Conference wahoo::fishing

    Count me in for Saturday, Ray.  I spoke with DonMac and Chris
    "Bass_bustin'" Fletcher and they both indicated that they would
    like to go.  I'll give you a call later this week.
    
    HoleShot

    ray,
    where are you going fishing.  great bay??
    
    regards....john
    

    	Alright, back on the air again. I didn't get to go yesterday.
    A guy that my friend works with went up Monday night. I guess they
    got rain up there Sunday when everybody else got snow/sleet. There
    was only 1 1/2 inches of ice. He turned around and gingerly walked
    back off.
    	In regards to .2, this place is in Newmarket. It is near
    the end of the Lamprey (sp?) river before it dumps into Great Bay.
    It is one of the supposed hot spots for the Coho salmon run in the
    late fall/early winter but I've never made it up there for it.
    Somewhere in this file is a Salmon hot-line which will tell you
    when they are running in this area.
    	As planned, I will be going Saturday night. Both my friend and
    I have 4x4 trucks so the snow isn't much of a deterant when it comes
    to ice fishing. I have no doubt that there will be enough ice up
    there after last night and this morning.                    
    
    RAYJ

    Ray, I got one question ? Do you know Brian Baxter?  If my memory
    serves me right; we (Brian and I) picked some one up in Raymond a few
    years ago at the very same McDonalds. I was wondering if you could
    be the same person.
    
    Boy, is Mrs Sawuer (sp ) going like the business.
    
    Heres the report. The ice 4 to 6 inches thick and the fish seem
    to be hitting pretty good. Last night a friend of mine and his father
    had near a 150 smelt.
    
    perch seem to be spotty. That is some days you can catch a couple
    buckets full and on others you may only get a few.
    
    I was there Sat. night and only managed 15 smelt and 4 perch.
    
    Last I was there , there were about 15 bob houses put out.
    Good luck and pls. throw back what you can't use.
    
    	Sincerely  Bear
    150 sme

    	Hi Bear,
    	
    	Yes, I know Brian and I am the one you picked up in Raymond.
    Nice to hear from you again. Are you going up there Saturday by
    chance ? If you are, I'll meet you up there.
    	The last time up, my friend and I did pretty good for the amount
    of time we spent fishing. We took home 30 perch but probably threw
    back more than we kept. They're running on the small side but we
    managed to get a few around 1 to 1 1/2 pounds. My friend Ken said
    he had about a 3 lb'er up to the hole and lost it. I didn't actually
    see it because I was cutting bait at the time.
    	I'll have to give Mrs. Sawyer or Jr. a call to make sure they
    didn't get rain from this up and coming storm. We haven't been able
    to even fish the channel yet this year because of ice conditions.
    As a matter of fact, the hole that I used the first time up was
    3" on one side and 2" on the channel side. Like I mentioned in an
    earlier note, the next time up we had that sandwich type ice. If
    this storm doesn't turn to rain up there, we ought to be able to
    fish the channel.
    	Want to hear a first ? My friend Ken and his father went up there
    last year. The ice conditions were bad so they had to fish closer
    to shore in the shallower water. Ken's father thought he had double
    white perch but when he pulled up his line (finally), he had a 19"
    striper. Of course he threw it back but it was fun catching it.
    I've heard of an occasional salmon coming through the ice but that's
    the first striper.
    	Enough for now. Maybe I'll see you up there.
    
    RAYJ

    Ray, did I miss you last night. Or did you decide not to go.
    There weren't very many people on the ice last night I can tell
    you that. Once we were in the shany every thing was nice and cozy.
    
    If you have a shanty on the ice you better raise it up soon because
    about 6 inches of water is now on top of the ice and with this cold
    weather we are going to get it will surely freeze into the ice.
    
    The action was good and we purhaps caught 100 or so smelt and 7
    perch. I will probably go again some time next week. Maybe we
    will cross trails.
    
    You have to quick.  Bear

    	I didn't make it. I was told that there was only 1 1/2 inches
    of ice so I decided not to go up. I'm going up tonight if the ice
    is OK.
    
    RAYJ

    	Well we finally made it up there. To bad the fishing wasn't
    better but more often than not, it is. Ken and I only wound up with
    45-50 smelt and one keeper white perch that Ken caught just after
    Joe and Don left. Not very productive since we stayed till 2 am.
    	I'll probably be back up there this coming weekend. I'm sure we
    can fish the channel now. There was 6-8 inches of soft ice Friday
    night which I'm sure is 8-10 inches of hard ice by now.    
    	We had a couple of guys that looked like they were going down
    with their shack Friday night. They were in the process of lifting
    it up but the ice had somehow rotted out underneath it. One corner
    of it sunk down about a foot or so.
    	If the weather Saturday night was worse than Friday night, I'm
    glad I didn't go. We found a large unoccupied shack and crawled
    into that around 11:30 or so when the wind really started gusting.
    Even with four people and 2 coleman lanterns, the inside of the
    shack probably didn't get much warmer that 15-20 degrees. My back
    is still sore from that shack. I'm sure Don and Joe understand why
    I prefer to fish on the ice if the wind isn't blowing.
    	We fished the high to low tide. It seemed much better the time
    before last when I fished the low to high. As far as a front affecting
    them, it doesn't seem likely since it was stormy the last time we
    fished. I guess we'll see what happens this weekend.
    
    RAYJ

    Yeap.  That was a good time, a bit on the chilly side, but fun
    nonetheless.
           
    Those smelt are GREAT eating, had some for lunch on Saturday.
           
    I didn't know people used spinng rods on the ice.  But, Holeshot
    was pretty good at it.  You should have seen him, rod stuck down
    thru the ice, kneel'n and reel'n.  His was kill'n them tommy cod.
           
    Don Mac  	Look'n forward to doing that again, hopefully when
	        it's a tad warmer....			
            
   
       
    Don Mac
    

    	Went up and did some fishing last night. The channel had over
    6" of ice. Most every place else had 8+ inches.
    
    	The low tide was 5:45 and we got there at about 7 p.m.. There
    was about 20 people out there.
    
    	The white perch were running decent and I managed to get a couple
    of them in the 2 lb. range. Alot of small ones were being caught
    though. We caught about 30-40 (one 5 gal. bucket full) and 3 or
    4 smelt.
    
    	The smelt seemed to be running the channel about 12 + feet down
    from the surface. The perch were running all over and it seemed
    to be best at about 7-8' down from the surface.
    
    	So far, when low tide has fallen between 5-9 p.m. is when I've
    seen the best fishing. That means Friday will tend to be better
    than Saturday or Sunday but you can never tell for sure. I'll probably
    go Friday, and maybe Saturday.
    
    BTW - Bear, if your up there, I fish on the ice on the channel side
    of the shacks. Stop over and say hi if your up there this weekend.
    
    RAYJ

    	Didn't get up there Friday night because of weather but I did
    manage to get up there Saturday night. The low tide was at about
    10 pm and as I suspected, the fishing was about the worst I've ever
    seen up there. I fished from 7:30 till about midnight and only caught
    2 smelt and 1 keeper white perch. On top of the bad fishing, the
    first thing I did when I got there was put my leg in a snow covered
    hole up over my knee. Luckily it wasn't that cold and the water
    somehow didn't penetrate through all the layers of clothes I had on.
       
    	There should be an excellent tide all this weekend. The ice
    was still 6-8+" thick so even with the warmer weather we've been
    having, it should hold up fine unless we get a day or two of rain
    with no cold weather.
    
    	I was watching the "In Fisherman" fishing show and they claim
    that the biggest and the most fish are caught 3 days before and after
    a full moon or a dark moon. In trying to pattern when the fishing
    will be excellent, I was going to take this into consideration along
    with the tide. Does anybody know if a dark moon is the same as a new moon ?
                        
    RAYJ

    re: -1 "new moon"
    
    My L.L. Bean calendar in the office here has the moon pictures on
    the dates for first qtr, full, last quarter, and new.  The face of the new
    moon is black, so, I'd say "new moon" and "dark moon" are probably
    the same.  FYI: first qtr: 5th; full moon: 13th; last qtr: 21st; 
    new moon: 27th.
    
    --Chris

    	Another weekend's here and another opportunity to fill my freezer
    up a little more. I'll be going up after some more smelt/white perch
    Saturday night. Sounds like the weather conditions will be relatively
    mild and the tide should work out perfect. 
    	Will let you know after the weekend..............RAYJ
    
    P.S. We're half way through the winter.

    	So much for the perfect tide. Fished for about 4 hours and got
    31 smelt between 3 people and no keeper white perch. So long as
    the ice holds up, I'll probably keep trying. This coming weekend
    is going to have a full moon. I'll have to try and get out for that
    and see if it makes a difference.
    	The ice was about 4-6" thick and in pretty good shape considering
    the warm weather we had.
    	As far as the title, I'm sure either Don or Joe will have more
    on that.
    
    RAYJ 

    noooooo comment from me, man!  Seeing as my 10 year old son caught
    TWICE as many smelt as me (...he caught 2!)... I'm keeping my big
    mouth SHUT!!
    
    -Holeshot-
    
    
    P.S.  I just want you all to know that I'm a big advocate of "catch
    and release"....I released all my smelt BELOW the ice!
    
    

   
    I only picked up 7...  I was doing FINE until Holeshot TOOKOVER
    my hole...			Don Mac

    Ray, I just read an article that said the conditions are going to
    be PERFECT tomorrow night for the the dead tomycods.  They're
    supposed to be running real good around 2:30am...  

    	Another weekend is almost here. I have company coming over this
    weekend and the girls already decided that the guys are going fishing
    and they are going shopping. That's fine with me. 
    	Rough guessing, I'd say that low tide on Saturday is going to be
    about 2 pm. I'm going to try and be set-up around 3 pm. I'll probably
    just fish until dark and if it isn't that good, this will probably
    be my next to the last trip. I figured I'd give the full and new
    moon fishing a try and see if it makes much difference.
    	Without a doubt, the first part of the year (spawning) has always
    been better then the last part but there may be a few good white
    perch runs still left.
    
    RAYJ_who's_anxiously_awaiting_the_smallmouth_season   

    	I took what looks like it might be the last trip up for
    smelt/perch. The ice ranged from 1" thick to 8+" thick. You really
    had to watch where you were going. It looked as if 2-3 shacks were
    going to be lost unless the owners went up there today. There was
    open water in the channel and if they got rain instead of snow,
    more than the channel will be open today.
    	The low tide was about 8 pm and we got there around 7:30 pm.
    The action wasn't fast and furious but what we were catching was
    either big or small, nothing in between. We wound up with 7 keeper
    perch and 13 smelt.
    	I've heard reports that they were killing them in the Exeter
    river but I'm not sure exactly where in the Exeter. If we get a
    warm spell, it probably won't matter anyway. The ice may be gone
    sooner than anybody thought possible.
    
    RAYJ_who's_getting_his_smallmouth_gear_ready