Mission was accomplished today PB

 These past two Saturday's i joined my friend Joe Diorio out on the sound on a hunt for big stripers. Its not the kind of fishing or technique that I'm used to at all, as 99 % of the time i am a lures only fisherman. So it was kind of cool as a change of pace. Last Saturday i met Joe and Dan Emerson at the marina and we started our day off snagging bunker and then were off to the reefs to live line them. It was a day of heartbreak for me sadly..  I don't own any salt gear or avet reels or really any of the tackle needed and of course the first fish i hook up with proceeds to pull line at an unstoppable speed and my drag was set as tight as i could without it snapping. After a few minutes the fish brought me into the rocks and broke me off. I never gained an inch on the fish. It was a big fish no doubt. After retying i drop down another rig and bunker and get a take almost instantly and snap... main line breaks. 30 lb braid probably had a fray somewhere from the previous fish that i didn't see when i re tied.. At this point i was over it.. Totally pissed off and feeling bad that i was losing expensive lead and leader material given to me. Joe ended up getting a 36 inch and a 39 incher and me and Dan had a big fat goose egg. Plenty of hits but the fish were avoiding the hook and when we did hook them we lost em. We switched gears to fluke and sea bass and Joe got a few sea bass on the diamond jig and him and Dan landed three keeper fluke and one short. I just watched for a while and threw some smaller baits with no action.  Was not the day i was hoping for but still got a taste of the salt and now knew what i needed.

 I got the text yesterday about going out this morning and i went straight to the store. Took my strongest bait caster i had for pike fishing that had a 16 lb drag and put a fresh spool of 50 lb braid on and bought some lead and made 50 lb leaders. With the hope for another chance at my new personal best fish and to not have my equipment fail me this time.  This morning joined by Tom O'Connor we started off catching porgy's which was actually a lot of fun and had a bunch of double hook ups. Once we had enough legal sized baits to drop down we went out to our spot. We marked a ton of fish today but today was way different than last week. I had one bump in the first 3 hours and had nothing to show for it and Joe got us on the board around 9 am with a 40 inch nice fish. Few minutes later Tom hooks up and during the fight his reel came off the rod and the line wrapped around an eye and snapped the line thankfully not the rod. Was a Bummer!!! About a half hour later as im getting the here we go again feeling i start getting messed with and my rod bends right into the water and as i lift up the rod tip its Fish ON! Fish made a great first run and the fight was simply awesome on a medium heavy largemouth jigging rod. Probably took 5 minutes to get in and once i saw my sinker i started getting excited... then i saw her. Knew immediately it was the biggest fish of my life. Joe lipped her boat side for me and we got some pictures and some measurements.. length and girth in a few spots. After a few minutes of reviving her she swam away like a champ back down to the depths. I was beyond pumped. New PB fish at 44 inches and 35 lbs! We didn't catch anymore stripers the rest of the morning and we went for the fluke the last hour with just one short and a few hits each. Thanks Joe for putting me on my best fish ever and for the fun couple days of fishing. Non stop laughs and an all around good time out there. If i could afford this kind of fishing i would do al ot more of it but i simply cannot with a wedding just a few months away. My mission was accomplished and now i feel good about going back to my largemouth and my pike fishing. Back to my casting and lures!

From nothing to best ever in the same trip.

 Was planning on hitting the river after work yesterday with Josh but he couldn't make it so i sent out text 3 other people asking if they could join me and no one could last minute... so i went solo. Was at the launch for 5:15 and found a huge school of bass by 5:30. Problem was the water clarity had improved so much over the last few days that having blue bird sky's and bright sunshine these fish would chase like crazy but wouldn't commit. I could see 3 bass following my lures as id bring it in on some cast. Spent an hour on this school throwing everything i had and got only 3 or 4 legit blow ups all of which missed. Was frustrating to say the least. I finally gave up on these fish and proceeded to waste the next 2 hours without a hit. So 3 hours into the trip i was skunked and with the tide getting low i had a bad vibe. Who knew the next hour would be the best fishing of my life..

 I was forced to try and find some new spots last night as the tide got too low in my normal areas. I pull up on this one spot and i didn't spook any fish or see anything at all but I took a far cast and got my sad shad bit in half by a big blue fish. Next cast bite in half by another blue fish! Then the day took a turn for the better.. My next 8 cast i caught 7 keeper bass! I couldn't believe it.. these fish were destroying the sad shad worked really fast on the surface. The fights were unbelievable last night. Every fish felt stronger than the next.. probably because i was getting tired. After that crazy good run of bass i went on to catch 4 more in the next 30 minutes and every fish was between 30-39 inches and all of them on the Cobra Bait pearl sad shad. I tried throwing the popper a jerk bait a swim bait and the only thing that would hit was that sad shad. It was unreal. I made a custom iPhone holder to take pictures today and it worked out pretty dam good and im glad i did because its so hard to get photos alone. I actually left the fish biting with about a half hour of daylight left because the bugs got so bad i couldn't take it anymore. Ill remember that hour of fishing for the rest of my life.  Dont forget to add the Cobra Bait facebook page and place an order or www.cobrabait.com

CT River Sunday with Josh Rayner

 After washing and waxing my boat, doing some work on my trailer, charging the batteries and filling up i asked myself the question.. Do i fish today?  That's stupid... of course i will. Josh text me around 3:30 pm asking if i had fished yet and i said no but i'm about too and he replies.. have a buddy? I said yea Josh Rayner and i was on my way to the mouth. 45 minutes later i was attempting to launch through the 30 boats trying to leave and finally found an opening to sneak the boat in. What an absolute zoo and the few fisherman i spoke too had terrible days out there so i didn't have high hopes. The day before i had blue skies and clear water and only managed 2 schoolies between Jonathan Weeks and I. But saw tons of fish. Well last night had one huge difference from the day before.. The same boats i was complaining about made the one change we needed without the cloud cover.  MURKY WATER!  Sounds funny because i most cases that sucks but not for stripers! We pulled up on our first spot and immediately started spooking some fish.  We had some great blow ups and rises but simply didn't hook up. Had to fish the lures really aggressively to get action and when you fish that fast they miss a lot. As i was explaining that exact thing to Josh i get blasted on the Cobra sad shad and i'm on. I was pumped after the day i had staurday to have a big fish on in the first 20 minutes. Well the excitement was short lived as the fish threw the hook on a lazy jump. Oh well!  It was then Josh's turn to hook and lose a fish. He was throwing a enormous 9 inch spook that looks almost ridiculous in the water until it gets hammered then its just bad ass!  After a minute or two the fish just threw the hooks. I said well that's out of our system lets catch some fish now.

 Few minutes later i get us on the board with a fat 35.5 inch fish on the sad shad. Was a great fight! We had a tons of rises and missed blow ups for the next half hour but decided to make a move and see if we could find some more fish willing to pull the trigger. Next spot we both had huge blow ups first cast right at the boat and next cast Josh was hooked up on the big spook. After a sketchy net job his fish was in the boat at 35.5 inches! Twin 35.5 inch fish to start the day is not too shabby. Missed a few more fish over here and decided to make a move because the nats where out of control. Over the next few hours i caught 1 more keeper at 31.5 inches and Josh got 2 more keepers at 29 and 29.5 inches. All on the sad shads. We caught a few schoolies and i had a sad shad cut in half by a blue fish and lost 2 small blues on jerk baits as it got dark. Was a fun evening trip on the river and i was happy to catch the most keepers on my boat ever and to do it with Josh in my boat was even better. We got really into this fishing thing together over the last 4 years and when there is an open seat on my boat that means Josh couldn't make it. Thanks for coming out man! Until next time!

Go to  www.cobrabait.com and pick up these sad shads! Pearl color could not be hotter right now! Tell him I sent ya  :)  Check out the video below as well as the pictures!

by: Joe Jacobowitz

CT River with Rich Z!

Rich wrote a short and sweet blog post on this mornings trip! Click the link below and check it out and also check out his blog. I got all my fish on the Cobra Bait sad shads and Rich got his on The Lunker City Slug go and Fin-s Fish.


http://www.richz.com/fishing/blog/?p=5283

Hand lines to Top water.. last 3 outings.

The endless winter that turned into a very short spring seems to have jumped right to summer. Which im pretty happy about.... maybe just maybe the steady conditions will finally put these fish into a pattern that is more than one fish here one fish there. Yesterday i got home from a great 4 day skateboarding/camping trip up in New Hampshire that was probably the most fun i've ever had camping. Bro's only trip, endless laughs, great food right on the fire, too many explosions, sling shots, bb guns, and a site that was right on a pond that was full of bass. I told myself i wouldn't fish this weekend but i couldn't resist when my friend Neil found a piece of fishing line and i found a hook in my trunk. Some local kids were catching crayfish in the creek and i asked if i could have one. Soon i was running back to the site cray in hand. The one decent bass i saw swimming around i knew couldn't resist a fresh crayfish. Second toss in with a hand line and bam! Fish on.. they all came running over and the same dudes who endlessly bust my balls about fishing were giving me hi fives and were pretty pumped on it. I ended up getting 4 bass on hand lines.  2 on crayfish and 2 on a rubber worm i found on the bank. Not bad!

      

                    





 I got home last night and decided to hit a local private spot i have permission to fish that has been terrible this year. With a few times getting skunked and a few trips with just 2-4 dinks i didn't expect much. I started off with a green pumpkin Senko texas rigged and in the first 5 minutes right on the drop it gets picked up i set the hook and the drag started screaming. After a few minutes i lipped this 5 lb 8 oz pig of a bass! I was beyond excited to catch my best bass of the year and after the release i look down and see a nice fish that keeps chasing a school of tiny bait fish. Missed her on the senko so i tied on the drop shot. First cast and bam. Smashed it and got this one to the thumb at 3 lbs 14 oz! Fished for only a half hour and only got 2 bass but they were the 2 to get no doubt. Big improvement over hand lines in NH.

           

 Tonight after i had dinner with the Mrs. I text my friend Jake who recently bought a little crawdad fishing boat and asked him if he wanted to go out for a few hours before dark and he said meet me at the launch. The lake was mostly all weeds up to the surface so we really didn't have many options to throw. I started with a tiny black buzz bait hoping for my first buzz fish of the year and it didn't take long. This little guy jumped about 2 feet into the air on the strike. A sure sign that summer is near! We made our way around the lake for the next hour without a hit. Threw buzz baits, frogs, senkos, other rubber worms, spooks, chatter baits and nothing was doing. We made our way out to what looked to be a deeper area. (no FF) and i got a small bass and a pickerel on back to back cast. As we made our way back to the launch i was talking about the magic minutes right before dark that produce nice bass on top water and as im saying it BAMM! Fish on and it feels like a good one! Fish went 3 lbs 2 oz and hit a black buzz bait slow rolled. Great ending to a quick trip and we packed it in as it got dark. Thanks Jake for taking me out! We will get out soon again for sure!

                                                               

By : Joe Jacobowitz