Fishing Fanatic

Monday, May 21, 2012

Monster red and late reports

It's been a while...

Recently I have had quite a few setbacks. Due to my recent move I don't have internet...not having internet sucks. I now live so far in the sticks my options are satellite or air card. Hopefully I'll have a solution soon, but it's not looking so hot.

I have tons of excuses for not updating my blog, but the best excuse is, I've been fishing!

That's right...and it has been GOOD.

On April 28th, I was lucky enough to go fishing with Ric Burnley and Forrest Short. I started fishing a couple hours after them and by the time I met up with them, Forrest had just landed a six pound bass. I caught 4 bass and 3 pickerel throughout the day with the biggest bass going about 17" and the biggest pickerel being 23".

The real highlight of the day was Ric Burnley catching his one and only fish of the day, a 23" 7+ pound behemoth bass. The real kicker is that this was his FIRST TIME FISHING FOR BASS! Way to go, Ric! Good work.

Forrest, as usual, caught several bass up to 19" (other than the 6 pounder.) Not a bad day on the water!

A few days later, I went fishing for big reds and sight casting for striper (also big). I met up with Jay Brooks, Kayak Kevin, Mark Rioux, Ashley Bishop, and Miles Wong. It was a lot of paddling that day, but it payed off!

Kevin was the first one to find the school of striper and he immediately hooked up. Jay was soon to follow, but I couldn't seem to get one to hit. After Kevin landed his 44" striper, Jay landed his and it was even bigger at 45"! Not too much later we found the school again and finally I got a massive hit on the spook, but I yanked it right out of its mouth. The lure bounced about 10 feet away and I immediately started twitching it again. Within a second or two I got another huge blowup and this time I hooked it! I could still see the main school tightly clumped together and all of the sudden, either my hooked fish or Kevin paddling up spooked the school and more than thirty striper at 30-45" come charging at me with their shoulders out of the water. It looked like a herd of cattle from where I was sitting... It kinda scared me- I'm not gunna lie. After a good fight on my medium tackle I landed the fat 37" striper and snapped a couple pics.

It got much harder after that because the striper spooked much easier. Kevin did manage to coax one more using a stop and go presentation with a swimbait, but I couldn't get them to bite. I did, however, manage 2 more striper, but they were both foul hooked.

We looked for reds after we realized the striper didn't want anything to do with us, but the water was murky and we couldn't find any so we headed in.

Just a couple days later I got the chance to get out there and again I had even better luck. Kevin, Jay, and Jay's wife Allie got out there much earlier than I did. Kevin landed a 47" and a 41"while Jay messed around with a chug bug to get the same nice red blow up on his topwater lure 3 times.

As I met up with them, we found a nice school of striper, but I was the only one lucky enough to get any hits. I had 2-3 follow-ups and 2 blow-ups. I was prepared with the Go-Pro HD 2 this time!

It was Jay's birthday, so he and his wife left early. Kevin stuck around for a little while longer, but after about an hour he also left. I was determined to catch a red, so I continued to cast my super spook around while dragging my swimbait on the bottom behind me. I could not get a red to hit the spook, but not for lack of trying.

After paddling for miles and miles and casting the spook 'til my arm hurt, I got a strong hit on the swimbait that was I was dragging behind me. I grabbed the rod and the line went slack soon after I cranked the reel. I wasn't sure if it was a red or a cownose ray, but it was big whatever it was. I passed through the same area 4-5 times over the next hour or so, and got a strong hit. This time it was on for about 10 seconds and again...the stupid thing got off! I started to crank the swimbait in really fast to cast back out and within 3-4 full cranks I got another hit! It went right from one red's mouth to the next. I got a nice solid hook-set on this one and reeled it in within 5-7 minutes. It was a tough-fighting 42" red drum, my first red of the year!

Unfortunately, my camera died before I could adjust the mount in the right position...

I fished 'til dark, but that red was the last one I saw. Not my biggest red, but I'll take a 37" striper and a 42" red in the same day, any day.

On May 5th, Rob Choi, Matt Anderson, Tripp Seed, and I left Wise Point boat ramp in search of reds again. We paddled past the area where we typically see the striper, but for the first time, we didn't see any schools at all. After about 3 hours of trolling our baits for nothing, we came up on 2 boats. I decided to go around one, paddle between them, and go in front of the next one. As I got between the two boats, my rod doubled up! FISH ON! I grabbed my Release Reel matched with my Shimano Trevala and started cranking. It was NOT coming up. As I was fighting the fish, Rob started to film me, and Tripp immediately took a cast in my direction and hooked up, but lost it within 30 seconds or so. After a great fight I saw the fish for the first time...and so did the boaters. I knew it was big, but didn't know how big. The guys on the boat said, "WHOA! What are you gunna do with it now???" I looked at them and said "Just watch!"

I grabbed the bottom jaw and leg scooped it into the boat.

I love catching fish that make me go "WOOOOOOO!"

I soon realized that my 48" tape measure was too short so I paddled over to the boat to borrow a tape measure. I pulled the tape across it as best I could and decided 49" was pretty close, though I think it could have gone 50" had I been able to lay it out flat.

The rest of the day was uneventful, but I didn't fret too much because I already caught the biggest fish of my life!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Two Day Work-a-Fish-a-thon

MAKE TIME

This past weekend I got a call from Rob Choi asking me to join him with a night of fishing before a day of fishing, or a "Fish-A-Thon," as I like to call it. I have been SLAMMED with work, my newborn, and my upcoming move. There was NO chance that I would be able to fish...or was there?

Friday morning I was convinced that I would be working all day Saturday, but toward the end of Friday I found out that I couldn't start work til noon...That left PLENTY of time to do what I love best...Fish-A-Thon.

As luck would have it, my awesome wife was headed out of town to visit her parents, so with no convincing at all, she told me to go for it! I called Rob back to let him know that the Fish-A-Thon was ready to commence.

Thursday night was a little rough for me because of my newborn Max. I figured I had about 4 hours of sleep. Friday was a busy day of work in Virginia beach from 8am til 8pm, but I made it home by 9:30 and was out of the door by 10:30.

My course was set for the Elizabeth River in search of speckled trout. Although the Elizabeth is kind of like paddling through a giant cesspool, the fishing rarely disappoints. I made it out on the water just before midnight, about an hour after Rob. Within 15 minutes I hooked my first trout on my handy dandy, trout killing, topwater bait, the Zara Super Spook. I LOVE topwater fishing. I don't even know why I brought my other rods out that night because from 12am til 4am I threw the same spook and caught 7 speckled trout ranging from 19" to 22" and one fat 23" striper. That bait just doesn't seem to catch small fish and I'm OK with that!

By 4am the fishing was getting a little slow and I was slightly worn out...just slightly. Rob and I headed in, packed our stuff, and took off to Oceans East II tackle shop. We arrived around 4:30am and took a nap in our vehicles til about 6:00am. I awoke to a grinning Asian knocking on my window with a bag full of blue crabs. I tried to gather myself as best I could, so I could mumble a few words at the tackle shop to buy my bait. I think Rob is one of those MORNING people...makes me sick, but I couldn't have him showing me up now, could I?

From there, we took off to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and launched our yaks from the beach. It was a beautiful calm day.

Up to this point I was trying to be nice and not mention how Rob's fishing was going so far this trip, but if I leave that out, I'll have to leave out an important quote from Rob. I just can't do that...Sorry Rob. (I'll try to make this quick and painless.)

Although he got to the Elizabeth River one hour before me, I was still able to catch the first fish...and the second...and the third...and the eighth. Somehow Rob managed to not catch a single fish in the five hours on the water that night. I even teased him by catching a fat 23" striper just 6' off of the bow of his kayak. I really don't know what it was that night. I guess I just got lucky.

I LOVE that paddle!

That luck is what prompted Rob's important quote. He said:

"The way things are going, I bet the first tog you pull up this morning will be a citation!"

Well, as luck would have it, that is exactly what happened. We fished for less than an hour and I landed my first ever citation tautog! It was right at 23" long and weighed 8lbs 12oz on Rob's digital hand scale. It was caught using my Release Reel and a simple tog rig with a quartered blue crab for bait.

Photo by Rob Choi

Rob landing his first, of many, tog that day.

I released her soon after Rob took a few pictures and this short video clip...

I don't often show a lot of enthusiasm when I land fish. For whatever reason I usually stay calm and collected, but that fish just made me yell in excitement. I felt much better after letting out a nice

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

I only caught one small tog after that, and I had to start paddling in by 11am, but that was the easiest three mile paddle back from the First Island I ever had! Nothing could drag me down after a fish like that! Not even the eight hours of work I put in after all that binge fishing.

BEFORE

AFTER
(It still swam away)

I thought that work was going to be painful, but the excitement of the fish kept me going just fine...so fine in fact, that I decided to try the Elizabeth River one more time before heading home. At about 9pm I got to the same spot as the night before and used the same lure. It was a little cold and raining, but one fish decided to cooperate. I caught a 20" speck and soon after HAD to call it a night.

Why did I HAVE to quit? Because I found myself falling asleep DURING casts. That is no exaggeration. I would bomb that heavy aerodynamic lure in the air and before it even hit the water I would doze off. Occasionally I would be awake when it hit the water and give it a few twitches before falling asleep, but I decided that it was time to call it quits due to my body's inability to function properly. I got home around 11:30 and I can honestly say, I don't remember my head hitting the pillow. It was a great 40 hours of being awake.

Do you still think you can say, "I am too busy to fish?"

Not likely.

I'm not saying that trips like this are for everyone, but if you truly have a passion, feed it, and don't let a little thing like sleep get in your way.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Milkcratemag.com Interview!

I was contacted by Andy Cameron of "The Milkcrate" via Luther Cifers and asked if I would be interested in doing an interview. I was actually on the water fishing for bass when I checked my E-mail on my droid and accepted the request (I caught 3-4 bass, a few pickerel, some nice bluegill, and a bunch of crappie).

Anyways, I had a lot of fun with the interview! He actually did a bit of research on me and made a few questions specifically for me. They do a great job there at www.themilkcratemag.com and I will definitely keep that site bookmarked!

Here is the interview!

http://themilkcratemag.com/2012/04/01/2703/

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

BASS!!!

I caught 3 bass up to 21.5" (5lbs even) and 3 smallish pickerel. All fish were caught on a Rapala husky jerk. Sorry for the lazy post. Here are pictures!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Post baby fishing...

Since the birth of my baby son Maxwell Fisher Mayer I've been out fishing 4 times! I'm not going to brag or anything, but I have the best wife ever. Well...I guess I am bragging about that. Don't take that the wrong way though! I love my son and love being around him! That being said...report!

My first trip on the water after my son was at Beaverdam reservoir in search of crappie. I only had a couple hours to fish, but I managed to catch 2 yellow perch. I'll take that by-catch any day! It wasn't a stellar trip, but I enjoyed the time on the water.

The second trip was an exciting one...until it happened. Forrest, Rob Choi, and I fished a private lake for about 4-5 hours and had NO luck at all. That is very rare for this particular lake, because I've had such great luck there in the past.

I had to head home around noon, because believe it or not I do have some responsibilities. Forrest and Rob on the other hand just went from one lake to the next. I REALLY wish I could have made it out with them because they did very well. How well? This well...Buckets & Chains.

After seeing how well they did, naturally I had to give it a shot. I was lucky enough to have off work for my birthday and even luckier to have a wife that would let me go fishing on valentines day! (Those days are the same for me)

Having Forrest as a friend is almost an unfair advantage sometimes. That dude can put anyone on fish!

I got to the lake a little late, but still had about 3 hours to fish. I started by trolling a couple shallow diving crankbaits and picked up a 23" pickerel. Within two hours, all I could manage to get was 3 pickerel (not that i'm complaining.)

23"

Feisty!

About an hour til dark I finally landed a small bass on a Rapala husky jerk in about 3' of water.

Not long after that I hooked a solid fish on a hollow body swimbait. I knew it was a nice bass, but I was surprised to see how fat it was! It was only a tad over 19", but I bet it was 4.5lbs! Chunky!