Monday "sea bass"/snakes

[bulletbob]

Went bottom fishing on a NS... It was easily the WORST day of sea bass fishing I have ever witnessed. Something kept the sea bass from hitting big time.. We fished right along side several other bottom fishing boats, so they must have experienced something similar.. or not..
Upon dropping anchor, it started.. Swarm after swarm of rubber lip snakes started coming over the rail.. you know,,, banana cod..
Just incredible, NEVER in my 60 years have I seen them so thick and fierce.. They outnumbered any other fish species caught by probably a 5 to 1 margin.. one of the mates was circling the boat with a disgorging hook to help folks that could not get them off...He was super busy at it the entire trip.. The boat was packed to the max.. Every single rod holder was taken..

I think a grand total of about 6 keeper sea bass was taken on the entire boat for the huge crowd aboard.. Ling were the mainstay, but most folks boated 5 pout for each ling.. Some HUGE flounder were caught as well. a flattie also won the pool. I was lucky to get 2 big flounder, and 1 13 1/2 sea bass.. My son and I also brought home 16 ling, mostly small to mid sized.. The pout ruined the trip for me.. It was just too crazy catching sometimes 10 in a row and having to take them off, breaking your damn hooks etc.. They were taken in numbers I have just never seen before on a head boat.. Every person caught probably a couple dozen.. Captain told me the sea bass were there, but the water had turned cold and they wouldn't hit... It was nice getting down to the shore, but it was more like work than a fishing trip... Aren't pout suppossed to be endangered or something???.. On this trip the only thing endangered was our sanity..
I hope to never again see one of those ugly things...
Hopefully next trip down to NJ will see the pout hordes far away from the near shore bottom fishing grounds...bob

[Reelman73088]

I think I know which boat you're talking about and I was on it a few weeks ago with the same results. Nothing but pout after pout I must have caught at least 30 of them. It was drop and reel fishing for them at times and at one point I would set the hook and realize right away what it was and just let it sit down there for a minute and hopefully spit the hook because I didn't feel like reeling it up from 100 feet and then dealing with getting the hook out. But remember according to our wonderful government pout are in danger and need to be protected because there's not that many around I bottom fish on PBs fairly frequently and I've never seen that many pout in my life.

[jmurr711]

sea bassings been slow this year but ling fishings been awesome. maybe try jumping on an open boat I know FishMonger has openings & last trip we caught a few

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by jmurr711

sea bassings been slow this year but ling fishings been awesome. maybe try jumping on an open boat I know FishMonger has openings & last trip we caught a few

yep,, Its simply not worth going out with huge crowds any more.. The extra dollars would be better spent on an "open charter"... It was a last minute decision to drive through the night to fish, and we had to go wherever we could and it was a matter of it being the "only game in town" really..
Just too many folks on some of these trips, and it keeps the individual catch rates down... Still it was the hundreds of pout being caught that was the biggest problem... They just seemed to be beating the ling to the bait... bob

[Harpoon]

just a quick question....I know most were probably using clam. Did you have gulp on at all...or did you see the guys with gulp catching pout at all?

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by Harpoon

just a quick question....I know most were probably using clam. Did you have gulp on at all...or did you see the guys with gulp catching pout at all?

I did Use Gulp later in the trip and did catch the 2 flounder on it.. I did NOT have the "right" Gulp, I had fresh water red nightcrawler style, and another form that looked like a sand eel.. Gulp did help the catches it seemed, but the pout nailed it every bit as hard as a clam.. Lots of guys stopped putting clam on the hook in favor of plain bare Gulp chartreuse twisters, or pink shrimp, but the pout loved the Gulp every bit as much as clam... Using gulp alone caught ling and flounder, but hundreds of pout as well. The half a gulp worm along with a small piece of clam caught our 2 best fish.. 2 massive flounder..
The bananas were simply too numerous and aggressive.. lots of ling came up with non bluefish bite marks... I could be wrong, but I think the pout were grabbing some of the ling when they got hooked.. They were coming up with big ,round, bloody, "scaled" marks on them, not cut in half like a bluefish bite..
my son and I got a few fish.. 16 ling, 2 big winter flatties, and a sea bass.. It was just a chore trying to deal with dozens of pout for every angler... Drop and reel on the damn things, and when you did hook something else, they grabbed that as well!... Just hope I never see another pout as long as I live!....bob

[jmurr711]

they were ferocious for us on Sunday but Capt. Jerry kept bouncing around until we got away from em. biggest key was constantly move your bait if u let it sit still for a second a tiger ling was all over it

[toller]

Didn't realize until this post that the supposed conger eel (somebody told us) my daughter caught 2 years ago was actually a pout. She wanted to try it and it was very good firm white meat, but I over cook one piece and it became chewy. Like monk fish beauty is in the taste buds.

[tautog]

May be tasty but you can't keep them legally for the past 2 1/2 years.

[SaltLife1980]

Curse of the pouts