The following fishing report has been shared by Ed Harabin, President of the Hunterdon Anglers and captain of the Double Anchor. – RI
Last night, Saturday, June 23, 2012 Dennis Haggerty, Richard Willey and Ed Harabin fished for night time rainbows at Round Valley Reservoir. Conditions were perfect. No moon, slight breeze, comfortable temperature. Surface temperature 76 degrees. Doubled anchored over 47ft. of water on the South shoreline. Started fishing at 9:30pm. Last rainbow in at 4:50am.
Chumed with corn. Baited with cooked Shrimp. 1st. fish in at 9:50pm. Found them at 30ft. over 47ft. Action was fast & furious! At 10:45pm Dennis caught a 21in. 4lb. rainbow at 40ft.
Most of the largest rainbows were caught close to or on the bottom. All the fast action was at 30ft. The choice was yours. Ed & Richard stayed mostly at 30ft. Dennis only caught a few, but they indeed were the largest.
11:50pm – 21in. 3lb. flat on bottom – Dennis
1:00am – 23in. 5lb. flat on bottom – Dennis (largest of night)
1:15am – 21in. 3lb. flat on bottom – Richard
Other 3 pounders were also caught between 25 & 30ft. down. Everything was caught on cooked shrimp. No other boats at our location. Most at campsite #72. Have no idea how anyone did. We hit a slow period between 3am & 4am. Wanted to break the old record of 101 rainbows in one night with 4 fishermen. We totaled out with 110 with 3 fishermen.
Ed Harabin – 45
Richard Willey – 49
Dennis Haggerty – 16
We could have had a much higher total if Dennis fished at 30ft. Last rainbow caught at 4:50am. We actually ran out of shrimp.
Ed
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If you’d like to start receiving the full color Hunterdon Anglers printed newsletter contact President Ed Harabin double.anchor@yahoo.com or Dennis Haggerty hunterdonangler@aol.com
that’s a lot of fish. how many survived?
Curious about this technique. Cooked shrimp? Like cocktail shrimp in a can? Also, does it work during daylight hours?
Dont most of these trout die?? I would think this post would attribute to many fishermen going out and killing even more trout…
wow thanks for the pics…massive bows…how did they fight? Any leapers?
Yep. find a bag of cooked shrimp from your grocery store, medium sized. You can also use worms or pieces of Velveta cheese cut to the size of a powerbait nugget. I’ve never tried the technique during the daytime, but i did night fish into the morning once and caught my biggest fish around 6am when the sun was out.
Why???? Why would they possible need to catch that many fish- just because they can? That was way past their limit of what they can keep and all they are doing is hurting the fish at that point. Doesn’t sound like there’s much of a challenge if they’re catching that many. Shame on them.
I’d estimate that 85%+ survived of the 104 released (thats 88+ survivors), read below for actual studies tha verify this belief;
I only fish for these at night maybe 3-4 times a year, tops. My average catch and release per trip is around 20 Rainbows. I don’t troll at all or target rainbows in RV otherwise. I target Lakers during most of my trips to the Valley (Jigging/Herring in 75+ feet on the bottom).
CATCH AND RELEASE TIPS:
If you are going to night fish for Rainbows and practice catch and release (after keeping your two):
1) Do not take the fish out of the water to unhook.
2) Release ASAP
3) Set the hook as soon as you feel the bite; most fish will be hooked in the lips.
4) Use a circle hook, J-Hooks cause higher-mortality rates.
5) Avoid touching the fish, reach down with pliers and pull the hook out of the fishes lip without taking the fish out of the water. If the fish is not hooked in the lip, cut the line as close to the fish’s mouth as possible.
6) Canned corn is ok, but chumming with Shrimp is certainly better for their diet if you’re into providing nutritional supplements (see CANNED CORN STUDY below).
7) Only one fishing rod per fisherman!!!
Follow these guidelines and common sense, and the mortality (death) rate of the fish you release should be very low (<15%?) even when held out of the water for 30 seconds and with the 76F (24C) surface temperatures. If you keep them in the water the whole time, the mortality rate drops even further (common sense); see Page 5/9 (574 in article) http://wildlife.state.co.us/SiteCollectionDocuments/DOW/Research/Aquatic/pdf/Postreleasemortality.pdf
CANNED CORN STUDY:
Commission fisheries biologist Tom Bender at Benner Spring Fish Research Station conducted a study in 1992 that examined the impact of corn on trout. For the study, two groups of hatchery rainbow trout were held in separate tanks and tested for 54 days. In one tank, 20 rainbow trout (average size 8.3 inches) were fed a diet of whole kernel corn. In the second tank, 20 rainbow trout of the same size were fed a standard trout pellet diet.
During the 54 day study period, no mortalities occurred from trout of either study group. However, study results did show that the trout fed with a corn diet did not digest the corn particularly well. The growth observed by the corn-fed trout during the study period was only about half of that observed from the trout that were fed the standard trout pellet diet.
The conclusion from this study was that there appears to be little reason for concern about the short term health hazards for rainbow trout when whole kernel corn is used for bait. Although there are better diets for trout than whole kernel corn, this study confirms that mortality does not occur when trout ingest whole kernel corn.