Had the tip of "the pipe" to myself this late morning. Cold, windy, and cold and windy. Water temps down a bit, looks like they're gonna stay that way. Can't wait to shut the heat at home off for good. It was an iced guides kind of day, I noticed it after reeling in all my line and breaking my rod down for a few days rest.
So, if you fish the river, so am I told, there are big fish, like big fish, that come up the river to spawn. Now I don't need one, and really in a river don't want to hook one on a fly rod, believe me, it would be a shit show and stressful to the fish. But its hard to just target a 28 -32" male only. A lot of the Delaware River goes through towns and ghettos and has factories and bulkheads. If you're fishing these areas you just might be bound to hook a big female. I saw a picture of a 44 pound bass caught in my backyard on April 11th of last year. So we are close. In order to be a responsible angler and cause the less stress on all fish I am lugging around with me a peir net.
Its 36" in diameter and has a 50 foot line attached. I used a zip tie where the net bunches up because I don't need a fish to be deep and tangler all up in the net. Hopefully I can just guide the fish to a nice comfortable landing zone and raise them up, un hook, and gently lower them back to the water.
In 2011 I worked on designing a "jetty net", you can see the original post HERE. My idea was too take a large telescoping net and make it into more of a slide net. I'd remove all the mesh and replace it with rope so one could slide their fish up the rocks without hurting the fish or breaking a rod or slicing the leader or fly line.
