Some folks say it's too cold to go fishing, it's not so bad once you break the icicles off your face. You also warm up considerably when you see a huge school of stripers and birds working together to gorge themselves on bait. In the beginning of the week Mr. Kev booked another charter and we successfully landed 4 fish in a striper feeding frenzy. The excitement was a bit overwhelming, in our haste to get more lines in the water, we lost a couple close to the boat. The birds were going nutz over the bait that the stripers had schooled up to the surface. Each cast yeilded a fish, all in the 20+ inch range. Unfortunately the trusty anti liar camera was not available this trip, only the story made it back to the dock.

This young pup caught late in the week was bitter sweet or sweet bitter, not long after the snap of the photo the capt. tried to start '30 SOMETHIN' and click, click. Yep the capt. found himself with a dead battery in the middle of the lake. He then smiled knowing that the wind was behind his back en route to a nearby dock, close to home port. Thanks to landlubber Bob who bailed the capt. out of trouble.

Well apparently some peeps actually read this rambling. The capt.'s family has digested the sweet meat from the monster caught in Sandy Hook however, the capt. himself still has the taste of the fight. He was reminded of the flavor upon landing this fiesty stripe. Not the size of his big cousin but the fight is certainly relative when using lighter tackle. There's Mr. Kev proudly displaying his catch. The catch also made it feel like 20 degrees warmer. Amazing even a snag on the bottom disguised as a bite sends warmth waves to the toes during these winter charters. Locals claim the bite is on, so far the claim holds true.

Capt. Ray has been providing the capt. with party boat fare for 30 somethin years, finally this capt. earns his keep with this pool winning striper. 20lb. class? CLOSENFF. I will certainly be thankful this turkeyday, for the sweet meat filets and most of all for Capt. Dad working out the detail$ over the trio of decades while providing top notch mate service with a grin and plenty of patience.

Well the capt. bags another nice largie, and Mr. Jeff missed the big one. First time I seen a striper jump, he hit it and it spit the hook right back. I guess I won't mention that he caught 2 catfish, I guess I just did, too bad bro, that erases your 10 point total from yesterday back to zippo!

The mojo continues, here Jeff in his last week prior to early graduation, nails the 1st striper on the new boat and then 5 mins. later pulls in a small largie. Bout time bro...

NICE BASS Michelle! Nice hair capt. Well folks the new vessel, dubbed 'THIRTY-SOMETHIN' apparently has the same if not more mojo thant CLOSENFF. These fish were taken on the maiden voyage. That's a real nice shot of the center console, I mean the sky...

Well if the capt. can't catch 'em he sure knows who can. Here's a fuzzy pic (sorry Billy I didnt want to run over the school) of Billy with a nice keeper in 4-5lb. range right at the dock around dusk. Who needs a stinkin boat!! Nice fish Billy...

OK folks, most of you already know the capt. is a little loony, but after much deliberation, calculation and begging it looks as though this is the new vessel, and that is final:

Port view Bow view Console view

THANK YOU Capt. Dad for the correct fathom to feet conversion. At this point now I can't clearly recall how deep we were it just seemed like thousands of feet after trolling for so long. Anyways check out the new edition (transfer pending) to the capt.'s fleet. Introducing CLOSENFFer: Check it out.

More pics from Kona, the blue marlin on the left weighed in @ 185lbs., just a pup. I did NOT catch him, tho the capt. almost lied about that until he was warned that if he was caught lying, he'd have his beard tarred. The Wild West had a helluva crew although we only caught skippies and a shark, which a shark is similiar to a catfish on the CLOSENFF point system. The pic on the right was two of many porpoises we followed. In theory the porpoise follow the Ahi, in reality they are just fun to watch and yeilded no yellowfin, but look how blue the water is, that was at about 30 fathoms (180 ft. deep).

Some pics from Kona, on the big island of Hawaii. We set out in search of some Blue Mar and/or Ahi. We did manage to catch the bait (skipjack or Oku in the middle) but only managed to land the whitetip shark on the left. I had the shark on a 20lb. test rod for about 1 min. until he sawed off the line, he hung around and a girl on the boat had the honors. The big Ahi or yellowfin tuna on the right weighed in at 148lbs. Unfortunately I didn't catch it but was still worth pic.

A nice largemouth taken on a very cold lonely morning. Wind was blowing and my nose was running. No sign of stripers this morning. Made it out that evening for a sunset cruise. The fish may not always be there but the sunsets always are...

Hey there folks, some technical difficulties and slow fishing has caused the recent delay in posts. Still have to go through some of the pics from Hawaii too. But in the meantime to wet your FS blog appetite here's some shots from this previous week on LKN. We've caught a bunch of small largemouth (too small to photograph) that were schooling up around the shoals. Michelle killed the white perch on bait (it's ok Michelle you can touch him!!), we caught 5. I managed a couple of smaller stripers making casts with crankbaits.

Well folks it's been awhile. The capt. is trying out the fishing in Hawaii. The first trip was a disappointment yeilding fish the size of the brim. The next excursion however proved a little better. Apparently this time of the year is a transistion period so the fishing has been SLOOOW. The capt. did manage to catch this Mahi Mahi aka dolphin fish (dorado). Can't say it was much of a battle as we were geared for marlin using 130 lb. test rigs. The fish weighed in about 20lbs. and was delicious for the whole family. The boat was gorgeous and the crew was cool but that didn't help us catch too much. The next trip is scheduled for the big island of Hawaii or Kona, supposedly that is where all the fish are hanging out, we'll see...

The capt. may have a new project to satisfy the Mrs. capt. She sure is pretty, actually they both are ;-)

Hello folks, it has been quite a while. The captain did NOT secure enough funding for a new boat oh well. Charter reservations have been weak. So the capt.'s capt. and the capt.'s friend took advantage of the cheap summertime rates. Fishing has been tough for all in the dog days but lookie here Mr. Greg and Mr. Jeff managed to bring some luck to CLOSENFF and landing a nice striper very early in the am. Some topwater action yielded the largemouth later that morning.

THEY'RE STILL HERE! Picked up a couple the other morning. We were using lighter tackle and these fish put up a helluva fight. Out of town for the next couple weeks so CLOSENFF was cleaned up and dry docked. Capt. needs a bigger boat may be putting her up on ebay to try and catch buyer. That maybe the toughest one to land but we'll see. Capt. is graciously taking donations. This boat here would be ideal.

Ok apparently the stripes aren't as deep as the capt. has been chasing for them. Finally got one in bout 45ft. on a plug with out a planer. The photographer will start taking pics while the fish are still in the water, this may put less pressure on the capt. to actually land the fish. The photo below has about 2 dozen blue heron in it, never seen so many in one location. Would have bet the boat that there'd be fish there, not a bite.


larger image

Well the live bait fishing didn't go as planned. We sat around and not even a bite. Capt. Ray says not to give up on the live bait if you truley want to catch a real big fish. Kinda tough to argue that point with the good ole capt. Check out this monster circa 1981. That's a 781lb. giant tuna, unfortunately these fish are not in the lake but you see why I can't argue with him.

Alright well CLOSENFF has recently hired part time fisherwomen to procure bait. Thanks to Mrs. Shirley and Michelle for filling up the bait bucket on their 1st call to duty. Just need to train them to put the worms on, although think that may take some coercing.

Mr. Bob and his inlaws made it out after their 1st trip was a rain out. A lot of running around led us back to the dock for some striper action. Notice the man who caught the fish seems to have a more genuine smile for the camera. Looks like Mr. Ron Ricco is skeptical bout the CLOSENFF call of 4lbs. and DA is looking at the capt. wondering where all the largemouth are. The capt. caught one as well that he fumbled at the boat.

Why is the captain smiling with the fish?? Isn't the crew supposed to catch 'em?? I know Todd and his buddy Bob didn't come along to hear the captain's bs. Although the bs turned into reality, as the capt. was explaining how he caught one at the dock last time, BOOM the striper on the left hit right at the boat and took off for the deeper water. Maybe Todd really does like being the photographer... maybe not. Todd CLOSENFF owes u a big one for all your great pics!

Well when the captain is not fishing he is hanging out in the garage with his bud. Check out this clip that the STIGA ping pong co. thought was interesting enough to put on their site. Way to go Bob, on closing the deal.

Watch the clip. .

Went this am all alone, business has slowed no one is too interested anymore except the capt. Going to be tough to justify a 17' for the fall season. Found the smaller striper in 25ft. and the bigger one, just over 5lbs, in 55ft right next to the dock. He put up a hell of a fight, took off twice, music to a fisherman's ears. Almost fell in tryin to grab him tho, still shakin here.

Mrs. Michelle holds what she calls a big mouth here. Got him trolling the honey hole not 2 minutes after we put it in the rod holder.

Couple of small ones today, think it may be that time to chase em deeper. Mr. Stamey here making sure he doesn't get a treble hook in the hand.

Well Mr. Bob was sick of seeing and hearing about the nice size stripers. It was time for him to book an AM trip b/c his PM trips yeilded nothing but a buzz. The honey hole did not disapoint as per that smile on Mr. Bob's face.

The rain didn't prevent Shane from waking up to fish this day. For the 1st 45 minutes I know Shane was wondering when I was going to shut up and when he would catch something that I'd be bs'ing about. Sure enough we caught the 1st one where the captain said we wouldn't!

And Mr. Pedro definately knows how to fish. He landed both the stripers caught today and one in the clutch right next to Mr. Gus's charter. Don't think Gus appreciated that too much considering his charters cost $200 a pop! Todd and I pulled in a couple of largemouth as well, not very worthy of a pic.