Fishing Stories - My Fish Tails

[SharkHart]

For a long time I have been an avid recorder of events to share the enthusiasm of fishing, whether it was magazine writing photography and video. Back in 2009, during a lay off from work I put together 13 short stories (My Fish Tails) that i have been sitting on ever since unsure how i wanted to release them. I put together a site to put them out, please feel free to check out the first story, Eighteen Hours about going die hard until you drop with an amazing striper bite that came with it's share of screw ups and much success. This is the test run, not sure if I ll put them up one by one or put the rest up at once:

http://mattchiccfishing.blogspot.com/

[jonthepain]

great!

[DarkSkies]

Shark Hart:
"Each and every fall I look for a certain pattern as a lure fisherman with my first and foremost favorite condition being a North West wind. The harder the NW winds the better. I even went as far as to alert others that I liked what I saw on a fishing website with mixed reactions. Some other angers seemed to be waiting for North East winds.

... Quickly I was back into the water and with the speed pattern now down I was hit once again and, after a nice fight I had a fat looking bass close to 30” bass in my hand. ......

..As far as I remember there wasn’t one tangle and everyone was catching bass for about 2 hours straight before it started to slow down. .... as the night wore on I just wasn’t very tired and eventually the beach started calling out to me.

...... Before I got to where I was headed I noticed a very nice new hole. A large area of the beach was nothing but sand bars with a one deep hole dead in the middle of the beach with a large looking opening.

I walked about another 100 yards south working around the bar and over another hole at the big jetty without a hit. I was thinking to myself that was about it for this bite, then it started to hit me that maybe, just maybe the bass were retreating with the receding tide water at out past the cut. ... once I got to higher ground, the two hour span it was one of the best bites I could remember with that solid size range, with only a few fish falling barely below the keeper size. I couldn’t help but to think how tomorrow bite is was going to rock, but tomorrow was now today as it was getting past 2am.




I tried to get right to sleep at about 2:30 am but I had landed close to 50 bass the hard plug strikes and the feel of the bent rod were replaying in mind on a loop, I just totally rocked them and I knew they would be up again at daylight, how could I sleep like this?

When the alarm went off at 5:15 am it felt like I had been laying down only for about 5 or 10 minutes. .... While so many things went right the night before so many were now going wrong mostly out of laziness from excitement yet I was still into many fish.

It had been 18 hours since I first pulled up to the same spot with high hopes for this North West blow, I probably had over 80 bass and some blue fish too.
I took my position and I was reeling in nice 15lb bass on red gil teaser minutes later and I just laughed as its not always this easy. "

http://mattchiccfishing.blogspot.com/




















*******
Fantastic read, Shark, thanks for sharing.......

hope you don't mind my C&P a few of your comments....tried to leave the total numbers and details for people to click on your site to see... the things that struck me the most were your analysis and determination......and the way you humbly and honestly described the few mistakes you made during that 18 hour marathon.......

Could also identify with popping Advil like candy before you go out there to do battle........

When people hear of someone who caught over 80 fish....they tend to be skeptical...and some make snide comments.....not realizing the dedication it takes to fish for almost 24 hours at a clip when the bite is hot.........

I remember that year - your NW predictions were on fire...and if I remember correctly that was only one of the nights you did very well out there...........thanks for sharing with the folks here......

[DarkSkies]

SharkHart:
"Each and every fall I look for a certain pattern as a lure fisherman with my first and foremost favorite condition being a North West wind. The harder the NW winds the better. I even went as far as to alert others that I liked what I saw on a fishing website with mixed reactions. Some other angers seemed to be waiting for North East winds."






^^
Folks here and others reading this should know that the battles and jealousy over those "conversations" were the original inspiration for me creating the

1. West Wind Wally concept and the series of videos........today there are still guys who jump up and down when there is talk of a noreaster....but time and time again, as our logs have shown, the best pattern of stable fishing, and high numbers, comes with a NW/W sustained pattern..........(for NJ)



2. Another offshoot of this is the creation of "SharkHart's weather forecasting service"....
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...'s+weather

Although this is a spoof, just some satiric ball busting, I think if folks read it they will find you had deadly accuracy in forcasting these bites, before they happened............

To me, that's the mark of a good fishermen, one who challenges himself to learn the yearly patterns....and will do whatever it takes to stay on the fish till the bite is done...not just come running when someone makes a cell phone call.......

Good job, Shark........look forward to the rest of the series......

[jonthepain]

the best pattern of stable fishing, and high numbers, comes with a NW/W sustained pattern...:

that has been my experience fishing the Hook and LBI for 40 years.

[finchaser]

great thanks for sharing Matt it's hard to believe some of those places don't exist thanks to Sandy

[rockhopper]

awesome SH! yes there are some places we prob will have to wait a long time to fish again.

[storminsteve]

80 fish awesome!! Great story thanks for sharing shark hart! Liked how you interspersed the story with the pics and videos, nice!

[dogfish]

Very well written, enjoyed that. Hardcore non stop fishing.

[SharkHart]

Thanks everyone! I will put up the rest very soon with some supported by video and pics

[seamonkey]

Wow great read felt like I was there! 80 fish is an awesome catch for 18 hours. Don't feel bad about the broken rod I am sure we have all done that at one time or other.Thanks for sharing.

[surferman]

That was a awesome article! I liked how you started out with metal and ended up with plugs and teasers. Killer pic of the needlefish with the paint worn off by all those fish. Nice work!

[buckethead]

To me, that's the mark of a good fishermen, one who challenges himself to learn the yearly patterns....and will do whatever it takes to stay on the fish till the bite is done...not just come running when someone makes a cell phone call.......

Good job, Shark........look forward to the rest of the series......

X2, look forward to the rest as well. You really crushed the fish but at the same time worked for them. that's what it's all about.

[baitstealer]

80 fish you are hardcore for sticking it out that long many congrats thanks for posting!

[jigfreak]

pretty work liked the bridge pic

[seamonkey]

Was looking for something to read today bored at work and found this. Nice writing keep it up.