Big Fish Watch

"As a side note..........we were in camp with this guy who manages a hedge fund somewhere in CT and was spending the week fishing with his 15 year old son. The camp we were in has a satellite dish for communication with the outside world. So one evening this guy has his laptop up and running, checking E-mail and following up on the bond trades he did that morning. So I said, "You want to see a big Lake Trout? Pull up FM1081 and hit the Big Fish Watch". Mind you, all day long this guy and his son have been fishing for Lake Trout catching several up to 7-8 pounds, and wondering what it must be like to get a 20-pounder. So I click through your site and eventually double click on the photo of my brother holding that 40+ pound Lake Trout and the guy nearly shit in his $600.00 chest waders. The power of modern technology........even when you're a 1000 miles north of the border and several hundred miles from the nearest road!"

June 08 Update - The Central Florida Fishing Editor and his crew went out and got some excellent dolphin fish. As he describes it, "Caught on June 11 & 12 Marathon, FL between 275 and 575 feet of water, 30 peanut (pompano) dolphin 2-4 pounds, 1 bull 50" and 35# and 1 cow 45" 32# trolling east near the shipping channel." As our editor reports, they ate some and took home 30 some pounds of filets.

Our first submission came from the Midwest Fishing Editor - a 16 inch crappie caught in a pond. Actually, the pond record for the species. Now that's a nice fish.

Here are some more pictures from the Manitoba trip. We are also proud to introduce our new Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Editor.

The first photo shows the Midwest Fishing Editor with what he calls an "Upper teens" lake trout. Then we see a few pictures of our Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Editor with a walleye, then there is a shot of a few walleye that were blackened and sautéed in garlic butter. In the fourth picture we see him holding up what he calls an "average" northern pike. He's catching these things with fly fishing tackle. The last picture shows Mr Bear. The image is not a photoshop job - Mr Bear got this close to them. We're proud of our fishing editors here at FM1081.com. They're all willing to go out and face danger to come back with the fish and come back with the pictures.

This photo of a 20 plus pound northern pike taken in northern Manitoba was sent in by the Midwest Fishing Editor.

He also sent in this photo from 8/07 of a channel cat he caught on a 3" "Christmas Lights" twister tail jig.

The Central Florida Fishing Editor sent in some pictures of some Redfish he got in the Titusville Lagoon near Cape Canaveral in late May. He got them on Mister Twister's RT Slugs with Exude - that stuff they mold in the worm that makes them smell good to the little fishies. Windy day. Nice fish.

Out the first weekend in May with the Mid Atlantic Fishing Editor, we doubled our entire season's production of flounder and established a new land speed record for the Managing Editor. We also caught an unusually large specimen of something called a sea robin, a truly nasty looking sea creature. Appropriately, named her Hillary and threw her back.

First, our Midwest Fishing, Motorcycle, and Machine Gun Editor checked in with this photo of a 45 inch 40+ pound Lake Trout that takes the Official FM1081 BF Award...

He also sent in a picture of the new Deputy Assistant Midwest Fishing Editor who will be 4 on December 16. They caught these catfish on a nuclear power plant lake out there. According to reports, they tasted just fine.

Next, our Mid-Atlantic Fishing Editor wants to have his mug on the internet with two of the six keeper sized flounder caught with minnows in early June in the Indian River Bay during some of the editorial conferences that were held that weekend. If you have kept up with the fishing reports, the flatties are hard to find this year for the third year in a row. According to our editor who is always looking for the silver lining, gas at way over $3 a gallon on the water in the area is leading to a lot of people not going out and fishing - maybe there will be more fish next year. People who fish are always optimists. You gotta like that.

In order to continue delivering the BIG FISH WATCH to you in the manner you, our readers, demand AND are accustomed to, we have restructured our whole BIG FISH WATCH department. The former Maryland Fishing Editor is now the Midwest Fishing Editor. The former New Jersey Fishing Editor will become the Florida Fishing Editor. The former Delaware Fishing Editor becomes the Mid Atlantic Fishing Editor. What that means is that the first two guys didn't send in any photos in 2005 because they caught little girlie man fish that they were ashamed to have even hooked on a line and wouldn't consider sending in the pictures.

On the other hand, a beautiful November day on the Potomac led to the following photos taken of the Mid Atlantic Fishing Editor.

The one on the right is a bass. The one on the left is what was called a trophy sized crappie - probably in excess of 1.75 lbs. Both of these fish were caught within a hundred yards of the outlet pipe at the Blue Plains Sewage Treatment Plant on the Potomac just south of DC by the Mid Atlantic Fishing Editor who has eaten only one fish out of the river and will do so no more because the fish tasted like "motor oil."

These photos were sent down by the New Jersey Fishing Editor - they went out one day in in the spring and got into some stripers about a half mile offshore. These things are monsters. No dimensions or weights were sent in. Lots of girth in addition to length. All the fish that were kept were eaten ... and thoroughly enjoyed.

The last weekend in August, the Maryland Fishing Editor made another excursion to Rocky Gorge and gave the fish the old Genghis Khan. (That's Jenjis Khan for those of you who pay $1,000 for a haircut.) 6 Species and well in excess of 50 pounds of fish caught. Let's take a look.

The Maryland Fishing Editor got into a herd of carp. He was catching them on a top secret store brand canned grain product. Here's his biggest of the day. These things are a real blast to catch. They're smart and will take your line right into the sunken tree stumps if they don't spit your hook out. And they're strong. The big ones amount to 20 to 25 pounds of muscle with a little bit of skeleton holding it all together. He also got a a couple Asian carp. These are peculiar in that they don't grow as large as the American Carp and they don't have a full set of scales. The part that is not covered with scales is just skin. Here's a closeup of an Asian carp that was in the 7-9 pound range. Here's a carp that had his picture taken in the net. This photograph had to be cropped to protect the privacy of the Maryland Fishing Editor's top secret bait. These fish are a beautiful gold color. All the fish taken from this reservoir are in great shape and are good healthy specimens. No pale colors, no toomas. Didn't see the Bald Eagle that nests somewhere near the reservoir, but Mr. Heron came by and supervised the operation for a while. Lesson Learned: You can tune a piano but you can't tune a fish.

One of our loyal readers from Pittsburgh sent in a shot of one of the 140 some yellow perch he and his nephew caught up on Lake Erie. Yellow perch are some of the best eating fish out there and here's a nice sized specimen of Mr Smallmouth. Several of which were served the next day at brunch.

July 3 Rocky Gorge update - The Maryland Fishing Editor had another superlative day on the reservoir. Lots of excitement - well in excess of 150 fish caught including some nice crappie and a hot looking bass - a total of 6 species, ANOTHER bald eagle sighting, Mr. Heron made another appearance, not to mention he got to be pals with uniformed representatives of the Maryland Natural Resources Police. And he got to hear some young beavers. Another catch and release bass. There are some kind of swallows living under the Rt 29 bridge. They live under the concrete abutments. If you look at the nest to the far left, you will see one of these birds peeking out.

May 1 Rocky Gorge update - The Maryland Fishing Editor made a May 1 excursion to Rocky Gorge. The reservoir in well into the spring awakening. Early on, we had that "We feel like we're on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" feeling. We got this Heron to pose on a stump for us. Got even closer to the place where the beavers live (no actual beaver sightings at the house, however. And now for the important part - the fishing report. Most of the guys on the reservoir were working the shoreline from their watercraft in feeble attempts to get bass. The bass apparently were somewhere else. The fishing editor prudently decided to go where the fish really were - back in the coves off the main reservoir where the water temps were a couple degrees higher than the main reservoir. The beavers have knocked down quite a few trees right at the shoreline and the trees are now in the water with the branches providing lots of cover for the crappie, bluegill, white perch, and yellow perch that were caught. At one point, the clarity of the water provided an opportunity to actually watch the fish strike the bait dangling under the bobber about a foot and a half beneath the surface. (Who needs Jim Fowler?) In the end, something in excess of 150 fish were caught. Here are 4 of the 13 keeper sized crappie and the two gorgeous yellow perch that were taken that day and were later proven to be quite delicious. A few of the crappie were in the 14" to 14 1/2" range and the yellow perch were 11" twins. Most people have never even SEEN a 14 1/2" crappie. The yellow perch are actually beautifully colored fish. They are striped vertically with black and yellow stripes and have bright orange pectoral fins. We'll get a pic of one of them next time. One interesting note - a highly secret experimental worm treatment was finally tried out this time. The treatment was designed to fix a yellow color and a fishy odor on the worms. Cutting up the shark oil pills and dumping them on the worms did not seem to accomplish anything more than making them oily - the stuff didn't stink like it was supposed to. The yellow food coloring just got all over our hands but the developer of this technique has not given up. Next, we'll feed the worms oatmeal that is soaked in yellow food color. Actually, the fish finally decided to go for these little one inch green spangly worms or little miniature crayfish with the metal flake stuff inside their molded little bodies on little jig heads. So the next time you go fishing - pack a little disco in your tackle box.

March 5 - FIVE Days into the Rocky Gorge season, the Fishing Editor made his first trip out to Rocky Gorge Reservoir. To set the stage, two weeks ago, the surface was covered in several inches of ice. The fishies are all on the bottom of the channel with the where-am-I's after a cold winter. Not even a hint of leaves on the trees. Temp for the day ran close to 70, but over the water it's around 50. So the Fishing Editor took a day down on Rocky Gorge where he had absolutely no right to catch any kind of fish. He could have taken this fish home...

or this one ....

but he's one of those catch and release guys. These bass would have easily gotten him citations... one in the four lb range and one estimated around 5... he threw the fish back even though the average guys like some of the ones pictured below would have ... well, you know what they would have done... it would involve fish taxidermists and prancing around the office. He reported a fantastic day.

From the new owner of the boat: The purpose of this trip was for the new owner of the boat to show the past owner of this boat that fish larger than croaker and spot can actually be caught on this boat and the boat is not really cursed after all. The one at the far left was caught on the 6 lb test on the tackle shown in the picture. It was 42 inches long. The biggest one was caught by the new owner of the boat. The past owner did pretty well after I gave him a lesson on how to catch REAL fish.

From the past owner of the boat: We got into a school of feeding stripers. We were catching them at one point by just snagging them on hooks dragged through the water. Helen Keller could have caught fish that night. I boated one 42 incher on light tackle. The new guy seemed to let a good night fishing go to his head. Returning to the dock, he kept screaming "Call me Ishmael" which is probably the reason the Coast Guard boarded us in the channel.

From another guy who went out on a fishing expedition on said boat the week before: We went out and anchored in about 30 feet of water. We didn't catch a thing. We had to wait to come back until after the sun went down so nobody would see us coming back with NO FISH. I guess we didn't catch any because the people in the next boat were catching them all.

Again from the past owner of the boat: More of a question than anything else... can a common element in the act of catching fish be detected? One week they catch no fish. The next week, the old owner of the boat shows up and 40 pounders are caught. What's up with this?

Fishing isn't always about boating a HUGE fish. There's just as much fun sitting on a lake on a beautiful fall day trying to figure out what the smaller fish feel like eating. Here's the first fish caught (a crappie) on a newly rigged reservoir boat in Maryland. It was caught on a plastic worm finished in a pattern called "Christmas Lights" on Centennial Lake. Some bluegills and a bass were also caught that day.

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