When we 40 and uppers say strippers and cocaine, what we really mean is beers and spicy food with no Pepcid because we play by our own rules.
Two inches of rain last night was supposed to end after 7 this morning, so I tried a brook trout stream. Instead, it continued to rain, so I called it quits and didn't find anything. Did get to see fern fields and old chimney ruins. The main river was chocolate milk.
It was hot. Fishing was not. Have a 30 second clip I might upload of that bluegill getting chased by 2 decent sized largemouth after I hooked him. I wish I had the whole interaction. They were chasing him before I knew it and it was pretty awesome.
Little cat and a little bass from last night Bass bit on cut shad that was sitting on the bottom, was really surprised by that
Outlasted a downpour to have a good day. As a side note, acrylic containers are not designed to withstand behind smashed between 225 lbs and a rock. Maybe I'll leave them a negative review for that .
We did terrible in the snapper tournament. $500 entry fee (which is cheap ) , $600 of gas, $100 of ice, countless hours of prep etc. Trolling motor went out early in the day, trying to get it fixed now. Kept catching AJs up again the rigs we were fishing. Got sharked a decent amount of times. Had fish breaking us off against the rig. Could have been snapper , grouper, sharks, AJs. Who knows. Hit a million different bottom spots. Had to drift them without the trolling motor. Sent live bait , dead bait, cut bait down. Ended up with 5 snapper, when a limit would have been 10. We fucking suck. Snapper fishing has sucked ass this year. On deck : Tarpon rodeo last weekend in July out of Grand Isle . Fishing on my buddies 27 foot cat boat. We are going to overnight at the rigs in Green Canyon for tuna. Also I'm going to do an overnighter for tuna at the floaters on my boat at some point this summer. The boat is getting detailed today....it's $1,000 to wax and polish it but it would take me all damn day to do it myself. Then gotta fix the trolling motor and the stereo is having corrosion issues and acting funny. B.O.A.T. Bust . Out. Another. Thousand.
went to a smallie river that got stripped hard by Helene. i walked and fished a 1/2 mile stretch that used to require getting in and out of the river 3 times to cover.
Left work because I was sick... of not catching fish Weather looks miserable the next 3 days. 100+ with 20-30 mph wings, gusting to 40. Going to actually try to be morning motivated.
Didn't pay well enough attention to time and had to spend over half an hour making my way through 500 ft of rhododendron hell.
billdozer they ain’t cheap, and probably won’t withstand 225 + rock, but I’ve got several photariums for work and they’ve withstood a beating over the past 5ish years and still look dang near brand new. https://wildfishconservancy.org/store/photariums/
Thanks, but I just ordered another $15 flower planter and $1 measuring tape to remake it. Much less worried about breaking that than one of those. Especially since I'm not trying to be scientific about it.
Went to my favorite place for redeye, but Helene really did a number on it and the holding water. Still had a good day, it just won't be the same as in the past.
Did a daytrip today with a buddy. Fished hard for 9 hours. Tough overall fishing but landed a nice brown at the end of the day.
I don’t know anyone that actually fishes tarpon at it. Most ppl just go down that weekend because it’s a big party weekend. We always fish for snapper, mangroves, cobia, and tuna this year. Probably won’t even enter the tournament.
I was permit fishing a few weeks ago. Permit were super spooky so i was fishing an 8wt with 10 lb tippet. Ended up hooking up with this Jack Crevalle that took me for an hour ride. Would not recommend.
Got out tonight for some pond/lake fishing at one of our gamelands here in Pa. It's a half, maybe 3/4 mile walk in so saying there's VERY little pressure is an understatement. Was there for 2 and a half hours, lost count on bluegill and little largemouth bass. Bonus video of a snapping turtle, lol. Edit- Can't add video, so one still photo.
Did a 7 mile float yesterday in a river rat raft going after smallies in an ozark river not far from STL. Had a blast, caught a ton of smallmouth and a few gar. Buddy and I each landed an 18” too. Hot as shit and had to jump in the river a few times. Great day.
we landed 5 lol. You aren’t missing much. First time catching one. Didn’t fight as much as I expected and are a pretty gross/smelly fish
Went and helped DNR sample the last brook trout restoration stream. The main goal was to make sure they were reproducing. In this stream, an upstream pond had been purchased, drained, and demolished. Some fine sediment has made it into the stream, but they're still finding room to reproduce. Found over 20 young of year and 8 adults in the sampling section. Hopefully future tropical storms/hurricanes will help blow it out some.
billdozer You familiar with this? Made me think of you. https://www.bpr.org/bpr-news/2025-0...palachias-only-native-brook-trout-post-helene
I'd read the article. I think it's mostly focused more on the Asheville area, which was hit hard. I've heard that the brook trout streams around the parkway were hit similar. I've mostly decided to not go to those this year since they already get decent pressure so I don't add to it. The impact to our area has been forest fires, fighting the fires, and trail restorations after. That has dumped a bunch of sediment into the streams and killed some populations. Talking with the biologists today, one of the streams that had been a really good one was killed off after a fire. They said the land surrounding the stream looked like a moonscape and was already at 75 F due to no cover at all.
Anyone fish the Blue River in Silverthorne,co ? Staying on the river for a week starting 7/19. Looks to be tough, but will try. Any other creeks to fish in area? Would love to find some Colorado cutthroat
This would probably be a good place to start: https://blog.vailvalleyanglers.com/fly-fishing-for-cutthroat-trout-in-colorado/
Was doing some scallop scouting in Homasassa yesterday and saw this beast slowly following some tarpon. Wasn’t quite half of the 17 ft boat I’ve seen some bigger ones off the beach near passes but this was biggest I’ve seen that shallow
Was time to change out the mono on my 50 wide yesterday. It was getting old . I wanted braid. $400+ just to spool the damn thing. 1800 yards of 80# braid.
fishing guide report from the guys I'm going out with in Costa Rica in a couple weeks have been strong to very strong on Tuna. I'd still like to get into Roosterfish but I'm not going to hog the trip if everyone wants to go deeper and get into Tuna and Billfish.
Here's a bad case of inappropriate recovery work from Helene. A contractor used a southern appalachian brook trout stream as a road and has pretty much destroyed it.