Hospital Hole / Trask Tide Water

[brushpuppy]

Over the years my infrequent trips to Trask Tidewater has resulted in fish caught on both incoming and outgoing tides. Just what is the optimum time (tide wise and bite wise) to target the fall fish in that section of the river ?

[Up-4-Air]

I try to be in tidewater on the outgoing tide. Seems to me the best bite occurs near low slack. I'm interested in other opinions on this too. :smile:

[HOGTIDE]

'THE' Magic Moment! As the tide bottoms out the surface layer still appears to be outgoing, however the actual height of the water begins to increase as the floodtide surges underneath the ebbing top strata. This is when fresh fish rush into the hole and the last of the stagnent suspended fish make the decision to shift around and move upstream.

During these moments you will see 99% of your hot bite and most of the multiple hookups occur.

There are a few thousand exceptions. But, day in, day out, these are the prime moments of the bobber fishery. :grin:

[Hogmaster]

HOGTIDE -

I just "virtually" filmed the whole thing!

Very nice!

:cheers:

[skrimmy]

I've fished Hospital Hole way too many times to count since 1989. At the lower end of the bobber hole there is a stump that they call the Aligator. On the outgoing tide, when the water level lowers enough to expose the stump, fish hard from then until the incoming tide covers it back up. Over 95% of the fish I've caught in there or seen caught are during that period, usually two to three decent hours, but as others have said, the bulk of the bites are right at slack.

There's always been a good entertainment factor though of seeing boaters who don't know the river too well get high sided on that stump when it's just under the water surface! We've had many a good laughs over the years with that.

Hospital Hole can definitely be combat fishing at its finest. I've fished it shoulder to shoulder and remember one day in 89 when there were far too many fish on the bank to count. If you fish the slough behind hospital hole, make sure you have a LONG handled net! And I DO recommend trying the slough.

[Paddlefish]

Hogtide:

"99% of the time, except for the thousands of exceptions?????"

Man, you're the latest, greatest fishing expert of all time! Great analysis. :grin:

:shocked: P.S. Don't think I'm dissing you here! You've hit it perfectly.

[HOGTIDE]

Ya...notice how i always hedge my bets! :wink: And, it happened just like predicted, today. After about 6 hours of runoff, my aforementioned conditons came to pass and ....whadayaknow...2 fish were caught in about 5 minutes...and then...nuttin' !!!

[Gus Orviston]

What do you do if you aren't fishing the H hole? I guess i better start carrying my own stump with me...oh, how lucky, I am fishing with BOE Sunday. :grin: