appeared first on On The Water.

Powered by WPeMatico

The post Pork Rind Replacements appeared first on Jay's Outdoor Life.

It was late in the tuna season when Jason Ward took his first shot at bluefin on spinning gear. He hadn’t been living in Boston for long, and when he heard of fishermen taking 80- to 100-pound bluefin on spinning gear, he had to get out and try it.

Ward grew up big-game fishing with his father in New Zealand, taking advantage of its world-class striped marlin fishery. After college, he moved to the Cayman Islands for a bit, where he fished for yellowfin tuna and small blue marlin. Ward describes his move from the Cayman Islands like this, “I met a beautiful blonde who was on vacation, and next thing I knew, I was living in Boston.”

Sorry Charlie 170

On his first trip using spinning gear for tuna, Ward said of himself and the crew, “We got our asses kicked.” At the time, many of the fishermen targeting tuna on spinning gear were fly- and light-tackle guides using trial and error to find the gear that would stand up to tuna that had been returning a little larger each season and were by then pushing the limits of what was possible on the available gear. Ward spent the winter applying some of his big-game experience to the tuna fishery, looking for suitable rods, reels and lures. The rods and reels were easy enough to get, Ward said, with help from the crew at Saltywater Tackle—a New Jersey Tackle Shop that specializes in jigging and popping for big-game species around the world. The lures, however, were another matter.

“I couldn’t get them,” Ward said. Fishermen were showing up with $200 stickbaits from Japan and catching tuna on them, but those lures, in addition to being expensive, were highly in demand and nearly impossible to get. So, Ward decided to make his own.

Ward had started making lures at a young age in New Zealand—shortening his mother’s broomsticks to make poppers, and twisting teaspoons into metal lures—so getting into lure-making wasn’t a huge leap. The challenge in making stickbaits for big-game fish, however, is creating something that casts well on heavy tackle, moves in an enticing way, has an attractive finish for keen-eyed pelagics, and is still tough enough to hold together when a 100-plus-pound fish swims away with it at 40 miles per hour.

Siren Lures’ slow, sweeping retrieve combined with the realistic profile and reflective finish make it a highly sought-after lure.

His first models were made of wood, but Ward soon switched to resin for its consistency. The lures worked extremely well, both in drawing strikes and holding up to monster bluefin in the Northeast. They were also successful on some of the hardest-fighting fish from all around the world, including the notoriously tough giant trevally. Six years ago, Ward made the leap from building lures for himself to building lures as a business. Since then, Siren Lures has developed a global reputation as big-fish catchers, but Ward’s testing grounds remain the tuna waters in the Northeast and around Cape Cod.

The Siren Lures family consists of the slow-sinking Sorry Charlie, the single-hook Bolt, the fast-sinking Deep Seductress, and the tail-weighted Bad Mon. The first three are the most popular among Northeast tuna fishermen. The Sorry Charlie 170 is designed to be fished slowly to present an easy target to a feeding tuna. Its slow, sweeping retrieve combined with the realistic profile and reflective finish make it a highly sought-after lure.

The single hook design of the Bolt 160 is meant to inflict minimal damage to fish that are going to be released. Ward switches to this lure after he has a tuna already in the box. The single hook and extra weight allow it to cast like a bullet, and the streamlined design has fantastic action underwater, both on a straight retrieve and when sweeping or pumping the rod. The Bolt stays level when it sinks and quivers as it falls, so fishermen must be ready for tuna to eat it on the initial drop.

Ward initially designed the Deep Seductress for giant trevally and dogtooth tuna, but with new sizes in the offing, it’s quickly becoming a favorite among tuna fishermen. It’s designed to sink very quickly to fish feeding over deep sea mounts. It allows fishermen to get down to the fish, while covering more water than with a jig. The Deep Seductress 225 is a big lure—your “elephant gun,” as Ward put it. There’s also the Deep Seductress 225 MXP—for “mid-water explorer”—that is a little lighter and a Deep Seductress 185. Ward also says that smaller 155 and 125 models are coming soon. Each design is made with a metal plate harness inside, and are “super dense and super strong.” Ward likens the Deep Seductress to a larger version of the Bolt, but with a more angular design. This gives it a great swimming action on a straight retrieve, and he mentioned that it has even been used to troll for wahoo.

Ward is excited about the smaller Deep Seductress models for bluefin. The Deep Seductress 125, measuring a bit over 4 inches, was born out of the frustration fishermen were experiencing late in the fall of 2016 when surface-slashing bluefin were so focused on small butterfish that getting a bite was next to impossible. He called it “Project Antidote” as he went to work on a small lure that could get bites from lock-jawed tuna and still survive the battle.

Bolt 160 in “Shattered Sprat” & “Broken Dawn” finishes

Ward’s color profiles are more impressionistic than realistic, and tuna have no problem attacking them. When casting a small lure in big, open water, it must be seen, which is the reasoning behind the standout colors of Siren Lures. One of his most popular patterns is the black-and-silver “Black Tie Affair,” which is a color you’d expect to see being thrown for stripers at night rather than bluefin by day. This color creates a sharp silhouette against the sky, and has proven effective at getting bites from bluefin on both cloudy and sunny days.

Siren Lures are available at Saltywater Tackle, but they sell out quickly. Ward says he wants to ramp up production, but with the work and attention to detail required to produce each lure, it’s a tall order. Still, he’s working in his Massachusetts lab to figure that out … when he’s not out casting to breaking bluefin.

The post Featured Lure: Siren Lures appeared first on On The Water.

Powered by WPeMatico

The post Featured Lure: Siren Lures appeared first on Jay's Outdoor Life.

Shark fishing from shore is back in the limelight and improved tackle paired with daring tactics have allowed surfcasters to land monster sharks from the beach.

It was 1998. I had just moved to Normandy Beach, New Jersey, steps from the surf, and was putting in innumerable hours tangling with stripers and blues. One evening when bringing over fresh striper fillets to my neighbor, Jackie, her 85-year-old father, Buddy, opened a book of his old fishing pictures from the 1940s. As the pages turned, black-and-white photos of huge dusky and brown sharks weighing 100 pounds and more got my adrenaline flowing. Buddy spoke about beaching large and in-charge sharks. He hadn’t fished for more than 40 years, nobody seemed to think sharks swam in the Jersey surf anymore, and the idea of targeting them from the beach was lost to the sands of time. That is, until I saw those pictures.

The author with a surf-caught sand tiger shark.

FROM THE SANDS

My first experience with a shark in the Jersey surf came in the summer of 1998. Schools of 30- to 40-pound bass were close to shore, feeding on the recent population of menhaden that had returned to New Jersey in force. I was chunking on a late June morning off Mantoloking when my rod went down. Before I could get to it, the rod was pulled out of the sand spike and dragged into the undertow. I caught up to it and set back on the hook, at which point my 7500 Penn reel and 9-foot surf rod buckled like it was about to shatter. All I could do was hold on.

About 200 yards offshore, as my 50-pound-test braided line liquified off the spool, a wicked scythe-like tail ripped up the surface in a thrashing frenzy. Before I realized what was happening, the last wraps of line disappeared from my spool. I learned right then and there that I’d need heavier gear and a better plan.

Early on, I experimented with paddling large baits out on a surfboard. I’d bring a live bunker and a block of chum to drop offshore under the moonlight. I quickly abandoned that method when one night, a thresher tail whipped in front of my face in the pitch-black darkness 300 yards offshore.

Nick Honachefsky’s surf rig

When I realized that casting the baits would be the best (and safest) option, I began looking for a rod with the backbone to subdue a big shark and the ability to cast a bait far enough to reach them. My current setup is a Shimano Ultegra 10000 reel spooled with 65-pound PowerPro braided line matched to a 12-foot Shimano Tiralejo rod. The rig itself consists of a 200-pound-test barrel swivel, 24-inch section of 100-pound-test monofilament line crimped with size 1.3 crimps to a three-way swivel with a 3-ounce Pyramid sinker, then another 30-inch section of 130-pound monofilament line crimped to a 12-inch steel leader and a 10/0 Gamakatsu Big River hook crimped onto the end. The 12-foot rod provides enough leverage to cast a bunker chunk on the long rig.

Sharks are most active in low-light conditions, so plan on fishing the early morning or evening hours.

Sharks swim in the New Jersey surf from June to August. The prime tides are three days around the full and new moons. The sharks are most active in low-light conditions, so plan on fishing the early morning or evening hours. If fishing into dark, let the baits soak at least until midnight.

BAYSIDE DOCK BRAWLERS

When the shore shark craze really caught on in Jersey around 2006, hardcore bayside anglers knew that big brown, dusky and even bull sharks were coming in to feed around the back side of Island Beach State Park, Long Beach Island and Brigantine. We learned that sharks could be caught in the normally placid bayside waters, off the docks, right under the lights of many Jersey Shore restaurants in front of bewildered tourists.

Anglers worked the docks under night lights, setting up with 30- to 50-class Penn International reels and lofting baits into the holes and sloughs off the docks and Intracoastal Waterway channel. The rigs closely resembled those used by offshore sharkers with 50-pound monofilament running line and a 280-pound shark cable rig with 12/0 Mustad forged hooks, baited with whole fillets of bluefish or mackerel. Chumming off the docks was a little easier than from the surf. A 2.5-gallon bucket of bunker chum could be draped off the piling, where the tide and current carried the scent out through the deeper channels.
Bayside sharkers working the sod banks found the best action near inlets where there was sufficient tidal flow.

Sharks regularly enter inlets and bays after dark.

BIG BAY SHARKING

New York and New Jersey’s big bays contain deep channels that act as superhighways for breeding and feeding sharks.

Hardcore surf-sharkers like AJ Rotondella of Apex Anglers have been working the big bays to find fish that press the limits of what can be done by shore-based anglers, with 250- to 300-pound sand tigers ranking among his top catches. Rotondella implements the use of a 9-foot Ocean Kayak Frenzy to drop the baits into the feeding lanes of the sharks.

“The kayak allows me to get baits out into the zone and past the rough surf and wave action that tends to push lines in,” says AJ. Though AJ rarely chums, with the aid of the kayak he can easily drape a small chum bucket over the side when paddling out.

AJ’s big bay rig consists of a size 6/0 reel loaded with 65-pound-test braid matched with a heavy rod. Since the baits are kayaked out, AJ uses a long monofilament topshot to prevent the shark’s skin from rubbing against braid. A 100-yard topshot of 80- to 100-pound test does the job.

For kayaked baits, AJ uses a 12- to 15-inch piece of size 15 single-strand wire, then 10 to 12 feet of 200-pound-test monofilament.

Have a good set of pliers handy so you can get the sharks back to the water fast.

For landing the monstrous sharks, AJ prefers to jump in the suds, grab the leader, get his hands on the tail when it is safe to do so, then get a buddy to come down and assist with bringing the shark far up enough out of the waves to unhook and release.

With all shore-bound caught sharks, take great care to quickly unhook, snap a photo, and release the fish back into the water. Try not to drag it all the way up on the beach and leave it out of the water for more than 2 minutes. Sharks are hardy creatures, but every moment out of the water is a moment closer to it not surviving. Respect and release all these beasts.

New Jersey’s shore-based sharking may have been forgotten for years, but is now back in the limelight. The resurgence of menhaden and the nearly subtropical temperatures during the summer are attracting sharks into Garden State waters more than ever before, allowing for some truly monumental catches from the suds. The question is, where does Jersey surf-sharking go from here? Right now, it’s a race to the first big thresher from the beach.

The post Surf-Sharking Revival appeared first on On The Water.

Powered by WPeMatico

The post Surf-Sharking Revival appeared first on Jay's Outdoor Life.

The basic needs of America’s world-class trout and waterfowl populations—healthy headwaters and wetlands—are about to be undermined, so sportsmen and women need to act now

We’ve written before about how water is connected, and how pollution from small, diffuse sources can accumulate and create big problems downstream. Scientists and conservationists understand that this is a serious issue, but sportsmen and women are also well-informed—after all, we see the effects directly in our trout streams and from our duck blinds. Perhaps that’s why 83 percent of hunters and anglers, and overwhelmingly across party lines, support the application of Clean Water Act protections for smaller streams and wetlands.

However, the current administration has started the process to repeal a rule that helps the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers do exactly that.

Finalized in 2015, the Clean Water Rule clarifies Clean Water Act protections for 20 million acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of headwater streams—that’s 60 percent of the country’s flowing waters. If we can’t ensure that waters and wetlands are protected at the source, this endangers the future of beloved downstream land and waters.

But for some reason, there’s been some serious misunderstanding as to what this rule does and does not do. With less than 30 days for hunters and anglers to tell the EPA and Army Corps that headwaters and wetlands matter to us, we want to set the facts straight.

By keeping smaller headwaters and wetlands clean, this rule protects:

Early mornings that are worth the extra cup of coffee

Your story about that first catch

A good reason to buy just a few more decoys because you’ll definitely use them this season

That Day Away from the Office

But the rule IS NOT regulating these things:

Puddles

Regular farming practices

What the Rule Does

Without the Clean Water Rule, we risk seeing streams polluted and wetlands destroyed because of confusion as to which waters are protected under the Clean Water Act. This ambiguity started with two Supreme Court decisions, which chipped away protections for headwater streams and wetlands that had been protected until that point. After the 2006 Rapanos v. United States case, Chief Justice Roberts urged the agencies to write a rule that would clarify which waters were covered. This kicked off a transparent public process that eventually led to the final Clean Water Rule, which was celebrated by sportsmen in 2015.

Rather than operating with clarity and consistency, federal and state water quality personnel will need to determine which waters qualify for protection on a case-by-case basis—throwing tremendous uncertainty back into the decision-making process and burdening water quality managers.

This ambiguity also hurts sportsmen and our efforts to restore clean water resources.

The bottom line is that without Clean Water Act protections, wetlands that serve as key habitat for waterfowl can be drained and smaller headwater streams that are crucial spawning areas for trout and other fish can be polluted. Pollution doesn’t simply stay put in headwaters; it flows into larger water bodies downstream, damaging more fish and wildlife habitat along the way.

There’s Less Time Than Before

Any time the federal government creates or repeals a rule that government agencies and American citizens have to follow, they’re required to have a public comment period. When the Clean Water Rule was created in 2015, sportsmen and women had more than 200 days to comment on the proposed rule. This time around there are only 30 days to make our voices heard.

This rule could impact our access and traditions for the foreseeable future, but we’ve been given very little time to speak up about it.

Don’t let the opportunity slip by. Click HERE to tell the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers that headwater streams and wetlands matter to sportsmen and women. And share your stories to make it personal—because it is. If we want to preserve our way of life and ensure that the next generation has quality opportunities to hunt and fish, we need to watch out for all of our streams and wetlands.

The post To Have Great Fishing Anywhere, We Need Clean Water Everywhere appeared first on Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

Powered by WPeMatico

The post To Have Great Fishing Anywhere, We Need Clean Water Everywhere appeared first on Jay's Outdoor Life.

One thing I love about fishing the CT River is the variety of fish that might be caught from striped bass to carp. I spent an afternoon out on the river targeting channel catfish using some stinky week old cocktail shrimp. Unfortunately even the catfish did not want them so I switched to good ole fashioned crawlers and wound up with a smallmouth bass, a yellow perch and a white perch.   Normally if a catch is legal to keep, I will keep it for the table as I find catch and release a cruel practice. Hook a fish, play it to exhaustion, pull it from the water at which point its gills instantly begin incurring irreparable damage and then put it back in the water where biologists say a figure in the neighborhood of 70% of these fish will not even survive (I will be writing more about this at some point later) . The fish got lucky today in that they were barely hooked and I did not feel like filleting panfish. Even though I didn’t catch any catfish it was still great to be out on the river doing one of the things I love the most.

The post A Day Fishing on the CT River appeared first on Jay's Outdoor Life.