Yesterday my good friend John Cail (aka Ipop) and I hit the road and made the 3 1/2 hour journey up to Miramichi to try for some striped bass. John's sort of famous in these parts (or infamous!) with his long beard and home made kayaks. If there was ever a Do-It-Yourself'er in the kayak fishing world, it's IPop!
After a the long drive we finally made it, and got onto the water a little after 1 PM. Things started slow, but eventually John landed one, and finally I did as well from trolling a Lyman's Lures 4 inch plug. These Canadian made plugs have fantastic action though run only a few feet deep, so I put a little weight on the line in front of the leader to help get it down as I trolled, that did the trick!
On this section of water, you have to use single barbless hooks. That did actually make things somewhat frustrating. The circle hook (Owner hooks size 7/0) I had put on the Lymans worked great, the swim shads we were using for most of the fishing, with the barbs pinched caused us to loose more fish than we caught.
The action really didn't heat up till evening, around 6-sh. Thats when things got a lot more fun. I John was getting bites steady all evening and ended up catching around a dozen while losing about 8 more. I landed only 2, and lost another 4. I guess there is still some technique I need to figure out when fishing stripers in these waters!
My biggest on the day was a nice 25'5" striper while John ended up with a nice 34" fish. That's too large to be a keeper in these waters but would have made a great fish to take home back here on the Kennebacasis!
We finally got off the water as it got dark as you are not permitted striper fishing a half hour after sunset (I think). Again, the long drive home to get back here finally at about 1:30 in the morning. Next time, I'll pick a couple days where the forecast calls for nothing but sun and go camping!
The trick for these stripers it seems is to use swim shads (4" ones seemed to work best yesterday) and bounce them off the bottom. Thats where the stripers seem to hit the most. If you are planning to go striper fishing on the Miramichi, check out Dorions Sports first. They have a huge selecton of shads out where you can pick them out individually rather than have to buy packages. That way you can get a wide selection without breaking the bank.
Great write up, Joe. Very jealous of your fish as well. We hit the 'chi this weekend and caught 3 schoolies over 2 days, and there were over a dozen of us. Sigh!
ReplyDeleteMerely a smiling visitant here to share the love (:, btw outstanding style.
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