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Crozzbow

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  • About Me:
    I'm a classic "Fishaholic".
    Just can't get enough of it.
  • What I do for a living:
    Retired

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  1. Hey, I just wanted to give an apology to all the SOL characters and provide them some information as to why I'm not participating in the surf talk anymore. I would have liked to have responded to all the well-wishers that had come out of my first April 2022 SOL submittal. I was especially eyeing the offerings from the fishing fanatics that were offering me some time on the water with them. Unfortunately! Given all the nasty things that come associated with my Frontal Temporal Dementia Diagnose, My activity coordinator(wife) initiated a full fledge clean-up for all the things that she felt should be accomplished before I get around to taking my last trip. We only have one vehicle.in our family. and my FTD Diagnose prevents me from driving any autos.
  2. Thanks to all of you who responded to the above posting. For all of you self centered fishing bastards who didn't respond to this posting... I hope all your fishing this year sucksII. Just kidding: For the last few years I was the only one (out side of my family) with knowledge of what my body was doing to me. How ever I did do my best to continue chasing striped bass out of kayaks despite the overall pain it would wrought on me buy the end of the day One of the things that kept me going was the fantastic communication that comes from the fishing environments that StripersOnline.com has been providing too us over the years/ Now, whenever I think about what I have learned from SOL over the years, my eyes start to water.
  3. · CROZZBOW (Still Breathing) For those that are interested… The reason for my absence of entries into SOL and North of Portland is driven by a hodge-podge of health issues that include arthritic shoulders compounded by bone spurs. If that was not enough - I was diagnosed with a nasty brain illness - (frontotemporal dementia) that is working extra hard to shorten the rest of my life. Needless to say - my current life has not been enjoyable - but I am trying to make the best of it. However, over the past five years I have enjoyed sharing my fishing adventures and knowledge with the other participants of SOL. Back then, every day that My Activity Coordinator (wife) would allow me to take one of my kayaks out on the waters of Maine to cast, catch, and release Striped Bass from my kayak was good one. My hope is - when I leave this world - I will find plenty of fish upon reaching the next horizon. Tight Lines to all Crozzbow
  4. Hey Roccus 7 Just dropping some quick info just to let you know that I'm still with the living. However, I don't know how long this tired old body of mine is going to last. I managed to talk my activity coordinator into letting me spend a few hours on the water yesterday (Thursday) I stuck with my usual Modus Operandi of launching my favored vessel into the water just as soon as the tide floated it. I was somewhat amazed with the days outcome this time around.as it was all deja vu and then some. I fished two rods with one of them outfitted with a J-hook tube and worm setup and the second rod outfitted with a circle hook set up. As with last time both rods caught fish with hooks in their jaws. However, the circle hook set up caught more of those fish. The only negative I have between the two worm and tube outfits is that the circle hooks takes a little more effort to remove from the jaws of the fish. BTW : I caught and released 30 fish between 14 to 27 inches long
  5. Here are a couple of pics I took of the two hooks
  6. Hey, Ruccus, 7 My activity coordinator (Wife) gave me enough time off yesterday morning to check out my newly installed rudder assembly on my yellow kayak on the water of my choosing. Of course, I chose one of my best Striped Bass fishing waters that have done me good over the years. It was a Wicked good choice in that when I reached the site, that I planned on fishing the Striped Bass were breaking the waters surface every where I looked. There were also several schools of Striped Bass chasing bait fishing all directions Unfortunately, there were also large flights of birds flying above these schools and giving away the school’s location and drawing crowds. I was lucky enough to spot a few smaller schools that were not drawing attention which enabled me to get remarkably close to these small schools in my kayak. From there I was able to entice several of these school fish to hook themselves to my trolled tube and worm set ups. With all this activity, I was able to catch fish steadily for approximately four hours. During that time, I pulled 30 healthy Striped Bass (measuring between 18 inches to 26 inches) over the gunwales of my kayak. Note: All the fish I caught firmly were hooked in the lip or the or corner which is interesting in that the two my tube and bloodworm set ups were virtually identical with the exception that one of the sets had a 7.0 J hook and the other one had a 7.0 circle hook. The second thing that was interesting is that the set up that carried the circle hook caught more fish (16) than the J hook set up (14). The only thing that I could think of at this time was that there was a small difference in coloring between the two tubes.
  7. Hey Roccus7 I finally completed my yellow kayak project and it is now ready to launch any time that I am. The only problem is that I am still a physical and mental wreck with a bunch of docs doing what they can to get me better. So early this morning I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself by digging my 9 weight fly rod out of storage along with a hand full of saltwater flies. From there I then drove out to one of the beaches that I usually can catch a fish or two with my saltwater fly casting equipment. And sure enough I was able to quickly hook into a eighteen inch striped bass that refused to call the battle with me quits. It took some time but I finally landed the fish after both of us were a bit worn out. I carefully released the fish then moved on down the beach to see if I could hook up with another eighteen fish or larger However, my efforts only put me on the scoreboard for two smaller striped bass. Note; while my adventure to this beach may not sound like much it did a heck of a lot to lift my spirits.
  8. Hey Roccus7 I don't have any problem with your hijacking of the North of Portland thread. In fact I was really hoping someone would keep that thread going while I continued battling my never ending medical issues. BTW. I will get out there sooner or later as I am working hard to bring my yellow kayak back on line.. Crozzbow.
  9. My Abbreviated Fishing Outing When I left the house this morning I was planning on spending the whole morning chasing striped bass from my "trusted" yellow kayak. As it turned out my kayak let me down just as the fishing started to pick up. The first fish I picked up was a feisty 24 inch striped bass strait from. open salt water an covered with a fresh crop of sea lice.. My next striped bass was an equally feisty fish measuring 18 inches, and so on. I end up collecting nine 18 to 24 inch striped bass over a very short time. All nine of these bass were brought to the side of my kayak with a j-hook from one of my tubes firmly in the jaws of the fish. I quickly removed the hooks from their jaws and released them. Just as I was about to take another run through the area I just fished, the rudder on my not so trusty yellow kayak decided to stop working.. tried to use my kayak paddles as a substitute for the rudder but, Ii only took about 15 minutes with this substitution before I decided it wasn't worth the effort and headed straight for the kayak takeout ramp. For medical reasons it is going to be a while before I will be able to get on the water again.
  10. Aww Chit..... I already bought a bunch of mustard circle hooks in the 7.0 and 8.0 size. Oh well, Just for chits an giggles I might as well rig a couple of tubes with circle hooks and fish them side by side with my tried and true tubes that I rigged with straight shanks then take notes over the summer.
  11. Most of the striped bass tube and worm fishing that I do is out of a kayak in the shallow water above mud flats or over underwater structure located close to shore. I troll my tube and worm rigs on the outside edges of visible weed lines, and I troll them just above the top of sunken weed beds. The tube and worm rigs that I use do not weed up all that often in these shallow water situations. I have used them rigs for so long it just became second nature to avoid situations where they would get weeded up. For example, I avoid free floating weeds like the plague. I size my rigs to the area and conditions I am fishing. Since I am primarily fishing in the shallow waters, the tubes I have been using are 1/2 inch outside diameter, bubble gum or translucent red colored tubes that are 12 to 15 inches long. I rig them Carolina Style with a 3/8-ounce bullet weight that rides on a 24 inch long, 25 lb. test leader tied to the forward swivel on the unweighted tube. A small plastic bead is placed between the bullet weight and the tube to protect the leader to tube knot. A swivel is tied to the other end of the leader. To reduce line twist, I use a small in-line plastic rudder between the tube rig and the 30 lb. test braid that I have spooled on my reel. I try to fish my tubes as close to the bottom as I can without getting snagged or picking up bottom debris although in the shallows the nearness to the bottom is not that critical. Typically, I am trolling my tube rigs somewhere between 10 to 15 feet behind the kayak. The tubes need to be trolled just fast enough to get them to corkscrew through the water. I have been trolling them approximately 2 mph behind my kayak. When I fish deeper water or strong rips, I will up-size this basic tube rig configuration appropriately. I.E., longer tubes with larger diameters and heavier bullet weights. etc. I have been mostly using blood worms with my tube rigs. However, sand worms, clams, Uncle Josh scented pork rind strips, night crawlers, and Berkley Saltwater Gulp products will also work. It is mostly about getting enough scent in the water behind tube to entice the stripers into investigating it. Note: If you try using one of those weighted keel type rudders (the ones that come packaged with a lot of the store-bought tubes) in shallow water your almost guaranteed to pick up weeds no matter what you do.
  12. You all will be happy to know that I'm only two years into my last TDAP combination (Tetanus - Diphtheria - Pertussis) vaccine booster shot which I'm told provided me protection for approximately 10 years.
  13. Holy Chit !!! Thanks for reminding me to check on the number of months I have left on my last tetanus..
  14. My Circle Hook Thesis... This new circle hook requirement sucks. A standard hook that is attached to the back end of the tubes via a relatively small wire loop allows the hook some swing action (for hook removal). But overall the the hook in water movement is dominated by the cork screw action of a trolled tube. I't is my belief that any circle hook configuration similar to the one above will minimize the circle hooks lip grabbing action when ever the trolled tube is cork screwing through the water. This would essentialy render the whole tube and worm rig useless. My experiments will consist primarily of dragging a newly configured circle hook tube&worm rig across my arms, hands, and fingers until the super sharp point of the circle hook starts to dig in and draw blood. Completion of the experiment will occur when I run out of bandaids or blood , which ever occurs first. It is all in the twist man...
  15. Yes. I do it all the time with my standard hook tube rigs. it isn't all that hard if you have the right materials an tools. You tube has a few videos from other anglers "on how too swap hooks on tube rigs" If I can get my lazy posterior out of my recliner sometime after the holidays.... I'll dig out the two cardboard boxes that harbor most of the materials and tools that II will need to make a circle hook swap on one or two of my existing tube and worm rigs. From there I can do a couple of quick experiments to see if I can get some idea as to what kind of hookup's I might be dealing with during the next striped bass season. If I find anything interesting, I'll post it on this Roccus 7 "Holy Chit" site
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