Johnsfolly

You have to travel a bunch when you've caught most of the species within a two hour radius😅. As the year winds down there will be a lot more travel. Next week we head for KC to see our grandkids. Hope to catch a few new species out that way or in KY or WV. Then I have business trips to CO in Oct and another in TX in Nov. Both trips I have a couple of days planned for fishing. Scatter in a couple of local trips and it will be a busy end of the year😁.

I certainly can't 😉! That flavor to me defines chili and at least beef tacos.

We use them when we fish the saltwater since the striper regs require them. I didn't have any circle hooks in the tackle bag that I took with us since it was my typical freshwater gear.

Love the Far Side!

Pretty similar to a shirt that I have that says "the floggings will continue until Morale improves" 😆🤣

We have been doing a lot of traveling to fish NJ over the last couple of years. Almost all of that was to fish the saltwater. NJ is right above the line where there are possibilities of catching species that you will find further north than we can catch here in Maryland. This year we have been focused more on the freshwater species that the state has to offer. I got off early from work on Monday and headed with my daughter with hopes of possible lifers for us both. The primary target was to get her an eyetail bowfin then we both would target oriental weatherfish. The oriental weatherfish is an invasive loach found in a few of the NJ rivers in the central part of the state. I was in contact with a guy from INAT that gave us a spot to try for the bowfin and was willing to meet us and guides us to possible weatherfish near his home. As I mentioned Livie has not caught either of the bowfin species and wanted to catch one. The other motivation was that she wanted her 200th different fish species caught to be something else than a small silvery minnow 🙄. We stopped at a public lake and caught a bunch of small sunfish to use as cut bait. I figured that the closer that we got to sunset the better our chances would be for bowfin success. We got to the spot around 4:45. I was thinking from Google maps that we could walk in along the bank and get to some open water. The 6-8 foot tall phragmites along the banks and the No Trespassing signs made us change course and opted to fish from the bridge. It was still going to be pretty tight quarters due to the vegetation. We put out two lines at first with one bait in the channel and the other at the top of an eddy on the left. It wasn't more than 5 mins when the left bait got a hit then went slack. As Livie picked up the rod the line moved into the channel. She tried to set the hook but had the fish on for just a few seconds. We refreshed that bait and reset both rods with one right next to the culvert and the other back in that same eddy. Again not long and a fish bit the bait by the culvert and pulled out line from the baitrunning reel. She got a good hook set and soon her first bowfin was in the net! She could not have been happier landing her 200th fish. In the closeup photo you can see a little green coloration in the mouth. Would have been neat to have caught this guy back in the spring when he was in his breeding coloration. After untangling the lines and releasing the fish, we decided on fishing a single line and it was now dad's turn😉. Again not long and a fish hit the cutbait. I set the hook but lost the fish. Another bait and I put it right in the channel. Fish On! and it headed right into the vegetation. I was able to get the fish out of the weeds and into the net. It wasn't the bowfin that I expected but a snakehead! At this point we had time to clean up and have some dinner before the two hour drive further north to meet with Mark at 9:30. Sunday Night Mark scouted and found two holes on the creek near his place that had weatherfish. The idea was to fish the one spot, hopefully catch one and then move to the second spot to catch another. That way both of us could catch one. Mark had also caught one of the smallest flathead catfish Sunday night and he was hoping that it was still in the area. We never did see that catfish, but saw lots of tessellated darters and more than a couple of eels. Mark spotted the first weather fish, but it disappeared and we didn't see it again. Livie later found one near that same spot. Then she saw another one. I could hardly see the fish in the rocks but was able to get a bait in front of it and soon it was in the bag. 😁 Everytime I tried for a photo the fish would turn. I was happy with the photos that I could get. Livie still saw another one and soon she had that fish hooked and into Mark's net. As I got mine out of the photo bag and photos in the water, her fish was no longer in the net. Mark and I were defeated since we didn't have a photo and also perplexed on how it escaped. Turned out that his net has a hole up one side of it that the fish found and escaped. Livie had not moved from her spot in the creek and soon found another one. This one gave us lots of photo ops. It was only 10:20 and Mark knew a spot that we should be able to find shield darters. These guys live in fast flowing water with rocky/gravel bottoms. We spent nearly two hours trying to get a shield darter or one of the many longnose dace that we saw. We either could not get the baits positioned right, spooked them with the lights, they didn't like our baits.... The only fish that we caught was the one white sucker that I spent 15 mins trying to catch since I was certain it was a big longnose dace🙄. All in all a great night even without catching many fish. We will have to go back since there are still a lot of freshwater and saltwater targets up that way.

Ok now who just sang this as they read it😆

Looks like a great time Daryl! Recognize a lost face or too as well😉. I will say that I have used chicken liver for the urban trout fishing just as the ice was thawing. The trout loved it. Unlike the power bait that the trout would bite and often spit out, they would just pick up the liver and swim off. Didn't take long to get a four fish limit. Problem is that three of them took the bait deep but since I was keeping them it wasn't an issue.

I still would disagree. I have been travelling a lot for work over the last few years and there are a lot of viable decent food options in most airports. You're going to pay for it, but you would even for a Subway sandwich.

Not when they are ordered in for meetings or school promotions which is the only way I have had Subway in the last 10 or 15 years.

Let's face it Subway sandwiches do suck. Even for cheap sandwiches there are better options.

Keep that up Rick and I may have to send you a headlamp and Tanago hooks😉😁

I haven't had much cooking to post but tonight I made a meal with more of the ribbonfish. I kept the skin on and slathered the flesh side with sesame miso paste and then rolled them. Cooked 14 mins at 450. Tried some with eel sauce and some without. Liked it better with the eel sauce.

Good luck in WI buddy! Got to see some photos! I still haven't fished that state yet. Someday.

Rick I appreciate the kind words. I can't hold a candle to Ham or Marty or many others like yourself on this forum.

I have had NR fishing licenses from 6 states this year and will collect a few more (maybe 6 more 🙄) before the year ends. I don't want my wife to ever find out how much I've spent on license fees😉😅 I do try to go for the minimum stay, like a 1-, 3-, 7-day, etc.. instead of an annual if possible. Most expensive was our FL NR licenses at $63.53 for 5 days, since we had to buy both fresh and saltwater licenses. Cheapest is our annual Delaware license that covers fresh and salt for just $20.

Get some photos, unhook it and then get it back in the water. This ray is a lot like the cownose in that it does not use it's tail barb as defensively like a sting ray.

On Friday we met up with our captain at 5:30 in the morning. First stop was to get bait out of a couple of fish traps. They were full of both juvenile pinfish and pigfish. Pigfish were put in the live well and the pinfish were released. We were going to fish the live bait under a float over grass flats in Albemarle Sound. The storm swell did not affect the sound which was like glass as the sun was coming up. I caught the first keeper speckled seatrout. The fishing was not fast and furious. We ended up with two cocktail bluefish and four seatrout before we headed to the inlet. When we got to the inlet there were a number of standing waves as the ocean and inlet waters fought each other. Our captain had talked about how dangerous it could be in his 23' boat if the tide and the swell got angry. We gave it a run and with only a couple of full pucker moments we got out to the relatively flat ocean. We were going to try for more ribbonfish. We were fishing strips of mullet with a weighted skirt with a wire leader. We would drop the bait to the bottom. We only had to give it a little movement before getting a heavy thump followed by a strong pull of the drag. Sue caught the first couple before Livie or I could get one landed. There must have been hundreds beneath us. When one would get off, just needed to drop the bait back and it could get bit or give it a a quick reel in of line to entice the next bite. often one or more would follow the caught fish to the boat. We still wanted to try for red drum and only fished about an hour or ninety minutes. Livie and I stopped with a dozen each and Sue caught the most with 16. We figured that 40 ribbonfish were well worth the risk from the inlet. Though we tried for a while for drum using cut mullet, we had no luck. The trip back into the inlet was really not as eventful. We kept eight of the ribbons along with the trout and bluefish. The storm swell for the rest of Friday and Saturday brought in the higher waves in the surf and dirtied the inlet spots we intended to fish. We fished the sound on Sat and caught a fair number of pinfish and silver perch but none of the new species of searobins that we were targeting. We ended up with a couple of lifers for the trip and caught a bunch of those ribbons! We had a great time and I can't wait to get back to Carolina! We filletted a couple of the ribbonfish last night. The meat was a bit strange. It pulled apart into three to four strips of white meat. I did a light dredge with a cornstarch and flour mixture. We then fried the strips which curled while cooking. Turned out to be crispy like fish fries. The flavor was very much like crappie. Now I wish that we had kept more 😁.

Any photos?😆

Caught another two'fer. Finally caught some ribbonfish down in NC. Puts me at 16 total lifers for the year 😁.

Could have been one or the other or both. They are definitely built to tear and slice up baitfish.

if that is the creek that Livie and I fished there should be a decent rainbow darter population. We saw a bunch.

In my mind I'm gone to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine? Now can't you feel the moonshine? Ain't it just like a friend of mine to hit me from behind? Yes, I'm gone to Carolina in my mind. This should sound familiar to those OAF folks that went to see James Taylor recently 😉. We did one better and actually went and spent a few days in the Outer Banks. We stayed in Kill Devil Hills just north of Nags Head. After catching cownose rays in the Chesapeake bay I pivoted from a shark charter trip off of DE or MD to an inshore fishing trip in OBX with hopes to catching some ribbonfish that have been plentiful in that area over the last few years. We have tried on more than a few trips to catch a ribbonfish from VA waters and just haven't been successful. For this trip I had planned on at least one or two trips fishing one or more of the local piers, including Jeanette’s which is the longest in the area. We booked our charter for Friday and I discussed with the captain that we are multispecies anglers and would be happy with catching a variety of species with a focus on ribbonfish and didn’t need to fill the box with a bunch of speckled trout. I also focused on a night trip to Oregon Inlet for some interesting lifer options like blackcheek tonguefish and darter gobies and hoped to fish the surf for red drum or Spanish mackerel. Looking over the weather and the projected wave heights I was worried about whether we would have a successful trip. The weather was going to be great, but Ernesto was going to push in a storm swell starting Friday morning that would push the surf up from 1-2 feet to 3 to 5 feet. I spoke with the captain and it really was going to be dicey trying to get out of the inlet and into the ocean for those ribbonfish. I also felt that the storm swell would impact our nightfishing at the inlet. I had been in communication with Alex, a guy from INAT, and he mentioned that there was a ribbonfish blitz at the pier Weds that started just at dark. He also mentioned some folks catching remoras on shrimp, but to look out for the butterfly rays. I packed a small amount of gear to try for the ribbons off of the pier. We headed down on Thursday, got checked into our hotel and then onto the pier. We fished our standard high/low bait rigs using shrimp, bloodworms and a couple of flavors of fishbites. Since there were a few decent school of baitfish, we also fished a #4 Sabiki rig. We caught the standard fare of species with the bait and Sabiki. Black Sea bass Spot croaker Atlantic croaker Blenny surprise caught right next to the pier piling on the sabiki tipped with small pieces of shrimp– not sure if this is a feather or crested blenny since we didn’t have saltwater to put it into our photo bag. Livie started with the Sabiki and it didn’t take long and she hooked into her first lifer of the trip, a beat up blue runner. This fish had seen better days when it wasn’t being harassed by what looks to have been a shark. We all got into catching those blue runners with the Sabiki. Even Sue’s had been bitten by a shark. At one point a big ray came by and spooked the school of bait that we were targeting with the Sabiki rig. Once we saw the size of that ray it became clear about Alex’s warning about the butterfly rays. Throughout the evening we saw ones that were about 3 feet from wing tip to wing tip and some giants that must have been 6 feet across. We never had one interested in any of out baits, but I do feel that if we floated a ½ crab about 2 – 3 feet under a large float that we may have been bit by one. If it were one of the smaller ones, we may have been able to land it using one of the pier nets. Sue waiting for the night time ribbon bite. As it got dark I tied on a 3/8 oz round jig head that I had twisted the hook point so that it faced downward. I put on a 3.5 Keitech swimbait in white pearl. Once we saw a guy towards the end of the pier land a ribbon, I started fishing that jig. First cast was under the pier and came up empty. The second was well out in front of me. I let the bait sink to the bottom and I slowly reeled it back in with a couple of small hops along the way. I got a solid thump and the first ribbon was on! Then it cut my #17 lb fluorocarbon leader. I retied another jig directly to the #30 braid and soon had on another ribbon. These fish are really strong fighters but I was able to get it up an over the rail! Pretty soon each of us were fighting these ribbons. Sue did land one but lost at least three others by having the jig cut off by the fish. We did meet up with Alex and he and his buddies were into the ribbons as well. We kept three and headed back to the hotel about 9:30 so that we could get some sleep before meeting the captain at 5:30 the next morning.

I find that the best photos of darters tend to be when they are in water and can extend those fins. Lots of lifelister folks are holding the fish in the water while getting their photos. I would be afraid of missing that lifer photo by trying that approach. May have to practice since night photos in the bag aren't the greatest.