Hard water Pike

[zmerchant7]

Got out twice this week for my first two trips on the hard water for some Pike, and definitely wasn't disappointed! First day ended with over 40 Pike up to about 32-inches and 5 Pickerel on the ice, the second day was considerably slower with only about 20 Pike and a handful of Pickerel on the ice, but the day was topped off with a nice 36+

[Chrisper4694]

Nice bro

[Skunk City]

Very nice.

[njflyfisher]

Hey I seen you on the ice this week!! Nice fish! When I was leaving I saw you gaf a fish and then realese it. I'm just wondering why you were gafing fish if you were throwing them back. I also seen one floating belly up under the ice.

[Bruce Litton]

Fantastic!

[bigboy5522]

Nice job! Thats a crazy amount of fish

[stevejordan]

Originally Posted by njflyfisher

Hey I seen you on the ice this week!! Nice fish! When I was leaving I saw you gaf a fish and then realese it. I'm just wondering why you were gafing fish if you were throwing them back. I also seen one floating belly up under the ice.

probably just lip gaffing them. no worse than hookin em

[Delawareriver]

Originally Posted by stevejordan

probably just lip gaffing them. no worse than hookin em

Big difference in a hook hole and a gaff hole through a jaw. No reason to gaff a fish you don't plan on keeping. Bocca grip works great for landing big toothy fish

[bigfishy]

Originally Posted by njflyfisher

Hey I seen you on the ice this week!! Nice fish! When I was leaving I saw you gaf a fish and then realese it. I'm just wondering why you were gafing fish if you were throwing them back. I also seen one floating belly up under the ice.

I'm not saying this is the case but its quite possible that in THAT moment the glory shot was more important than the fishes overall health....Its a shame but i've seen quite a few ppl act this way in THAT moment.....Pictures and internent notorioty will have ppl do some questionable things....Not so sure that this is the case in this instance as i was not there to witness this....just sayin

Don't mean to offend Zmerch but if you are offended, oh well

[zmerchant7]

Ok guys, so since all of you drama queens seem to like to act like you're still in high school, I guess I have some facts to clear up here.... first of all, yes, SOME fish were gaffed, and no they were NOT released... and by some fish, I mean a total of 4. The fish that were kept were put back down a hole ON A STRINGER so they didn't get wind burn. And before any of you guys start saying "oh, but you can't keep that many" just let me say that there were 4 of us fishing, and I'm assuming you guys can do the math on that.... as far as the observation of "there's blood in all the pics" that all of you forensic investigators seem to have made, none of you seem to mention the fact that "all of those pictures" are only of two different fish; one of which was indeed gaffed and is currently sitting at the taxidermist, and the other which was NOT gaffed, but instead got hooked in the gill and was kept because of the excessive bleeding. I hope that clears some of your assumptions of a "fish massacre" up, since you all seem to be experts on events that you weren't even there for and start s**t based on inaccurate observatons from a third party. Now that that's cleared up, onto the subject of you people out there that are accusing me of fishing for "glory shots" and having "poor fishing ediquitte"...... I'd like to point out that each and everyone one of you that has been saying that about me, has either never met me in person, or has only met me briefly, and either way have never even fished with me before. So how can you know why I take pictures with fish, or how I supposedly have "poor fish handling" skills? The fact is; you can't and don't know.... and both of those accusations couldn't be farther from the truth. Anybody that has ever fished with me before can vouch for me 110% that I take the best possible care for any fish that I plan on releasing, and that I am extremely responsible with what fish I do harvest to say the least. So if any of you little high school girls decide to start making accusations and rumors, whatever you want to call them, based on pictures of me in which I am clearly doing nothing wrong, either fishing ediquitte wise, or legally in the eyes of NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife; you should learn to grow the f**k up and keep your comments and thoughts to yourself, instead of bad mouthing someone you've never even met just because you "get that vibe" from them. And if you ask me, that's some of the poorest fishing etiquette you can have. If there ever comes a time where i am indeed doing something wrong, or in "poor fishing etiquette", by all means call me out on it and talk all the s**t you want about me, though i know that time will never come so you guys should learn to keep your mouths shut and your rude comments and assumptions to yourselves. Some of you may think I'm an a**hole for saying a lot of this, but it had to be said and I couldn't care less.