CBBT Togs & Toads 4-25-15, Sat

[tufnik]

CBBT 4-25-15, Sat

It was calm in the morning, but the wx was not quite as predicted. It was cloudy all day. Wind and waves picked up. Current also picked up. It drizzled all afternoon. I was a bit wet; my feet and hands were cold. Oh, well….that’s fishing.

I met JohnE and his friend on the water. We searched for togs. I used frozen green crab with 2 oz sinkers.

We were hoping John’s friend would catch something since it was his first time at CBBT; he didn’t catch anything. A fellow yaker going back in from the 1st island said he didn’t catch anything. John caught a few keepers.

My catch:
- 5 togs (one keeper 17 ½”)
- 4 toads

Well, that’s it. My last weekend for togs because VA tog season will close in a couple of days.

[JohnE]

Ended up wth 2 keepers Sat, but had to work for it. Cold, wet and miserable. Feet were freezing all day, should have worn the drysuit and some wool socks. Forecast changed for Sun overnight and decided to check conditions. Was some tough fishing, but managed 2 keepers at 18 and 20" near 1st boat channel. Went to 2nd boat channel, but big waves sent me back.

[YakCapn]

Damn, they got some teeth! Wouldn't want to get a finger stuck in that mouth.

[tufnik]

Nice fat female, John. Eggs?

It bothered me...lol... so I had to rotate the pic upright for this nice fish.

[JohnE]

Yeah, it is most likely full of eggs. I probably should have released that one, but I kept it to eat. I always keep my fish grips on the left side of my pfd for some reason and you can't really get tog by the upper lip, so it is not the best pic I guess.

[tufnik]

No, no, not to make you guilty. I think many of the keeper females this time of year have eggs; that's why the season closes soon. Everyone gets their share of females with eggs, and sometimes I think the same (should have released them). However, I would not criticize or think negatively of anyone who chooses to eat them (like me).

Hey, looks like that new stringer works well.

Looks like you left way before me. When I headed back and reached shore I didn't see you. It was raining going in, during load up, and during the drive home. There was also an accident before HRBT that delayed traffic.

[JohnE]

I could not leave the dogs too long without taking them out. I actually stayed longer than I should have, sort of losing track of time out there like I always do. I thought you would have been heading in soon after I left as cold and nasty as it was. I was working my way in fishing piling by piling and was too far to tell you I was heading out. I actually saw you going home on hrbt in the traffic when I was coming back from Arc in Hampton, so you must have left a while after I did (I took my dogs out on the way also).

I did not even think about the fish being upside down in the pic when I took it. It was best way to get the bottom lip tight against the hawg trough with the fish grips. I was sort of flustered after the fight and excited to catch such a nice fish (plus some pretty big waves coming in around me at random intervals)...I just wanted to get it on the stringer with the other one as soon as I could. I don't always take pics, but that was one I wanted to remember (I need to start carrying my tough cam again, I have been just using my cell lately and I have to take it out of a dry bag every time). That one fought much harder than the 20" I caught last week, it made about 4 hard runs for the bottom. Both togs today stole 3-5 baits before I finally got them hooked, they were extra sneaky bait stealers today. I guess it was also harder to feel the bites with whitewater crashing over the pilings and waves constantly moving my yak up and down.

Now that I think about it, I caught both of the togs today on the same set of pilings as one I caught yesterday or the next set over. It was one of the roughest days I have fished cbbt, so rough that I was the only person inside the first island...no power boats, no kayakers.

Oh, and I love the new stringer. It really works great, and I got to put it to good use this weekend.

[JohnE]

I also did try to make some of my first gopro fishing vids this weekend, but I never seemed to catch any footage of the tog battles. I wish I got footage of the larger one on Sunday, that was a great battle and would have been cool to watch. I would run the gopro for a while and then turn it off for fear of running out the battery. I think I should maybe reduce the quality setting to get more battery life. I also need to remember to wipe off the lens on days like that. Most of the footage I did get was rather blurry.

-YakCapn, they most certainly have some of the most agressive teeth on any fish you will catch around here. You would not want to get your fingers anywhere near their mouths if you catch one. They are built to crush crustaceans. They would probably think your finger is a shrimp and try to gnaw it apart in short order.

[YakCapn]

For extended battery life on my gopro, I bought this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[JohnE]

Nice. I think I might have to get one of those eventually.

-It looks like that one has great reviews, but I have the hero 4 and the extended battery to fit my gopro unfortunately is not as good apparently. A review said that you only get a little more life than the regular batteries and that they could not use the battery for the hero 3 because of heat issues. I guess I will have to wait until maybe they come up with a design which will actually extend the battery life substantially like the one for the earlier gopros. It may still be worth getting, but not sure if I want to spend the money now...I need to get an anchor trolley and some more gear tracs with scotty mounts to install my extended front trolling rod holders on my outback.

[JohnE]

tog 1.jpgtog 2.jpgtog 3.jpgtog 4.jpgtog 5.jpgtog 6.jpgtog 5.jpg

Here are some screen shots from my gopro.

[tufnik]

My GoPro has been sitting on the shelf for a year and half. Never used. You got me motivated to get it out there...lol...

[ComeOnFish]

Thanks for the report.
I just got back from a vacation. I didn't have time to surf internet. Everyday, I drove from/to San Diago, LA, SF, and Irvine in CA to attend two weddings, to see my son and his wife and a bunch of in-laws.

Regarding the fishing videos,
It's tough to produce even a single video fishing log. I lost many fish while operating the videos.....
Because you guys catch many fish usually, you will have good videos soon.

I carry multiple cameras (up to four), batteries, and memory cards. I also carry fresh water (bottles) and towels (many small pieces of fabrics). The fresh water and fabrics are used to clean the camera lenses, and fingers before touching the memory cards/batteries during replacing them while fishing.

Replacing batteries and memory cards is very risky while sitting on the kayak -- I lost a camera and some memory cards for that.

Now I set all my camera resolutions to 720P. 1080p is too much to process on my laptops. The initial loading of 2-3 hours of 1080P videos to video making software takes forever. And my laptops crashed many times when I tried to process the videos.

My next goal is producing a kayak fishing video of a cobia fishing. I want to capture casting, setting hook, fighting, hammering and landing. I will spent entire summer in 2015 at CBBT for this, for one glorious day.

I already have a mental scenario (script), and I will go through the events on the script on each fishing day regardless the cobia presence on the top. One day, I hope, I will see cobia on the top and land one.

Joe

[HokieDJ]

I'll join you Joe! I'll hunt for cobia.. after a couple flounders been harvested

[JohnE]

Joe, thanks for the information. I was also worried about changing the batteries on the kayak after I ran out of power and have not tried that yet. We are going to catch some Cobia this year and I hope I get it on video, but Flounder remains my primary target also.

-My buddy that was at cbbt Sat for his first time went back yesterday and ended up catching a 22.5" tog. He came so close to citation size on his first keeper.