4/18/05 - First T&W trip of the spring run in the Connecticut River. Scarlet T-Man Tubes and Quick Change Keels with 1/4 ounce egg sinkers were the ticket today. Many schoolies and this one early keeper at 30" and 13 pounds.
4/20/05 - No big fish today but loads of beautiful healthy schoolies on Scarlet & Bubblegum Tubes. The Ct River striper action was steady for 3 hours with many doubles for me and my fishing partner Mike. We totaled around 30 small stripers this afternoon.
5/2/05 - Fished the Farmington River in Windsor CT today avoiding the high and muddy conditions out on the main CT River. 1/2 ounces on the keels dragging Scarlet, Bubblegum tubes did the trick for non-stop schoolie action. My son Pat & I boated around 50 fish in 3-1/2 hours.
5/10/05 - Trolled Bubblegum tubes today on the Ct River north of Hartford, CT. Had plenty of action with a nice keeper fish of about 30" in the mix. Things are starting to heat up here with good water levels & clarity!!
5/22/05 - Today was my 1st trip to Long Island sound in 2005. We were greeted by overcast skys and beautiful calm seas at 7am. We decided to fish some of the inshore reefs off of Old Saybrook and Old Lyme Connecticut. Using a variety of tubes the 15" Scarlet, the Scarlet Snake & the Chartreuse Snake, we managed about 25 stripers from 20 to 35 inches. We ran the T-Man Quick Change Keels with 1/2 ounce weights to fish in waters from 7 to 30ft in depth. Slow trolling the humps and rips along the reef edges provided plenty of action for us and we landed our share of keepers too!! These fish were very healthy and their stomachs were just loaded with fresh squid.
5/27/05 - Launch out of Mago Point in Niantic this morning and hit some local reefs at slack tide for a bunch of keeper stripers. We had fish to 37" and many fish between 25 and 35". It was a beautiful morning with the first clear skys we have seen in almost 2 weeks. I was afraid the strong N.E. blow we had was gonna mess up the fishing but it looks like the stripers have setteled in for the season just fine. Many of today's fish came on the very edge of the reef and if your troll was off even a little it was hard to hook-up. We scored about 20 stripers in the 2 hours before and after the ebb tide slack.
5/30/05 - Kind of a tough day on LIS. The high winds and very low slacktide along with lot's of Memorial Day boat traffic made for a difficult bite. We managed about 12 fish with few keepers to 30".
6/3/05 - Great morning out of Niantic CT. We hit fish at all the spots both shoreline and deep water. My friend Bobby C and I were also treated to some fine topwater action when a large school of stripers pushed the bait right up to the surface at the slacktide.
6/5/05 - I was a guest on the"Reelnice" this morning out of Old Saybrook CT. We fished a variety of areas from the shoreline of Old Lyme to Orient Point NY. Pretty decent success while trying out some new tube products and experimenting with fishing different tides. Steve the owner of the "Reelnice" scored a sweet fish that was just short of 40".
6/9/05 - Got to fish with my friend Sandy who is a longtime member of the Wallingford Fire department. We were treated to some great topwater action on good sized mixed schools of stripers and bluefish. After working the topwater bite in the morning, we caught the noon slacktide at one of my favorite reefs for some decent T&W action with stripers to 35". Sandy got broken off by a big fish and I had a couple of 30 inchers fight like they were 40!!
6/10/05 -Here's a mouth watering shot!!! Hickory smoked striper fresh off the grill. Notice the Honey and Black Pepper Glaze, I use a little JD to thin it out!!!
6/12/05 - Fished in a ctfisherman.com tourney in LIS. Great event with lot's of experienced fishermen going at it for big fish honors. We had an excellent day and took 3rd place with a 40" 20 lb linesider which was taken on a Scarlet Snake. The snake tubes in both Scarlet & Ebony were very hot and the midday bite was off the hook. It still amazes me how the tubes can catch so well midday when a lot of the guys are done after their nightime and dawn bites. My 2 sons Pat & Danny fished with me which was a blast... We did very well on the NY side of Long Island Sound, working waters from the Sluiceway and Plum Island to the Gut and Orient Point. Our skipper Steve Nigro of the Reelnice did a masterfull job of working the rips and reef edges which paid off with a few large fish that we caught.... and a few large fish that dissapointed us and got away without a look. The season is really coming into form and I'm very excited about my upcoming film day with "On The Water" magazine's "Fishing New England" TV show....
6/15/05 - Bit of a slow bite today with a strong front passing through dropping the temps from the high 80's into the 60's. We marked a lot of fish that to spite our best efforts stayed hunkered down with lockjaw... We managed 7 fish on scarlet and ebony tubes with my buddy Frank (pictured to the left) nailing the fish of the day at 41". The wind picked up out of the SE by early afternoon and made conditions kind of tough to hold a trolling line in close to shore, so we called it a day.
6/12/05 - Fished in a ctfisherman.com tourney in LIS. Great event with lot's of experienced fishermen going at it for big fish honors. We had an excellent day and took 3rd place with a 40" 20 lb linesider which was taken on a Scarlet Snake. The snake tubes in both Scarlet & Ebony were very hot and the midday bite was off the hook. It still amazes me how the tubes can catch so well midday when a lot of the guys are done after their nightime and dawn bites. My 2 sons Pat & Danny fished with me which was a blast... We did very well on the NY side of Long Island Sound, working waters from the Sluiceway and Plum Island to the Gut and Orient Point. Our skipper Steve Nigro of the Reelnice did a masterfull job of working the rips and reef edges which paid off with a few large fish that we caught.... and a few large fish that dissapointed us and got away without a look. The season is really coming into form and I'm very excited about my upcoming film day with "On The Water" magazine's "Fishing New England" TV show....
6/26/05 -WHOA!!!!!! Check out this 50" 48 pound striper caught at Plum Gut in Long Island Sound.... What a day Steve Nigro had dragging T-Man Scarlet Snakes. He scored several fish between 38 & 45" and the one monster at 50"... Congrats!!!!
6/27/05 - Hit the sound with a good friend Mike Kramer today. Boy it was "pea soup" thick fog all morning. We navigated around to several areas and scored many stripers and a couple of small bluefish. The biggest striper was about 33" and very chunky. One of our fish had a tag in it (See bottom right).
We called in the tag once we returned to the docks and should get information on when and where it was tagged in a few weeks.
7/13/05 - Split the day between CT and NY waters in Long Island Sound. We fished shoreline areas around Old Saybrook CT and Orient Point NY. Found lot's of bait and the stripers were under the bait and very willing to hammer the T&W. The action was non-stop for 3 hours with very aggressive fish providing many double hook-ups. We had fish to 41" and about 30 pounds on Scarlet Snake Tubes running 1/2 ounce weights on the keels near shore and 1 ounce weights in deeper waters to about 30 feet. We found that once one of the trolled tubes was hit and a fish was on, if the other angler started to retrieve his tube slowly then that one would also get hit. Spicing up the day were a couple of bluefish that went about 8 pounds.... Great day on the water!
7/19/05 - Very foggy morning along the CT coast of LIS. Tubed up stripers to 33" on Chartreuse Snakes and had an awesome topwater bite for about 2 hours. Very calm morning with the fish holding on the reef rips right at the surface.
7/24/05 - Well the summer dogdays are here and this is the time of year that the Tube & Worm can really make a difference on your mid-day trips. Even with hot temps & high sun conditions the T&W will produce quality bass. Using both the Quick Change Weighted Keels and Deep Water Keels with 2 ounce egg sinkers we trolled some deeper waters for some very nice fish to 30 pounds. Chartreuse Snakes and Pink 15" Tubes did the trick today.....
7/29/05 - What a great bite today. With the water temps getting into the high 60's and low 70's in LIS, the bait fish have arrived in great numbers everywhere. Silversides and Peanut Bunker make up most of the forage and the bait helps concentrate the fish especially along the shorelines. We found stripers and some decent bluedogs at just about every spot we tried today with a nice striper anound 25 pounds coming on an Ebony Snake. If you get into the bluefish while tubing, don't waste you time using any sandworms to tip the tube hook. The blues don't care about the bait at all and will hit the bare tube readily, especially if you pick up your trolling speed to around 3 or 3.5 mph. Damn bait stealing scup have showed up everywhere too.... they can clean you out of snadworms very quick...
8/1/05 -The inshore reefs around the Old Saybrook Ct and Niantic Ct areas in Long Island Sound were hot this morning! It was a day where keeper size fish ruled. Many fish in the 30-35" range with one larger linesider that measured at 38" on the tape. It was a morning of calm seas and overcast skies which made for a real easy going trip. The fish were concentrated in 20-26ft of water on the reef edges... Scarlet Tubes and Scarlet Snakes did most of the catching using the Quick Change Weighted keels and 1/2 to 1 ounce of weight.
8/3/05 - Got "Mrs.T", my wife Nancy, out in Niantic Bay for a little striper action today. The Tubes came through as always and she scored a nice 36" linesider.... There were giant schools of bait working the waters today with rumors of BlueFin tuna chasing them in close to the CT shoreline. There have been several confirmed catches in Long Island Sound lately.
8/10/05 - Fished with and old friend and Novice angler Paul "Coz" today in and around the Niantic area. The reef bite was slow yielding only one decnt fish at about 25 pounds. We did manage to find some good bluefish to play with on the tubes. These fish were about 6-8 pounds and just hammered the tubes along the shorelines. The nice part was they were in a jumping mood and provided lot's a laughs on the boat!!
8/13/05 -Today we completed the filming on the T-Man Custom Tackle episode for "On the Water Magazine's - Fishing New England" Television show! We had excellent action from our 1st trolling pass to our last. Skipper Steve Nigro guided us through some of our favorite boulder fields and reefs to help bring 20+ stripers over the rails to 39"... We had so much action that we even had time to get the shows host "Jay Baver" on some decent stripers. The show will air this fall or winter on Fox Sunday mornings at 8am and the following Saturday afternoon between 2-4:30pm depending on Fox's College Football coverage.
8/26/05 - Today I did some personal video filming for the upcoming seminar/show season. I had a great time with Frank & Steve as they landed several quality stripers and lost a couple monsters to the rocky reef. There were a few blues thrown in the mix to spice things up. The stripers we very active in the shallow end of the reefs in 12ft and less of water. Tough to pull those big fish out of there with the strong currents!!! We were treated to a beautiful sunset as a bonus!
9/19/05 - As the waters begin to cool in Long Island Sound the stripers are becoming more active once again. We have tons of baitfish everywhere right now which should mean a very strong fall bite. Today we took fish in many different areas including some in very shallow water of <5ft on weightless tubes. We also scored a huge fish in 20ft on a Scarlet Snake and Quick Change Keel combo. One of this season's biggest T&W fish!!! As luck would have it, some False Albacore also made an appearance and spiced up our day with some blistering runs....
9/28/05 -I have been working on a new color for the T-Man Striper Tube "Snake Series" of 24" tubes. It's a "Pink Snake" A bit brighter and more opaque than the scarlet tube. The "Pink" looked deadly in the water when we first started dragging it. Man did it catch!! We fished CT shoreline in Niantic and Old Lyme and hit a nearshore reef too. We had many stripers with decent keepers at 35", 36" & 39". This years fall bite is really shapping up nicely and should be strong into November. Great time of year to drag tubes with lot's of stripers and larger bluefish in the mix.
10/02/05 -Had another great day today with the new "Hot Pink Snake" and the "Scarlet Snake" tubes. We fished hard around the reefs off New York and inside near the Ct shoreeline. Plenty of keeper size stripers to 40". Fall is really awesome fishing with the Tube & Worm. Get out there and give it a try before the season slips away....
10/03/05 - Quick trip this morning yielded some nice stripers in the 30-35" range. We were after some medium size fish for the table and the Tube & Worm didn't let us down. We brought home some excellent eating fillets in only a couple hours of fishing.
4/18/05 - First T&W trip of the spring run in the Connecticut River. Scarlet T-Man Tubes and Quick Change Keels with 1/4 ounce egg sinkers were the ticket today. Many schoolies and this one early keeper at 30" and 13 pounds.
4/20/05 - No big fish today but loads of beautiful healthy schoolies on Scarlet & Bubblegum Tubes. The Ct River striper action was steady for 3 hours with many doubles for me and my fishing partner Mike. We totaled around 30 small stripers this afternoon.
5/2/05 - Fished the Farmington River in Windsor CT today avoiding the high and muddy conditions out on the main CT River. 1/2 ounces on the keels dragging Scarlet, Bubblegum tubes did the trick for non-stop schoolie action. My son Pat & I boated around 50 fish in 3-1/2 hours.
5/10/05 - Trolled Bubblegum tubes today on the Ct River north of Hartford, CT. Had plenty of action with a nice keeper fish of about 30" in the mix. Things are starting to heat up here with good water levels & clarity!!
5/22/05 - Today was my 1st trip to Long Island sound in 2005. We were greeted by overcast skys and beautiful calm seas at 7am. We decided to fish some of the inshore reefs off of Old Saybrook and Old Lyme Connecticut. Using a variety of tubes the 15" Scarlet, the Scarlet Snake & the Chartreuse Snake, we managed about 25 stripers from 20 to 35 inches. We ran the T-Man Quick Change Keels with 1/2 ounce weights to fish in waters from 7 to 30ft in depth. Slow trolling the humps and rips along the reef edges provided plenty of action for us and we landed our share of keepers too!! These fish were very healthy and their stomachs were just loaded with fresh squid.
5/27/05 - Launch out of Mago Point in Niantic this morning and hit some local reefs at slack tide for a bunch of keeper stripers. We had fish to 37" and many fish between 25 and 35". It was a beautiful morning with the first clear skys we have seen in almost 2 weeks. I was afraid the strong N.E. blow we had was gonna mess up the fishing but it looks like the stripers have setteled in for the season just fine. Many of today's fish came on the very edge of the reef and if your troll was off even a little it was hard to hook-up. We scored about 20 stripers in the 2 hours before and after the ebb tide slack.
5/30/05 - Kind of a tough day on LIS. The high winds and very low slacktide along with lot's of Memorial Day boat traffic made for a difficult bite. We managed about 12 fish with few keepers to 30".
6/3/05 - Great morning out of Niantic CT. We hit fish at all the spots both shoreline and deep water. My friend Bobby C and I were also treated to some fine topwater action when a large school of stripers pushed the bait right up to the surface at the slacktide.
6/5/05 - I was a guest on the"Reelnice" this morning out of Old Saybrook CT. We fished a variety of areas from the shoreline of Old Lyme to Orient Point NY. Pretty decent success while trying out some new tube products and experimenting with fishing different tides. Steve the owner of the "Reelnice" scored a sweet fish that was just short of 40".
6/9/05 - Got to fish with my friend Sandy who is a longtime member of the Wallingford Fire department. We were treated to some great topwater action on good sized mixed schools of stripers and bluefish. After working the topwater bite in the morning, we caught the noon slacktide at one of my favorite reefs for some decent T&W action with stripers to 35". Sandy got broken off by a big fish and I had a couple of 30 inchers fight like they were 40!!
6/10/05 -Here's a mouth watering shot!!! Hickory smoked striper fresh off the grill. Notice the Honey and Black Pepper Glaze, I use a little JD to thin it out!!!
6/12/05 - Fished in a ctfisherman.com tourney in LIS. Great event with lot's of experienced fishermen going at it for big fish honors. We had an excellent day and took 3rd place with a 40" 20 lb linesider which was taken on a Scarlet Snake. The snake tubes in both Scarlet & Ebony were very hot and the midday bite was off the hook. It still amazes me how the tubes can catch so well midday when a lot of the guys are done after their nightime and dawn bites. My 2 sons Pat & Danny fished with me which was a blast... We did very well on the NY side of Long Island Sound, working waters from the Sluiceway and Plum Island to the Gut and Orient Point. Our skipper Steve Nigro of the Reelnice did a masterfull job of working the rips and reef edges which paid off with a few large fish that we caught.... and a few large fish that dissapointed us and got away without a look. The season is really coming into form and I'm very excited about my upcoming film day with "On The Water" magazine's "Fishing New England" TV show....
6/15/05 - Bit of a slow bite today with a strong front passing through dropping the temps from the high 80's into the 60's. We marked a lot of fish that to spite our best efforts stayed hunkered down with lockjaw... We managed 7 fish on scarlet and ebony tubes with my buddy Frank (pictured to the left) nailing the fish of the day at 41". The wind picked up out of the SE by early afternoon and made conditions kind of tough to hold a trolling line in close to shore, so we called it a day.
6/12/05 - Fished in a ctfisherman.com tourney in LIS. Great event with lot's of experienced fishermen going at it for big fish honors. We had an excellent day and took 3rd place with a 40" 20 lb linesider which was taken on a Scarlet Snake. The snake tubes in both Scarlet & Ebony were very hot and the midday bite was off the hook. It still amazes me how the tubes can catch so well midday when a lot of the guys are done after their nightime and dawn bites. My 2 sons Pat & Danny fished with me which was a blast... We did very well on the NY side of Long Island Sound, working waters from the Sluiceway and Plum Island to the Gut and Orient Point. Our skipper Steve Nigro of the Reelnice did a masterfull job of working the rips and reef edges which paid off with a few large fish that we caught.... and a few large fish that dissapointed us and got away without a look. The season is really coming into form and I'm very excited about my upcoming film day with "On The Water" magazine's "Fishing New England" TV show....
6/26/05 -WHOA!!!!!! Check out this 50" 48 pound striper caught at Plum Gut in Long Island Sound.... What a day Steve Nigro had dragging T-Man Scarlet Snakes. He scored several fish between 38 & 45" and the one monster at 50"... Congrats!!!!
6/27/05 - Hit the sound with a good friend Mike Kramer today. Boy it was "pea soup" thick fog all morning. We navigated around to several areas and scored many stripers and a couple of small bluefish. The biggest striper was about 33" and very chunky. One of our fish had a tag in it (See bottom right).
We called in the tag once we returned to the docks and should get information on when and where it was tagged in a few weeks.
7/13/05 - Split the day between CT and NY waters in Long Island Sound. We fished shoreline areas around Old Saybrook CT and Orient Point NY. Found lot's of bait and the stripers were under the bait and very willing to hammer the T&W. The action was non-stop for 3 hours with very aggressive fish providing many double hook-ups. We had fish to 41" and about 30 pounds on Scarlet Snake Tubes running 1/2 ounce weights on the keels near shore and 1 ounce weights in deeper waters to about 30 feet. We found that once one of the trolled tubes was hit and a fish was on, if the other angler started to retrieve his tube slowly then that one would also get hit. Spicing up the day were a couple of bluefish that went about 8 pounds.... Great day on the water!
7/19/05 - Very foggy morning along the CT coast of LIS. Tubed up stripers to 33" on Chartreuse Snakes and had an awesome topwater bite for about 2 hours. Very calm morning with the fish holding on the reef rips right at the surface.
7/24/05 - Well the summer dogdays are here and this is the time of year that the Tube & Worm can really make a difference on your mid-day trips. Even with hot temps & high sun conditions the T&W will produce quality bass. Using both the Quick Change Weighted Keels and Deep Water Keels with 2 ounce egg sinkers we trolled some deeper waters for some very nice fish to 30 pounds. Chartreuse Snakes and Pink 15" Tubes did the trick today.....
7/29/05 - What a great bite today. With the water temps getting into the high 60's and low 70's in LIS, the bait fish have arrived in great numbers everywhere. Silversides and Peanut Bunker make up most of the forage and the bait helps concentrate the fish especially along the shorelines. We found stripers and some decent bluedogs at just about every spot we tried today with a nice striper anound 25 pounds coming on an Ebony Snake. If you get into the bluefish while tubing, don't waste you time using any sandworms to tip the tube hook. The blues don't care about the bait at all and will hit the bare tube readily, especially if you pick up your trolling speed to around 3 or 3.5 mph. Damn bait stealing scup have showed up everywhere too.... they can clean you out of snadworms very quick...
8/1/05 -The inshore reefs around the Old Saybrook Ct and Niantic Ct areas in Long Island Sound were hot this morning! It was a day where keeper size fish ruled. Many fish in the 30-35" range with one larger linesider that measured at 38" on the tape. It was a morning of calm seas and overcast skies which made for a real easy going trip. The fish were concentrated in 20-26ft of water on the reef edges... Scarlet Tubes and Scarlet Snakes did most of the catching using the Quick Change Weighted keels and 1/2 to 1 ounce of weight.
8/3/05 - Got "Mrs.T", my wife Nancy, out in Niantic Bay for a little striper action today. The Tubes came through as always and she scored a nice 36" linesider.... There were giant schools of bait working the waters today with rumors of BlueFin tuna chasing them in close to the CT shoreline. There have been several confirmed catches in Long Island Sound lately.
8/10/05 - Fished with and old friend and Novice angler Paul "Coz" today in and around the Niantic area. The reef bite was slow yielding only one decnt fish at about 25 pounds. We did manage to find some good bluefish to play with on the tubes. These fish were about 6-8 pounds and just hammered the tubes along the shorelines. The nice part was they were in a jumping mood and provided lot's a laughs on the boat!!
9/19/05 - As the waters begin to cool in Long Island Sound the stripers are becoming more active once again. We have tons of baitfish everywhere right now which should mean a very strong fall bite. Today we took fish in many different areas including some in very shallow water of <5ft on weightless tubes. We also scored a huge fish in 20ft on a Scarlet Snake and Quick Change Keel combo. One of this season's biggest T&W fish!!! As luck would have it, some False Albacore also made an appearance and spiced up our day with some blistering runs....
9/28/05 -I have been working on a new color for the T-Man Striper Tube "Snake Series" of 24" tubes. It's a "Pink Snake" A bit brighter and more opaque than the scarlet tube. The "Pink" looked deadly in the water when we first started dragging it. Man did it catch!! We fished CT shoreline in Niantic and Old Lyme and hit a nearshore reef too. We had many stripers with decent keepers at 35", 36" & 39". This years fall bite is really shapping up nicely and should be strong into November. Great time of year to drag tubes with lot's of stripers and larger bluefish in the mix.
10/02/05 -Had another great day today with the new "Hot Pink Snake" and the "Scarlet Snake" tubes. We fished hard around the reefs off New York and inside near the Ct shoreeline. Plenty of keeper size stripers to 40". Fall is really awesome fishing with the Tube & Worm. Get out there and give it a try before the season slips away....
