This article should provide you with a solid base of both. Although weakfish are much more pleasing to the eye than black drum, they are in fact members of the same family of fishes, the Sciaenidae, or drum family. This family of fish can be recognized by the high, triangular dorsal fin followed by a long, low soft-rayed dorsal. An even more distinctive characteristic of this species is their modified swim bladder that allows them to make a croaking or drumming noise which plays a role in their breeding behavior.
Large weakfish have a preferred temperature range from somewhere in the low 50s to around 65 degrees. Outside of those water temperatures, weakfish become very difficult to find. Adult weakfish are mainly piscivorous, meaning they feed mostly on fish. In New England, big weakfish will feed on menhaden, anchovies, sand eels and spearing. They will also feed on sea worms and crustaceans if the opportunity presents itself. Despite the fact that they can be extremely aggressive, weakfish are also very selective at times, keying in on tiny baitfish or grass shrimp.
When faced with finicky weaks, the best bet is to scale down your offering. Fishing with a teaser may also help tempt lock-jawed squeteague. Fishing during periods of low light will also help your odds of tying into a New England weakfish.
Large squeteague increase their activity after dark both because of the reduced boat traffic and because they have the upper hand over their prey when hunting at night. During the daytime, weakfish will hunker down inside channel edges or on the deep side of drop-offs. Connecticut: 17 pounds 4 ounces June Andrejko Fayerweather Island, Massachusetts: 18 pounds 12 ounces George Mahoney Buzzards Bay, Weakfish move into estuaries to spawn in the springtime, remaining in the bays and nearshore waters for some time to feed after spawning.
By early July, most weakfish have moved off to deeper water, and just about disappear. In past seasons, when squeteague were more abundant, the fish would again show up along the New England shoreline in the fall before making their way offshore and south for the winter. This means that window of opportunity for getting a big tiderunner on the hook in New England is fairly small, running for about 3 to 4 weeks from mid-May to mid-June.
Unlike bluefish, weakfish are rarely an incidental catch when targeting striped bass. Therefore, catching weakfish requires a focused approach, devoted exclusively to this fanged sea trout. Unfortunately, the prime time to target weakfish coincides with the prime time to target big stripers. It takes incredible discipline to pull time away from a shot at a big striped bass for a low-percentage shot at scoring a weakfishing in New England.
From what I gathered from my talk with Captain Jerry Morgan, anglers after weakfish in the Constitution State will have to do a fair amount of bar-hopping. No, no, not the bar-hopping we did a couple months ago on St. A poorly-timed fishing foray could leave you stranded on Charles Island for a full tide. Of course if that did happen, you would have a few hours to look for the treasure Captain Kidd supposedly buried there.
Between mid-May and early June anglers will have their best shot at hooking up with soft-plastic jigs, bucktails and even flies. Moving north and east a bit is the sandbar that got top-billing from Captain Jerry, the West Haven Sandbar located on the western side of New Haven Harbor. For these weakfish, anglers dunking sandworms have an advantage, especially early in the season. It has a silvery-white belly and a dark, olive-green back with iridescent blue, copper or green on its sides. Small, dark spots on its back form irregular diagonal lines.
Its fins are yellow, it has a deep notch in its dorsal fin and its tail fin is squared. It has two large canine teeth in its upper jaw. Weakfish prey upon small schooling fish such as anchovies and menhaden, and will also eat crabs, shrimp, mollusks and large zooplankton. Once a weakfish sees its prey, it will slowly move toward it, then quickly lunge at it with open jaws.
Other predatory fish such as bluefish and striped bass , sharks such as dusky sharks and sea lampreys prey on weakfish.
Females produce more eggs as they get larger. When you are fishing in fast-moving water, use a lure that will get down to the holes where you will find the weakfish. For example, in water that is moving slowly, use the three-inch swimbait on a jig head that is a lightweight quarter-ounce.
If you decide that you want to use something natural you can tip your jigs with a strip of squid. On a high-low rig, you can use sandworms. With the high-low rig, you can use two natural baits at the same time with one above the other.
Use a heavy sinker to keep it on the bottom. The weakfish like to stay in shallow water. It can be as shallow as six feet and some of these spots are right alongside the beach. Make sure that the area you choose to fish them is near grass banks or sod, which is where they will be in abundance.
The larger ones should be hunting for minnows and crabs. When fishing for weakfish, you cannot make a sound as you will scare them away.
Look for an inlet where the tide is the strongest to cast your line. They do move from spot to spot so if you find a good catch one day, they most likely will not be there the next day. The reason is due to the wind condition and weather.
For example, you will find the weakfish on the south side of the wind is blowing in from the north. The best time to fish for weakfish is an hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise; dusk and pre-dawn. Unless the bay waters are calm and the sun is down, they do not feed in the bay. You can generally find these fish in abundance if you fish at night.
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