Ice Fish Finder

Ristori: Don't let fog cast cloud over striped bass opportunities

31.12.69

Jigging and casting for stripers in the ocean is exciting when it works out. That was the case Saturday despite an unexpected fog that made navigation difficult, and spotting feeding gannets almost impossible.

Mike Heaney of Allendale got around the first problem as his Sea Vee 32 from Crystal Point in Point Pleasant has radar, but we were still restricted to searching for marks on the fish finder — and blind jigging until a fish broke on the surface at Shrewsbury Rocks. Joe Reap of Ramsey cast a heavy Tsunami Shad in that direction and not only broke the ice on Heaney’s first trip of the season, but quickly hooked two more bass.

Right after that the fog finally lifted, and the gannets started diving on bait as a fleet suddenly developed. Bob Correll of Bay Head, Joe Farrell of Ramsey and I got into the action as we ended up catching six more bass on the Deep Shads. Those bass were chasing herring and bunkers, making the big Tsunami Shad a prime target. A 34-incher I released had that heavy plastic practically swallowed. I also caught our lone bluefish, though some boats got into more of the choppers. Capt. Dave Riback of the Queen Mary from Point Pleasant said his bluefish high hook that day had five fish up to 8 pounds.

Source: The Star-Ledger - NJ.com (blog)

Grab the fry pan, we're going crappie fishing

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I sat in the bow seat of Dan Bonville's green canoe. He sat in the stern seat and was the guide for the day. Dan, of course, is a highly respected Maine guide, but he also can't stop guiding, even on a day off and when he's just fishing with his buddies. He will automatically take the stern seat, paddle for hours, and position the canoe for the bow angler to get the best cast possible. And I have no problem with being the angler in the bow seat.

North Shapleigh Pond is a pleasant southern Maine pond with a half dozen or so camps clustered at the outlet. The rest of the pond — by the rest I mean 80 percent — is undeveloped with predominantly evergreen growth covering the elevated land that slopes into the water.

Source: Seacoastonline.com

Ancient bison remains found near Whitehorse

31.12.69

"I stumbled across a bone and so we decided to look further and found quite a bit," said Duncan.

The full skeleton was about six feet underground. Duncan informed the Yukon Government’s paleontologists and archeologists and within hours, the digging was underway.

"They got pretty excited. It was pretty funny — they just basically all came running," said Duncan.

Also last week, a family was skiing on Fish Lake, about 15 kilometres from Whitehorse, when they came across more bison remains. The remains were sticking out of the ice on the lake.

Both unusual finds have the potential to help explain what happened to bison after the ice age and before the species disappeared about 400 years ago. The bison seen in the territory today were re-introduced about 40 years ago.

Source: CBC.ca