you never know what prowls the depths

Chris Finch

Well-known member
so we have been drawing down the lower marsh at haddam to get the juvenile pike. the numbers were good but the pike were extremely small (avg ~90mm) (somebody is going on vacation and wont let us run the marsh, but is neither here nor there).

so on the 5th day of the drawdown we were getting close the magical 28"mark, this is when the heavy pike flow is. the tide was coming up so we hopped to the marsh side of the weir to increase the outflow of the marsh. we stood there for 30 seconds to make sure no debris would get sucked into the weir, then headed back to our scooping post on the lower end of the weir. this is when all hell broke loose: the wier was completly filled. with what we didn't know. the creatures had a large head and a skinny body so we were thinking bullhead fingerlings. i grabbed a net and scooped as many could fit. even in my wildest dreams i never thought i would have a 40lbs+ net full of...

BOWFIN FINGERLINGS!!!!!!!!!

we estimated 40,000 were released. they are by far the coolest fish we have
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i have aslo been getting into catfishing. our annual angler guide came out this year with a picture of me holding a 90CM channel. i say the pretty blond girl got the cover but i got the centerfold, HAHAHA.

here are a few pics of my last outing with my lady and her pup.
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Nikki's first wiska puss
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even a striper will hit chicken liver (we have actually gotten 2 stripers off of chicken liver)
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even a striper will hit chicken liver (we have actually gotten 2 stripers off of chicken liver)
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That's pretty cool. On the chicken livers, I used to striper fish (with a fly rod) in Belfast Harbor, ME. The "old timers" were generally catching more fish than me from the bridge, fishing cut mackerel or herring on heavy spinning gear and even hand lines. Me and my fly rod got a fair amount of ribbing. (I was also introduced into the fine art of poaching lobsters with a hoop of metal, a net, and a bait bag of herring on the end of a "striper" hand line, but that's another story. I don't think the Marine Patrol wardens ever caught up with that guy.)

Any way, Belfast used to have a chicken processing plant with a straight pipe into the harbor. So much chicken waste was discharged that one cold winter just before the Clean Water Act kicked in the harbor froze over in a solid skim of chicken grease. The old timers were all lamenting how much better the striper fishing was back in "the old days" when the plant was running. It "pulled the fish in", and you could go over to the plant and get all the free chicken guts you wanted for bait!


Are the bowfin native? Never heard of them in New England before.
 
there we go.

i dont think bowfin are native(they are from down south) we have had a small population for a while but i think it was the flood even from sandy that washed out an oxbow in mass and brought them all south. our marsh flooded with 3ft of water this spring so it was full of unwanted species: crappie, perch, bass, a few giant carp, bowfin, redfin pickerel, blue gills, green sunfish, ect.

just wait two years and the bowfin fishery will be insane
 
You can have them--and the pike too. I like my fish native. We have a recent explosion of white catfish on the tidal section of the Kennebec River, to go along with the carp, pike and smallmouth that don't below there. At least the alewives and shad are coming back.

The good news is none of those non-natives will do any harm to the stripers. Those, I'd chase! You have a sea-run white perch population, too?
 
We have white perch it wasnt a good run for me atleast. White cats are cool they remind me of giant tadpoles.

My goal would be to put walleye in every lake. Trout are cool but to get to good places to catch "wild" or atleast holdovers is 2hrs from my house (we have stream shocked a few little brooks with nice "native brookies" that were 6-10") but ill let those places remain the way the are. We are too warm on my side of the state. My uncle has a house on lake wiloughby in upper vt. We trolled for some big trout up there. Never caught much but we did see a giant school of steelhead. If i move north i could see my self trolling for some nice landlocked salmon or togue.
 
We have native bowfin in NJ's fresh and brackish estuaries. A great fighting figh but kind of finicky. You usually catch them incidentally when fishing for stripers or Catfish.
 
We call them Dog fish. They are fighters but can really tear up bass tackle. When I lived farther south they would tear fish right off your stringer. We would fish big live bait for big cats and the dog fish would chew your bait up.
 
Chris, is the Amia calva, or some colloquial name for a different fish?

They're widely hated in Florida and Georgia amongst the sport fishing crowd. Drag a Largemouth of twice their size backwards till they drown and then start to fight for real. Widely thought to be poor eating. I've never tried them as they are so nasty looking.

I can't imagine not dumping net culls of fry on dry ground in favor of native fish if it was possible as they're highly destructive to native or more preferable fish species


One mans trash truly is another mans treasure


Steve
 
How many inches is 90cm? The English system is better, even though you science guys like metric. Looks like a fun time, and you have really good company.
 
30cm~12".
Bass aren't native to ct. I like fish that are considered "trash". Nothing gets the juices flowing like seeing a golden shiner in spawning colors or watching the suckers run up our rivers. I like my falllfish, too.

I dont understand people who go bass fishing and get mad when they hook a pickerel or pike. Pickerel are a native species. Pike get me excited too. Bass are boring unless they are in the river (they fight better because they live in current). Pickerel in the river are like freight-trains, they don't stop.

Nothing is better than a wisker puss, also an introduced species.

But by far the best culinary experience in our waters is the blue crab. The object of crabbing is that you just relax, drink a few beers, enjoy life and the friends you brought along. Then you get quite a feast. The blue crab is my favorite target species.
 
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