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Is it time to write a book?

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Budlightyear

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3 hours ago, capequahog said:

I think the Columbus Day Massacre was 2005, reason I remember is it was the year I started fishing the canal or maybe the year I caught my 1st 20 lb bass that returned itself to the canal without my permission 

It probably was I can't remember exactly the year. I started fishing the canal in 1996 but spent more time on the beaches still. I wish my kids could experience the outer cape pre-seals and great whites. 

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I had this happen to me a few times in both the summer of 2017 and '18.   Both east and west tide.

Arrive early, to catch the start of a jigging tide.  All alone, 1am.  First cast, second cast, third cast, 35-40" fish.   It doesn't stop.  Tide is beginning to pick up, and the fish are getting bigger.  Now they're all over 45".  I'm lobbing the jig out 50' and they're still hitting it.  As dawn approached, I say to myself, one more cast, my arms are worn out.  Last cast, land one over 50".   Released her asap. Sat down,  completely exhausted.   Picked up my stuff, and went home, no one the wiser.

That was the year I switched to 65lb braid because I had a couple fish break 50!

 

21016085_1847362591957285_8817729073871355100_o.jpg

The Sultan of Sluggo

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A couple times on a west tide the jig bite was on and I straightened out two 5 oz ron z hooks on consecutive casts fighting fish. Never used them again after that night. I wonder how many lures were created just to use for the canal from 2000 to 2020 for that biomass. I still remember one morning if you didn't have the old gibbs mack pencil 3 0z you were not catching. 

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For sure, 10/10/05 thru 10/15/05 was the classic fall run.  Fished 27 days that October and was very fortunate to have been part of that 5 day run and the guys who fished it.  0857 east turn on Monday and the bite was on.  Will never forget it.

 

Guys directly in front of fish.....guys biking east to get in front of the fish, etc.  If ya had a bike, you'd stay with the fish all the way east.

 

While not like October, June '05 had a decent 5 day run of large.  Fished 22 days that June and was lucky to be there from 6/6/05 thru 6/10/05.  New moon on Monday.....0343 east turn.....and the large didn't disappoint. 

 

 

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What I think a lot of people don't realize, especially if they're relatively new, is how phenomenal the fishing was outside of the blitzes for those years.    Folks who knew where and when to fish would find them on the regular, not just when blitzes were happening.       If one knew what they were doing, getting skunked was rare.    Maybe we're just on a three to five year downturn where the fish went elsewhere, I dunno, but if there wasn't a blitz going on the last few years, there wasn't much to be had as far as I could tell.

DITCH TROLL
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I've had the argument many times about where they have gone or where they are going. I'd say if it's cyclical it's like twenty five to thirty year cycles. Vineyard, Cutty, RI, Outer Cape, Plymouth and now the canal are devoid of fish. Yes there are fish at these places but the bio mass is gone. Maybe in my lifetime? 

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5 hours ago, bob_G said:

I had this happen to me a few times in both the summer of 2017 and '18.   Both east and west tide.

Arrive early, to catch the start of a jigging tide.  All alone, 1am.  First cast, second cast, third cast, 35-40" fish.   It doesn't stop.  Tide is beginning to pick up, and the fish are getting bigger.  Now they're all over 45".  I'm lobbing the jig out 50' and they're still hitting it.  As dawn approached, I say to myself, one more cast, my arms are worn out.  Last cast, land one over 50".   Released her asap. Sat down,  completely exhausted.   Picked up my stuff, and went home, no one the wiser.

That was the year I switched to 65lb braid because I had a couple fish break 50!

During early September of '17 I got to the canal around 11:30 pm, for the start of the west. Within 15 minutes, while jigging bottom with sluggos, I started catching. And they weren't small. The overwhelming majority were 36"+, many over 40". For the entire west I caught fish after fish. When I wanted a break from jigging I'd throw on an X-Rap or a Northbar bottledarter and I still kept catching.

 

There was a brief lull around morning slack.

 

Once the tide turned east and picked up steam, the bite picked back up. Macs were now in the area so a mac Savage Sand eel was the hot lure. I fished until approximately 8:00 a.m. I had to give up because I was exhausted. My back, arms and shoulders were fried from catching so much. When I went to Friendly's for breakfast, I couldn't pick up a cup of coffee without my hand & arm shaking because they were so tired.

 

The unfortunate part was that I left a hot bite, while fishing a prime location, because I couldn't fish anymore. Lord knows how many big fish I left on the table. However, there comes a time when you say "I'm done". After you've caught dozens & dozens of big fish, does catching a few more really mean anything. :)

 

The before work, popping crowd showed up about an hour before first light. However, during the overnight, when I was doing well, I didn't see anyone on either side of me for a few lighted poles in either direction. When you're in the middle of it, you really want to tell a bunch of people, but you also realize that you want to zip it so you don't ruin the fun with a crowd.

 

I would have loved to be in the water just to see how thick the fish were.

 

Back around 2015, I was fishing a west tide that started about an hour or 2 before 1st light and continued past sunrise. I was throwing a Bomber or live eels, continously catching fish between 36" - 43". As the morning crowd was starting to show up, I'd get some people biking past me, on their way to other locations. A couple of times, while fighting a big fish, I did a Statue of Liberty routine, barely moving, as headlamps & bikes passed me, so they wouldn't know I had a big fish on when they looked at me from the road. I didn't even care if the fish came off because I knew there were still a lot there, and I didn't want to get swarmed by guys seeing me with a fish on.

Edited by zak-striper
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5 hours ago, bob_G said:

I had this happen to me a few times in both the summer of 2017 and '18.   Both east and west tide.

Arrive early, to catch the start of a jigging tide.  All alone, 1am.  First cast, second cast, third cast, 35-40" fish.   It doesn't stop.  Tide is beginning to pick up, and the fish are getting bigger.  Now they're all over 45".  I'm lobbing the jig out 50' and they're still hitting it.  As dawn approached, I say to myself, one more cast, my arms are worn out.  Last cast, land one over 50".   Released her asap. Sat down,  completely exhausted.   Picked up my stuff, and went home, no one the wiser.

That was the year I switched to 65lb braid because I had a couple fish break 50!

 

21016085_1847362591957285_8817729073871355100_o.jpg

 

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5 hours ago, bob_G said:

I had this happen to me a few times in both the summer of 2017 and '18.   Both east and west tide.

Arrive early, to catch the start of a jigging tide.  All alone, 1am.  First cast, second cast, third cast, 35-40" fish.   It doesn't stop.  Tide is beginning to pick up, and the fish are getting bigger.  Now they're all over 45".  I'm lobbing the jig out 50' and they're still hitting it.  As dawn approached, I say to myself, one more cast, my arms are worn out.  Last cast, land one over 50".   Released her asap. Sat down,  completely exhausted.   Picked up my stuff, and went home, no one the wiser.

That was the year I switched to 65lb braid because I had a couple fish break 50!

 

21016085_1847362591957285_8817729073871355100_o.jpg

I'm not surprised that you gave out before that reel did. ;) 

"…if catching fish is your only objective, you are either new to the game or too narrowly focused on measurable results.” - D. Stuver

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Forget the year, but it was after the "Columbus Day" slaughter. It was Memorial Day weekend and one morning down the Fish Pier among other places all hell broke loose. Every cast had a large hit it. It got to the point we were trying to see if we could rip the lure back fast enough not to hook up. I bring this up because it was the ONLY time I had to sit down and stop fishing because I was too tired to keep going. Frank Stanley was there along with Bobby McKay (sp) and his brother Mark? besides plenty of others. As " Archie and Edith" would say "those were the days". Sad will not happen again in my lifetime. Kept one fish that was a bad bleeder.

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2 hours ago, K Foley said:

........ It got to the point we were trying to see if we could rip the lure back fast enough not to hook up. 

Use to do something similar to this at South Cape when catching bluefish, after bluefish, after bluefish became tiresome and no longer enjoyable. 
 

Fished my 3oz Robert’s Ranger without the hook.  Was fun to see that Robert’s getting whacked left and right and up, multiple times over, as I ripped and skipped it over the water’s surface. 

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16 hours ago, K Foley said:

Forget the year, but it was after the "Columbus Day" slaughter. It was Memorial Day weekend and one morning down the Fish Pier among other places all hell broke loose. Every cast had a large hit it. It got to the point we were trying to see if we could rip the lure back fast enough not to hook up. I bring this up because it was the ONLY time I had to sit down and stop fishing because I was too tired to keep going. Frank Stanley was there along with Bobby McKay (sp) and his brother Mark? besides plenty of others. As " Archie and Edith" would say "those were the days". Sad will not happen again in my lifetime. Kept one fish that was a bad bleeder.

There was a "Labor Day weekend" slaughter, I think in '15. I fished the Thursday night west tide until the morning slack on Friday morning. The overnight bite wasn't too bad. However, the morning slack and east tide blew up immensely.

 

I kept a fish, about a 33"-34". I parked at the Sagamore Bridge lot. My bike ride to my car from the east end was just pure insanity.

 

It was literally shoulder-to-shoulder from the east end jetties down to mid-canal. The grass and canal road was a striper holocaust with 20, 30, 40 lbers all over the place and there was still a 2 fish limit.  I don't like keeping fish over 36". As I rode back to my car, I felt like I was carrying a minnow because so many people I was passing were holding up their big cows for their glory shot pictures. 

Edited by zak-striper
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