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Help- I'm getting skunked!

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skunked
4K views 9 replies 7 participants last post by  Jigman 
#1 ·
Help- I'm new to striper fishing. I've got my 9" white and black sluggos, my 6" white and black RONZ's, my floro leader material, circle hooks, sinker slides, swivels, Shimano Baitrunner 6500, 7' Ugly Stick, but no fish. I've used chunk herring at dead duck on the incoming and outgoing and nothing. I've thrown the sluggos and ronz's until my arms fall off and nothing. Am i in the wrong spot? I'm not new to fishing (used to work charter boats in Fla.) but I think maybe I'm fishing the wrong spot. Can anyone PM me with a spot near Eliot to try. I'm not asking for anyone to spot burn but I'm just getting discouraged. I plan on going out tomorrow morning around 3a.m. to catch the incoming- any ideas?confused.gif
 
#2 ·
Your doing what you should be doing, hell, I've been doing this for many years, and I get skunked, it's the nature of the beast, but...... if you want to have more success, here is what I recommend. I do not fish the Eliot area, but if I were you, I would start scouting out other spots. Yes, it takes a while, sometimes years, but it will pay off in spades down the road.
Ask the local bait shop guy, try hooking up with someone else around your area, look for new spots, get out of the car, grab the rod, and start testing the waters. Give it a little time, then move on to another spot. Observe others, and how they are doing.
Good luck
 
#3 ·
too many seals up there.....
it's early and you barely have an influx of fish.
get clam and use that for starters as the water is still cold.
go down to the camp st ellis jetty and walk that bad boy all the way to the end and "be careful" macks there are prolly a good bet. use it in a filet and smaller hooks as you may just get schoolies just yet. i'm not up there often enough to pm you spots of sorts for this time of year but, the jetty is not a spot burn as it is quite well known and is about a 4 city blocks or so long so not many folks will be on it anyway me thinks..alright.gif



 
#5 ·
The fish are around my friend, but like zim said it's still wayyyy too early to be seeing fish in any sort of numbers. I fished off the beach last Tuesday, my buddy and I landed 3 fish and had several more nibbles that went unhooked. Since then I have been out a couple more times and my buddy a few more times than I and neither of us has caught a fish. Probably won't get out much this week between work and my daughter's softball schedule, but this weekend I'm hoping to get back into fish.

Camp Ellis can be decent though it tends to get over-crowded, ESPECIALLY on the weekends. Good luck to ya if ya decide to venture all the way to the end, you will DEFINITELY need korkers or some sort of studded footwear as those rocks get pretty slippery once ya get 1/4 of the way out......well worth it though to get away from the crowd. If you're going to stick to the main area of the jetty that is fished by the masses, you'll need to be there at first light or after dark otherwise you'll be competing with a bunch of people for a spot. You can also fish off the docks or by the boat launch adjacent to the tackle shop if the crowd gets too thick.

With a 7' rod you're limiting the areas you can fish, but believe me there are a bunch of other "hot-spots" within a 10 mile radius that can be productive. I'd suggest getting a larger outfit (10-11') and fishing off any of the local beaches, believe me you can catch your fair share and from time to time, you can even get into fish larger than just schoolies. Float sandworms early in the season using 18" of leader material rigged with a float, 6/0 circle hook and 4 oz pyramid sinker. As the season progresses add clams to your arsenal as well as chunk herring and mackerel. I have seen/heard of some pretty big fish taken on all of the aforementioned baits.

Like I said I'll be back at it this weekend off the beaches in Old Orchard....if you're around and manage to get yourself a bigger set-up between now and then feel free to shoot me a PM and maybe we can meet up and I can show ya a few spots/give ya some pointers. My fishing buddy John swears by June 6th (which is this coming Sunday) as THE date to be out fishing if you're around the Old Orchard area. I can't say that I've been around long enough to confirm his suspicion as he's been up here much longer than I, but this year will mark the 4th in a row I've fished with him on that date and every year we've gotten into fish. Call it dumb luck, call it a coincidence, call it fishermans superstision, but I know I'm not missing it. Good luck man, hope some of this helped.


StriperHyper ~ Will
 
#7 ·
Sounds like your putting your time in. Are you talking dead duck in eliot? Either way. If your just looking to get on the board you might be fishing too big. Most of the schoolies are on silversides or other small bait this time of year. Size down the slugo to a 4.5 or run smaller metal if you need some distance. Or if you want to hedge your bets run a larger plug or jig (like a bucktail with a medium size swim shad on it) and about 3 feet ahead of it run a teaser fly or even a small unweighted slugo. I like the that rig, it presents both bait profiles and maybe more importantly triggers a competitive strike since it looks like the trailing plug is chasing down a helpless silver side. Not to mention the weight of the larger plug allows you to cast the small stuff over a much greater area. Good luck. The fish will come.
 
#10 ·
sometimes it's all about the angle and approach versus the location.. I fish many spots like this-- where fishing the wrong/different angle and you'd swear there were no fish there.. or just a different tide-time.. I found striper fishing is more like deer hunting then fishing.. they have a route based on tide-time and bait location.. you learn it and head them off at the pass.. your best off if you get there before they do, anchor up and wait for 'em.. they show up and there is nothing to spook 'em.. at this point your 'structure' when they arrive and not something foreign that shows up after they are there and feeding.. big difference in the numbers of fish you'll catch:mental:
 
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