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BrooklynHooks

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  • About Me:
    Middle-aged. Still learning.
  • Interests (Hobbies, favorite activities, etc.):
    Cardinals baseball. Bonneville Speed Week. Anti-sedition sleuthing. Sobriety. Coffee. Fishing. Not always in that order, and sometimes all at once.

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    NYC

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  1. Not to get too specific, but the Wood River just north of where it meets the Pawcatuck, or up by Alton Pond, has often been productive.
  2. I tried albie snax last summer when fishing for bass on a medium-sized lake in Western MA. I had one albie in the bottom of my bait bag, and I wasn't having much luck with the smb, anyway, so figured, why not? It was one of the darker colors, maybe the smoke/silver, which I really like, so I rigged it up the way I always do. On the first cast I landed a hefty pickerel -- and then nothing for the next half hour. Nada. Zip. Not a nibble. I'm not sure if that little experiment proves that aggressive, non-discriminating freshwater feeders will go for an albie. But it sort of suggests they will. I guess.
  3. As mentioned by others far wiser than I -- look for structure, then more structure. Also know what the fish are feeding on at certain times of year and in certain temps. Are they ambush predators, or opportunistic? And I know you mentioned that it's a temperate Bay Area climate, but are the fish sluggish because the water's cold, or frisky because the water's recently warmed up and has their metabolism pumping? All that being said, I second your choice of lure: if there's one type I've had more luck with than any other over the years, in moving water, lakes, and ponds, it's the Kastmaster -- in chrome or gold, it hardly matters which.
  4. July-August feels like prime fluke season, but I've definitely had some good days in late May, too. Like Z-Man noted, catching keeper fluke -- or any fluke at all -- from shore feels tough. Not that long ago Hammonasset and a few other places on the shoreline, from New Haven to Old Saybrook, were good bets. (Chaffinch Island was always a favorite spot.) Now, not so much. But that's not to say there aren't fish out there. Just two years ago I had a memorable late-August morning on a Block Island charter with my family, when we set up in 70-75 feet of water about a half-mile off of SE Point and for three solid hours hauled in doormat after doormat. It was crazy. (And a few hours later, delicious.)
  5. Over the years I've had some really good days fishing western Mass. -- on the Housatonic and some of the ponds and lakes around Lee and other towns up there. But one place I've had only so-so luck is Laurel Lake, even though I keep hearing that it's a solid place for smallies, largemouth, and perch. Just curious if any of the good people here have fished Laurel and other places near Lenox, Stockbridge, etc., and what your experience was like. (Not looking for favorite spots, obviously. Just general impressions.) Thanks.
  6. I'm sort of fascinated by the secessionist movements in so many Red states. (Not that the OP was about secession, but it sparked the thought.) Of course, the Constitution makes secession pretty much impossible -- but pseudo "rebels" keep bleating about it, anyway. And I'm not talking about the seditionist scum, white nationalists, and cop killers who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. I'm talking about elected GOP wingnuts who like to moan about how much better off Texas/Georgia/Mississippi/Arizona/whatever would be if they could just leave the bad old feds behind and strike out on their own. Don't they realize that if it was that easy, most Blue state taxpayers would rush to hold the door open for them?
  7. With the possible exception of baseball, more great writers have waxed poetic, nostalgic, and impressionistic about fishing than about any other pastime. (Get that golf crap out of here.) Not talking about writers like McPhee, et al., who have written brilliant non-fiction books, articles, and essays on angling, but novelists and short story writers. Maybe because I first encountered it at the EXACT right time in life, I think the single greatest, most moving fictional depiction is that amazing chapter and a half right smack in the middle of The Sun Also Rises when Jake, Bill, and the Englishman, Harris, are in Spain for a few days, escaping the craziness of their Jazz Age lives by fishing, drinking, playing bridge at night, fishing, drinking, and fishing... and healing. (I don't really think of The Old Man and the Sea as fiction, so much as one of the very few genuine modern myths.) Anyway, what's your pick for the best fiction about fishing? McGuane? Maclean? Brautigan? Harrison? Someone else?
  8. So, kinda like Walter Payton, but with gills. And meaner.
  9. Funny, I was wondering about catfish, because the only sort I've caught were in New England, and pretty small. Fighters, definitely -- but not prizefighters. (I know there are some trophy-size catfish in some Northeast ponds and rivers. But I never caught any.)
  10. BZ, I think you hit on something critical there, with endurance. Some fish strike harder, some might put up a more dramatic fight for a short time, but smallmouth are just electric. Even the larger smallies fight like crazed youngsters, even after they're landed. Championship bout, every time.
  11. I know. Comparing river fish to pond fish to lake fish is like comparing apples to oranges to carnitas burritos with guac and lots of salsa verde. Or Ali to Boom Boom Mancini to Nurmagomedov. Still, I'm curious: Pound for pound, what do anglers here consider the best (or maybe just the meanest) fighting fish in North America? Pike are downright scary. Brookies are tough. Pickerel are deranged little buggers. But what's the best pure fighter, once hooked? Go ...
  12. Roger and amen to all of that. I'm also curious if some of the known effects of climate change -- altered water runoff patterns and amounts, unfamiliar wind strengths and directions, etc. -- might possibly affect structure, even in the near term. In an age of 500-year floods happening every other spring, geologic time itself seems to have sped up. Anyway, thanks for the insights and reminders. And for the koan about the difficulty of catching things that aren't there.
  13. Resolved: The Star-Spangled Banner is a boring, needlessly difficult, lyrically deranged composition. The recent off-key butchering of the song at CRAP ... sorry, I mean at CPAC ... is the final straw. It's time for a new national anthem for the USA. The best alternative: "This Land Is Your Land." Or perhaps: "Uncle John's Band." Other suggestions? Have at it, friends.
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