Tog Sh!t - A "SERIOUS" Discussion

Savvy18

Savvy18

Angler
Anyone that knows me knows that of all the local fish that we target here in the tri-state area inshore waters, tautog is my favorite. My passion for fishing lives with landing 10+ tog on ultra light tackle. Every year I try to "up my game" with lighter reels, lighter rods, lighter line, etc. This pursuit has been going on for several years now and it's part of what keeps me "invested" in the sport when these cold months roll around and we are not fishing. Between designing and building new rods AND finding the absolute smallest and lightest reels that are equipped to handle the job, it can get pretty time consuming...Not to mention, VERY costly :cautious:

Tog fishermen are a "unique" breed. Cult-like. Dedicated. Fanatical. Passionate. Competitive! I can't explain it but when I get together with my tog fishing buddies for a day on the water, it just seems more intense than any other type of fishing.

Let's make this thread about what gear you are using for tautog. That means anything you want to discuss. Rods, reels, lines, hooks, bait(s), jigs...you name it. Let's talk about gear you might be thinking of buying or building to target tog. Let's talk about why we love tog fishing so much. Let's talk about our biggest fish. Let's talk about the fish that broke our hearts (and our lines). Let's talk about bait vs. jigs. Show your favorite tog pics!

Let's make this a SERIOUS tog discussion...Because any tog discussion should be serious!
 
Savvy,

I am the same when it comes to Tog. I don’t get to jig much here on the East End. I usually head up into the Sound early in the season to jig in shallow water.

As a professional rod builder I’m constantly trying new blanks, especially for tog. The revolution came with the introduction of braided line almost thirty years ago. Today with the new technology in blanks and the smaller and more powerful reels, tog set ups are getting lighter and lighter.

Let’s keep this thread going.

Al G.
 
I'd like to kick this thing off by going back to my EARLY days of tog fishing. It started when I met my buddy John Cipolla who was a hardcore blackfish guy! This was mid-to-late 80's and he had a tiny 16' skiff that we took all around the Jamaica Bay area and even made our ventures to the ocean on optimal days. These were the days when we didn't care what the weather was. If the tog were biting, we were out trying.

John already had a great "book of numbers" when I met him. Dozens of pieces we would scour around trying to get on and more often than not we'd get right on them. Sometimes with one anchor, sometimes with two. Depended on the conditions. John was a serious Captain, even in his late teens. He took bottom fishing very serious and I believe this was the inception of my madness.

I remember as I got more "dedicated" to tog fishing, I began to put much more thought into the gear I was using to target them. This being born from the fact that I was finding it very difficult to catch the "bigger" fish. At that time, this meant anything 5 lbs. or better! Oh yeah, it was getting under my skin that I couldn't keep up with John. PISSED would be a better word for it actually! So, I began to put more thought into the tackle I was using. The first thing I decided to upgrade was my "John borrowed" Fenwick rod, which today I would use as a pool cue! Thinking back, John may have given me that rod to use because it was so beefy. HARDER TO DETECT HITS! SNAKE!

Anyway, around that time I was introduced to Mr. Mark Flynn in Wantaugh. He was a custom rod builder (incidentally, he and I went on to become very good buddies). I discussed my inability to catch BIG tog with Mark and he recommended I give a Lamiglas WBT963M blank a whirl...AND THE CUSTOM ROD BUILDING SICKNESS WAS BORN!
 
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Hey Al, thanks for chiming in! You are EXACTLY type of guy I need to keep this thing rolling in the direction I'd like it to go. That being an in-depth discussion of gear & techniques for tog. What could be better than to have a rod expert in on this?!?

What are some of your favorite rod blanks you've used to target blackfish over the years?
 
Love Tog fishing I unfortunately have not done out much Toggin last 2 years due to family schedule and wind cancelling about 10 trips in that time.
However when i get out i have 3 customs i bring with me. For jigging i like the CTS BJ701 with Lepified 4600. Nice stick for the purpose. On bait have 2 UC blanks. I have the AR700XL which is one of the most sensitive rods i ever used. Use it up to 5 oz. Picks up every scratch i have this set up with a Lepified 4600. 2nd stick i used 6oz and over is the UC CE70XL. Very nice stick loads up real nice and has a ton of power when needed. On this i have the Abu Garcia NACL 50 which Savvy 18 so kindly gave to me when i was duscussing the reel with him one night at his place. Again nice set up.
As far as where i fish for Tog once in awhile it is out in Orient but usually my Toggin is done with Eddie on Nysharpies Grady or our friend Pats beautiful Downeast. Biggest tog for me is only about 8.5 lbs. Gotta work harder on that DD.
 
I do plan to pick up a spinner for jigging Tog. Think im going with 7' Tsunami Slow pitch TSSPJ-S701H. Held this a few times and feels real nice. Also a few guys on the have given positive reviews on the blank. I do have a custom spinner but dont want to chance blowing up a Phenix UMBX 8-17.
 
I grew up on LI in the Sixties fishin' for Blackfish from piers and skiffs on the LI Sound using Fiddler Crabs for bait. Ahh I miss those those simpler times when I didn't obsess about white-leggers vs, greenies, braid vs. mono, spinning vs. conven, graphite vs. glass, jigging vs. dragging, etc.. The choice back then was simple : fish for flounder with worms or fish for blackfish with fiddlers - same gear. Easy choice for me - nothing pulls like a Blackfish.

I still have the same obsession today, but these days I fish on the Jersey side of the Bight. However getting keepers from shore is difficult, so my pursuit is mostly by boat. And that has 'forced' me to 'gear-up' to address those choices I mentioned above.

When I first moved to NJ in the 80s I was loyal to my customized Harnell for Toggin'. Now when fishing conventional I favor my new-age Phenix Megalodon. And who says you must use a Spinner for jigging Tog? I do when conditions are right but always prefer conventional. Good thread . . .
 
Great thread. I also love togging. I have Lamiglass cgbt 841mL that really like , I have a Phenix M1 and I just recently got a UC 700L . I have an Avet sxj on the Lamiglass, I just bought the new Abu Revo beast 40 and a Maxel hybrid 20. Just have to decide what rod the abu is going on. My biggest tog came on the Lamiglass, it was 14.35 lbs and had a 10.5 on the Phenix. I am thinking of getting the Daiwa harrier for some early season stuff but not sure if I want the mh or the H. Any insight on the harrier would be appreciated. Thanks
 
Savvy18 said:
Hey Al, thanks for chiming in! You are EXACTLY type of guy I need to keep this thing rolling in the direction I'd like it to go. That being an in-depth discussion of gear & techniques for tog. What could be better than to have a rod expert in on this?!?

What are some of your favorite rod blanks you've used to target blackfish over the years?
Click to expand...
 
Hi Savvy,

Back in my early days of building in the late 60’s I was using a Lami BT857S. Then in the early 70’s Lami introduced graphite and it was the BT841M that hooked me on graphite. That was my “GO TO” blank for the North Fork for many years.

When braided line came out in the late 80’s it totally changed rod building. Braid and graphite rods did not like one another. People were blowing up all graphite rods frequently. It was then that blank manufacturers like Loomis introduce composite blanks and other manufacturers jumped in like Lamiglas and Calstar.

Funny you mentioned Mark Flynn. Mark and I put our heads together and worked with Calstar to design and manufacturer a new series of custom blanks for the Northeast the GFX SERIES. We were the only two builders that had the blanks. The initial models were the GFX70M and GFX80M. They were so successful that Calstar finally put them in their catalog. In the later years Billy 40 teamed up with Seeker to introduce the Hercules series.

For a brief time Cape Fear was a hot blank that caught my fancy but quality issues and poor management resulted in bankruptcy.

The last ten years there was the CTS BS series and for the last 2-3 years I have been building on the Blackhole Challenger 84M and MH and the Jigging World Black Demon 7.5M and MH. The rods are matched with either a Shimano Saltiga 16 or a Tranx 300.

I have become a strong advocate of catch and release and return any tog over 8 pounds after it’s weighed on a digital scale by the mate for the pool. Attached is a recent DD that was just shy of 14 lbs taken on the North Fork in late November.
 

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flukinit wrote: On this i have the Abu Garcia NACL 50 which Savvy 18 so kindly gave to me when i was discussing the reel with him one night at his place. Again nice set up.

Nice to have friends, huh Joe? Who gives away a $300 reel? IN MINT CONDITION?!?
 
hartattack wrote: When I first moved to NJ in the 80s I was loyal to my customized Harnell for Toggin'.

WOW, have not even heard that rod mentioned in 20 years! Good job hartattack, let's bring it back to the old school!
 
Pete21 wrote: I have Lamiglass cgbt 841mL that really like , I have a Phenix M1 and I just recently got a UC 700L.

One of the first (3) custom rods that was built for me by Mark Flynn was that very same Laimglas CGBT 841 blank. I remember it was white and I had Mark wrap it with navy blue & yellow threads. Man, I thought I was sooo cool when I left his shop the day I picked it up. I really liked that rod, until I broke about 2-3" of the tip off in the rear door of my car. Liked the rod so much, I brought it back to Mark and he fixed it for me (free of charge). I caught just about every local fish on that rod in the years I had it. Fluke, bluefish, seabass, porgies, striped bass, (2) brown sharks between 70-90 lbs. (2) mahi's and the biggest shocker of all...a 17 lb. baby mako shark caught on a bunker chunk at 17 Fathoms (released of course). That rod was a real classic. One day I brought it out to Montauk to jig fluke (when jigging fluke was the new game in town) and the captain of the charter boat fell in love with it. He offered to buy it from me but I couldn't part with it at that time. I put him in touch with Mark Flynn who built him an exact replica (minus the 2-3" I broke off!).

Eventually, when I discovered graphite blanks, I gave that rod to my buddy John. He might still have it today!
 
Pete21 wrote: I just bought the new Abu Revo beast 40 and a Maxel hybrid 20.

Pete, funny you mentioned those TWO EXACT reels. In my relentless search for the smallest and lightest reels for tog fishing, I gave the Maxel 20 a VERY close look and nearly pulled the trigger on one SEVERAL times. In the end, a newly "LEPIFIED" Abu Garcia 4600 Winch was it's "stand-in" but I sill kick the tires on those reels whenever I come across them.

Regarding the newest version of the 40 Beast, I decided JUST TODAY I was going to make that reel my next purchase and begin the long & arduous task of matching it up to my green CTS BS702 - which I'm waiting for to arrive from New Zealand. That should make an extremely light togging outfit!!
 
So, here is one of my SIX "Special Edition Lep Reels" that my good buddy Pete has been gracious enough to build me! These are built with only one thing in mind...TAUTOG!

Hopefully, Pete will jump in here at some point and discuss what went into it. All I know is these reels are beautiful, light, powerful and BULLET PROOF!
 

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I had the 7 many years ago. I liked it, but I prefer the faster rods. Sold it to my buddy Nick who still uses it for tog. I'm a huge Calstar fan. Always have been.
 
My go to tog rod these days for tog in the LIS is my Seeker Hercules Inshore Light. Haven’t encountered a fish or a situation where it didn’t hold up. I paired it with a Penn Squall 12 star drag and 30lb powerpro. Overall setup is extremely light (to me anyway). Fishing down 17 fathoms, which I haven’t done in probably close to 10 years now I used a 7’6” Lami and a Newell 344 or a Daiwa 50H.
 
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