Tog Were Chewing
 

I missed the tog fest, but hit the reef yesterday with a client and it was unreal fishing. I'm so glad I bought crabs for 3 and my 3rd cancelled. We had our limit in the first 30 minutes and caught each time we anchored, in the end I'd be surprised if we didn't catch 80 fish between us and half of those would have kept. To bad it wasn't RI waters, I'd have had ten 4-5 lbers to filet.

So this is my 2nd year of really getting into this, so I have to ask if chumming is something you regulars use, because I tried it yesterday with the surplus of crabs and the weather forecast (no sense in keeping extra crabs). I put 2 inches of sea water in the bottom of a plastic bin and cut a dozen crabs into chunks and let the stew for 15 minutes while we fished. Seemed we caught good each spot and then it would slow down. If I threw the chum as far forward as I could chuck it the bite would turn on unbelievably for the next 15-20 minutes and it would bring in better fish. These new arrives would hit hard too, no guesswork, bite raise the rod and have fun. We did it 3-4 times the bite increased noticiably and we seemed to be on better fish. I think it put them in a feeding frenzy of sorts, which is why the hits were so hard and noticably different.

Back in my freshwater days, I used to fish smallmouth bass late fall and winter on the cape with grass shrimp cum. I'd put a rock in a paper bag with a good supply of shrimp every once in a while and the bite would always increase once the shrimp started to escape from the bag. Anyway, if you have a surplus of craps, I would definately give that a try, seemed to work like a charm yesterday.

Anyone have a clue what the effects of this storm will be on tog?

i would think the storm will push them off the shallow structure.

when i was younger we use to do a lot of ground fishing, my pops would crush up crabs and mix them with rabbit food, the rabbit food would expand and soak up the crab juice.

another thing he use to do was save the water from a clam boil if we planned to go fishing within a day or two, pour that over the feed and chum the spots by throwing small handfuls over.

it worked then really well.

i dont think it can hurt, worked really good on big scup too.

Tog Bite has been Great In my spots also, Limited out in 1 hr. But the next day all 14-15 inch fish, But always hook ups as soon as the crab hits the bottom. Always a blast them Biggens are some strong SOBS!!!

Today was totally insane: boated over 50 tog (4:1) keepers in a little over 3hrs. For my TogFest crew it was on "Chuck's spot". Did lots of chumming with crabs to get rid of them, many dead ones. All by myself today.
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One thing I noticed in the Fall, Big crabs = Big Tog. The medium crabs cut in half produce well on the 14" to 20" fish, the thing is there's so many of them they don't give the bigger tog a chance. I noticed by cutting big crabs in half I'd increase my odds at catching bigger fish. IMO,, the extra time it takes a fish to pick thru the shell/legs often allows a little more time for a bigger fish to move in.

I usually peal the shell and trim the legs and have no problem getting keeper tog,, if you want numbers that's the way to go,, but if your looking for a quality fish.. big bait theory applys. Im by no means reinventing the wheel, I just had a nice batch of big crabs this morning and noticed the difference right away.
I lost one about a third of the way up that I'm gonna loose sleep over. I have never felt any fish do what that Tog did(it was a battle). The break happen where the loop met loop, need a stronger leader.

Potting all really big crabs now // I actually think they are are a different species . I get they every fall [late ]
Every single one is brown & they die , much , much quicker than the average green crabs .

The Asians seem to last forever IMO .

:fishin:

How did you get your hands on that? :) Congrats on the great day.

Bob .your a sick bastard .shrimp [[CUM]]

no wonder its alot more work to get a gallon now that what it use to be ><><><>:rotf2:

in westport the other day and the crabs were huge

Niko ,
every year @ this time they start potting , no bait ..nothing ......................... I use to have to large commercial eel pots & every year @ this time the would begin to fill right up with these huge crabs & then after this ...November they would fill up with huge mummies <><>

Just got back from pulling them , not many but again all those huge brown ones <><><:drool:

Bob, Mike whatcha doin this weekend?

I emptied the boat yesterday, figured this weather would f things up for a while and I need to get it winterized and shrink wrapped. Not often you can call it quits on such a killer day, so I can't complain after this past Friday. Like I told you Tony in addition to non-stop tog; look at the cod my buddy picked up on the ledge. I have no plans, but I think I'm done for the year, but you might talk me into coming down if you heading out.

Tony , gonna let the dust settle ;;

Furneral saturday Morning ><><><

Little wishful thinking on my part Bob...nice fishes.

So Mike,,, this guy is watching the super bowl and there is an empty seat next to him. The guy near by asks "is that your empty seat?' he replys: it is, my wife and I have been attended every superbowl for the last 40 years but she passed away. At half time the guy asks: Couldnt you have found someone to have taken her place? The guy replys...No, everyone is at her funeral.

Yep //But Saturdays her Dad,s

Gotta pay respect to the old time , Portuguese >L/Y Mike

PS the empty seat , reminds me when one time I towed the tin rig way up into Maine ,past grand lake stream ......................................... We went to this lake we were going to fish the next morning & we were watching this old timer in one of those 18' canoes w/the motor >>>>>>he was trolling back & forth for salmon //

In a about a 1/2 hour he came to the ramp & we were B/Sing with him .
We asked him if we could be of any help on getting his rig & gear out .
He said sure I maybe old but not stupid .

SOOOOOOOOOOOO we were helping him out & I go to pick up this duffle bag that he has up front in the canoe >WTF I can,t left it & it felt like rocks .
I said to him WTF this fells like dead weight / all rocks ....................

He then told us that I was right .. that it was rocks & weighted 86lbs . He then told us that,s he & his wife has fished together for 40 years & she had died .
He said he tried fishing without her for awhile but it just didn,t feel right .
SOOOOOO he but her exact weight in the same place she always sat & everything was ok after that ..

TRUE STORY .

When if was time to split . we told him where we were going to launch the next morning .

He gave us exact locations .....going down the road / when you see a reflector on the curve drop right down to 25 MPH ..........there will be a INdian police officer on the side of a building waiting for speeders . He continued to tell us he was the only indian cop .. & they only had the rights of 250 yards on this road .going thru town ....three buildings <><><>
&&&&&&&& he won,t give anyone a break , they saw it as a legit income .
He was right on target ................... I,ll never forget his logic or tip ><><><

Another memory thanks to the fishing addiction :buds:

Dropped a gopro on the reef just to have a peak on what the heck it looks like down there. Had lots of video but just took a 10 min section and posted it on my FB page. Remember this is a camera attached to a 10# weight (old broken mighty mite anchor with no tines) via a rope so it is getting dragged around a little. It did get stuck but I managed to rescue it. But you get a feel for the bottom. It's gnarly dude. If you are interested You might be able to watch the video here:
Facebook

Jim,

Link says content unavailable yesterday and today.

Jeff,

Works for me! Are you friends with Jim on FB?:love:

f #^&#^&#^&#^&#^& WIND /// Asian crabs are potting :fury:descent ............................................. dead n/ wind /swing to NNE .<><><><f ucked without enjoying it :smash:

no, just sent him a request

For some reason there seems to be a permission issue. It says it is open to the public but it seems to only work for friends. Let me open everything up wide.

try this

New link opens your page but only video I see is the offshore one. The other link is still saying the same thing.

Forget it Jim, no biggie.

anyone tried for rhody tog lately on the outside? PM if you would rather... I havent been out of the bay since the storm.

Z sucked Monday .

Gotta head the other way @#$%^&*()_ N/E wind :fishin:

I had no problem finding fish in Newport Monday. first anchor drop yielded plenty of keepers, near the R2A. after a couple hours we decided to leave fish to find fish. went from 47' out to 80' and had no success. i would attribute that to our repeatedly piss poor anchoring job. good luck

The Asian crabs are taking over the green crab territory ..

I,m now averaging 12 to 18 Asian to 1 Greenie ><>,.

@ now they are alot larger than the last few years ><><<><

noticeable drop off this morning...a few small fish slow action. The FAT Lady is singing I am afraid.