bloodworms at low tide near the burlington-bristol bridge...seen a few brutes hualed outta there last spring

 

If you have a boat, use a sabiki rig to catch herring underneath the bridges around Trenton. You can easily catch 50 herring in 10 or 15 minutes. Use a large circle hook to lip hook the herring to use as bait. If your getting bites but not connecting, put trailing treble hook behind the dorsal fin. Cast out and give the herring plenty of line to swim with medium drag. You'll know right away if you connected.

If you dont have a boat it'll be tough to catch herring. Use clams as bait and a fish finding rig. Cast and wait.

 

sluggiish, i usually stick with one hook,but do miss some fish.do you drift more, or anchor more.sometimes do better anchored w/chunks

 

For herring you'll have to anchor. There are usually lots of boats anchored by the old railroad bridge catching them.

For striper we mostly anchor, but you can drift too. There's alot of debris and rocks around trenton so you have to be alert when drifting. When motoring for that matter too.

 

i know what you mean about the rocks,hit one hard last season up at the assunpink creek

 

If you have a boat, use a sabiki rig to catch herring underneath the bridges around Trenton. You can easily catch 50 herring in 10 or 15 minutes. Use a large circle hook to lip hook the herring to use as bait. If your getting bites but not connecting, put trailing treble hook behind the dorsal fin. Cast out and give the herring plenty of line to swim with medium drag. You'll know right away if you connected.

If you dont have a boat it'll be tough to catch herring. Use clams as bait and a fish finding rig. Cast and wait.

I fish the Lower Susky and Susky flats for rockfish. Can you elaborate on the technique to catch herring?

 

Small shaddarts & #13 Tony Accettas work well anywhere from Conowingo Hydro Plant on down to the Susky Flats during the April herring run. We do well live lining white perch in that area.

 

buy some sabiki rigs in white,or chartruese,fish them with 1to2 oz. weight,depending on current.i fish them behind the boat.just jig the rig up and down,you'll feel the weight bouncing bottom.sabiki rigs come pre-rigged w/ 6 hooks, but we cut them into 3 hook rigs.when herring are in heavy you can jig up 3 at a time

 

How big are the herring you guys are livelining?

 

Just about 10 inches, maybe a bit less. That's what I know guys use. Seems big, but they catch big fish.

 

same for the delaware.youre only allowed 10 per angler

 

In the Del. River I caught a lot of stripers using blood worms. I also heard live lining perch works great also.

 

Just about 10 inches, maybe a bit less. That's what I know guys use. Seems big, but they catch big fish.

Like they say BIG BAIT=BIG FISH!!

 

even smallish fish will try to eat the big baits.get alot of run offs but they cant swallow the bait.i usually keep a cut bait out as well.

 

They key to using the herring is the fact that they are very oily fish. That's what the rockfish feed on during the spring spawning run. You have to fish them either live or fresh cut. Once you freeze them, their effectiveness declines dramatically.

 

Agree hard to beat fresh...same goes with bunker etc.

 

I lived in a house right off the river, and we went down to Trenton several nights a week when the bite was in full swing. We used Herring on occasion, but my favorite was using topwater lures like Zara spooks, Heddon Woodchoppers, and big stickbaits in red and white most of the time. I don't get down there anymore, but I really miss fishing the river.

 

i used to catch alot of fish on big redfins and pencil poppers,but have not been very succesful lately.alot more pressure on them now.plugs worked better at new hope rapids than trenton.loggy did you get p.m.

 

We use to walk through the old paper mill before they turned it into townhomes, the fishing was great there.

 

good spot for winter walleye.they get some big ones there.

 

A few memories from Trenton in the seventies

Catching herring on gold hooks
At least one sturgeon was caught per year, but never more than one.
Herring made great bluefish chum for later in the summer for those of us that had freezer space.
Somebody always got hung up on the rocks just below the bridge. You could see the stinkin' rocks, but they'd still go there.
People lined up elbow to elbow on shore to catch fish. Most of them only caught each other, but the fights were quite interesting.
Downriver on the Trenton side, beyond the brewery, beyond the old marine terminal, past the power plant, and through the open gate. We'd go in the evening. There'd be a bonfire, beer, and spuds wrapped in foil and tossed into the fire to be found later.
It was a big shallow cove on the river.
In the dark of the night, on an incoming tide, we'd fish using fresh cut herring. There were no stripers to speak of back then, but the big channel cats would come up to patrol that cove and by morning we would have two or three bucketsful so big that we had to bend the tails over to bring up the handle of the bucket to carry it.
We'd take the fish to where a factory was having a shift change and the guys coming out would buy them. We were paid enough money to be able to buy beer, gas for the lanterns, and maybe even a pack of hotdogs and a few rolls for the next night.
We went every night for as long as the herring were running and they volunteered to be cut bait.
We were young, and had no real obligations, and it was all very irresponsible, and I wouldnt trade those memories of nights on the riverbank for anything.

 

funny what sticks in the memory.sounds like some great times.i remember when herring and shad were what everyone fished for before the stripers started running in the late 80's early 90's.i still dredge up a sturgeon once in a while.do you remember the fleet that fished shad at yardley? not many guys bother with shad anymore.its all about the stripers.now flathead cats are showing up,and some guys target them.maybe ill try for them this season.