Tips for Catching and Freezing Skipjack Herring.

[Music] guys it's that time of year starts if you step back show up a lot of the dams so this morning we're filling our coves up with ice and we're headed out hopefully would feel much cooler jump the skipjack by the end I but I couldn't be more excited to get me skipjack as a blast I look forward to in the screen in their own fire now you can get blokes in these Dan's you don't catch hundreds over so stay tuned we're gonna have some fun today so you can see I got five big bags of ice here and you just give that fishing you never really know how we're gonna be hitting and the last thing you want is to run that on it looks like somebody stayed up too late last night we're here get up [Music] so before we run up the dam I'm going to show you guys what I'm using today just because it's going to be noisy up there don't know how well you'll be able to hear me but I've got a 9 foot medium heavy rod with some 20 pound braid on cheap spinning reel the reason for the long rod is just so I can throw these big long cibecue reeds that's about the best way I found to get any distance out of them but I've just got a I got a half ounce of weight tied at the bottom and you can see this is not your typical seviche they've got some real nice hooks on them and they're about 2 and 1/2 inches long the actual jig itself fly whatever you want to call it if any of you guys want to check these out that's what they're called you can get a few different colors red green white different size hooks this is the number two hook on these but these are absolutely killer for skiff day when most people think about speakers they think about the little half-inch long tiny hook but these have got to compare the hook to my thumb there I got a real nice hook on them you're not going to bend that hook what I usually do is I cut one of the jigs off just to shorten it up a little bit so I'm running 5 flies on this one there's been times when I've caught 5 skipjack on there now I'm days where the bite stuff and they're not hitting hitting the species is good there's a friend of mine it makes these hand tie jigs I got all different colors that he's made but if it's a day when the bites kind of finicky and are not hitting real good I can usually keep changing colors and I'll find something that they'll hit he does a real good job making these if you're watching this John thanks again for making some awesome jigs so we're gonna go ahead and get our coolers ready and I'll show you what I do with that so I got a bucket of rock salt here you can get this at blows it's pretty cheap its water softener salt is what it is I think it's about $9 a blos for 40 pound bag I'm gonna put a pretty generous amount in this cooler sent some of our ices are in melted I don't think they're really gonna need any water you want just enough water in there guys to where you can push the skipjack down in the height and put about that much ice in there and when you're skipjack fishing this is most important tool in the boat my opinion just so you mix these coolers up move back around you really don't want to put your hands without the net if you don't have to because it's pretty rough on the hands with all this off in it and that's ready to go what's gonna keep feel skipjack fresh for me now once we get this cooler full I'll pull the plug on it all the skipjack will be submerged in the ice and I'll pull the plug on it and shut the lid on that one and then we'll start them the next cover do the same thing pretty excited guys hopefully I'll make some sense out of this I'm just so excited can't really talk but we're gonna get up here and see how the action is well you guys will be able to hear me up here running quite a bit of water but they're definitely here first if Jack of the day lanton done got up he's ready now he doesn't seem that you're here you ready I'm not gonna be keeping the smaller ones like that I mean that's not a fad skipjack we're not hurt for bite we've got bait in the freezer so we're only going to keep the baby about 15 inches another big room seemed to freeze better for some reason understand why are the fighters like three Landon's hooked up back there first ass wasn't it hopefully we get on some big it looks like lions gotta be oh yeah that's the ones we were looking for be careful you'll get all my hand that's a good one Lana see how big he is measuring that is an 18 inch give Jack he's got a double it's like my head to look at you got a good one there three though three jigs and three skin guy don't break your line be careful look at that got them all three in the boat heck yeah every once in a while just stir them up in there but there every cast two or three cans whatever hope like I got a few up on this time I might swap this medium heavy rod with the nine to twenty pound Freddy that's why it's so important like there's four or five there's five skipjack only got five flies over here and I got to skip tackling hmm but Lana took Tuppy in it's on fire it doesn't matter how good they're buying you guys the important part is taking care of your baby I learned the hard way don't overload your coolers don't take ice out just put more skipjack in even though it's a pipefish guys you still want to leave some for other guys no point typing more than you need especially if you're gonna take them when they're gonna go to waste look man whines both of us time I got two good oh my think we got away you have lion and said he's hooked want every single cast until you said that so all we're doing guys just throwing it out there and kind of letting the current do all the work just kind of keeping up with it that way you can set the hook there's a a lot of people ask me know where you skipjack fish at or how do you catch well the truth is it's all about timing for skin tag they're going to be below it every damn like this at some point in the year it's not location really doesn't matter if you're on the Cumberland River Ohio River Tennessee River Mississippi River if you're in the area that's got skipjack at some point they're in the year we're going to come up to the dams just got a timing right that's what we've done here value we've time to just dry another good if we were to keep average give back we call today with me here but about two hours hobo's be full sink the boat we're only gonna keep the big that's just a few minutes of fishing here already got a probably 20 in the cooler we should have brought our taxes your house does I don't think bite gets baseman take them there he is well baby shad flying out her mouth Oh baby sad all over the boat little threadfin shad it seems to be what they're in theory gosh yes we got a skipjack overload out here look at that there's Papik plane has got a world-record skipjack look at that thing it's gotta be three biomes on it that is a hog that was good doing a half pound two and a half pound Skippy Pike's was 13 a half alright guys finish filling these Taylor's up I'll get back with you guys and let you know how many we ended up catching and also want to share some tips with you guys on fours are for omen when you once you put them in the freezer taking care of this place a lot of work but it pays off we got a baby for the whole year now as you know it's been a good day when you got slime running out your drain hope so we got both coolers full what we've done is we've filled them up top them off with ice and a little bit more salt they're completely packed in ice and then we're gonna go home get them in the freezer as soon as possible I'll be back unless y'all know how many we ended up with so I just got all these skipjack in the freezer and counted them we ended up putting 309 skipjack in the freezer this weekend this is a pretty good sized freezer here and it was completely empty when we started this weekend but if you notice I just got them laying in here I've got layer of plastic in between each layer well the reason for that is normally I would bring them in and vacuum seal them right away but there's not a vacuum sealed bag to be found anywhere because this pandemic that's going on right now in the u.s. anyway I just ordered some and got two days shipping on them so they'll be here either later today or tomorrow but I'm gonna get them all vacuum sealed I just can't stress enough how important it is to get them froze as soon as possible the clock is ticking until they're frozen solid I usually bring them home I dry off each individual skipjack I mean you can see there's a little frost on them you know I'm gonna get them 100% dry but I dry off each skipjack one at a time it's a lot of work it takes a long time but it pays off in the end you know air and moisture is your two worst enemies when you're freezing something so you if you can eliminate those two you're gonna have a better bake but one more thing to point out guys you know you pack all these skipjack in here you know we've got about six or seven lawyers maybe more in this freezer well they're not all going to freeze at one time and what I mean by that the way it deep freeze works you know it cools from the outside so the ones on the outside I'll end up freezing but the ones that are not getting air to them in the middle on down there you know they won't freeze for a few days and you know like I said the clock's ticking until they're completely frozen what I usually do to solve that problem and there's nothing easy about it it's aggravating and I hate doing it but the next morning after I put the skips in there say I get home from fishing that night I put all the skips in the freezer I get up early the next morning and I'll go through the whole freezer I'll pull every one of them out if I have to any of them that aren't froze I'll move them to the outsides and move them ones that are frozen to the center after I do that they normally you know they'll all be frozen by the end of the day so so as soon as I turned the camera off they actually delivered my bag so you guys know what I'm gonna be doing for the next four or five hours putting this bait up you know it's a lot of work but I loved every minute of it I hope you guys enjoyed watching this video as much as we did making it we had a blast hope everybody stays safe out there we've got a lot of stuff going on in the world right now but you know we'll get through it eventually as always god bless you guys and we'll see you next Tuesday

Channel: Hagen Grubbs Fishing

Views: 34,458

Rating: 4.9726028 out of 5

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Id: 74p7lWSkTAc

Length: 14min 23sec (863 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 07 2020