Fishing around: Squiddin’ brings out characters | Mobile – CapeCodOnline.com
Posted: May 3, 2012 Filed under: Articles, The Ditch | Tags: Squid, Striped Bass, Stripers Leave a comment »This guy writes so illustratively. (Is ‘illustratively’ a word?) I love his writing style and of course the contents of the report.
Fishing around: Squiddin’ brings out characters | Mobile – CapeCodOnline.com.
Wouldn’t ‘Chu Know…
Posted: April 26, 2012 Filed under: Fishing with Friends | Tags: Smallmouth Bass, Wachusett Reservoir Leave a comment »“Ok man, let’s kick rocks. Gotta be back in Boston before ten.”
“Cool.’
I grab my ten footer noodle off my makeshift rod holder on the gravel banks of the great Wachusett Reservoir fixing to pack it up. The score so far on my fifth reservoir trip, 0′fer for fiver. My buddy did catch a silver can-fish (see pic below). The weather has been a London-esque day or Seattle-ish, pick your city. Overcast, sprinkly, cool, a faint haze, but of course without Piccadilly Circus or Pike Place Market. However, it can be a circus here and pike can also be found here too.
In mild disappointment in failing to land a lake trout or any fish for that matter, I reel in my shiner rig. Just then, the water explodes immediately. A large fish breaks the surface as I yell ‘Oh Shit!’ My buddy runs on over to my side and says, ‘Holy Shit!’ I respond back with ‘No shit!’ What in the world? I HAD a fish on the line I DIDN’T know? Or did he just hit the shiner when I was just reeling? I was confused because this big smallmouth bass was pretty darn big and their reputation for taking YOU out for a test drive ’round the block is pretty legendary. The fight was great but I did have a long ass rod so it stifled some of the fight in my opinion which kinda sucked. I wish the smallie was on my medium rod. But I can’t be picky can I? I was so happy to finally be landing my first fish on the banks of the ‘Chu. My buddy and I stared in disbelief at the 18 inch, 2.13 pound smallmouth that I was holding gently. I just need to take a few pics and send him off before he becomes too taxed. I know that smallies are very common here in the res and they love shiners. It’s just that for the last dozen fishing trips that I have been on with my buddy, we never caught anything. So it was just mind-bending to see a good fish finally in our hands. And a large one at that.
Funny thing was, it was like a scripted fishing trip. We fished diligently for several hours beginning at sunrise and just when everything was packed, ready to go back home with our tail between our legs we finally get a nice surprise. Wouldn’t ‘Chu know.
No Trouble for Doubles
Posted: April 24, 2012 Filed under: Family Outings | Tags: Hopkinton Reservoir, Rainbow Trout, Trout Leave a comment »It was in the middle of March. I was in a fishing funk. Been looking for trout for some time, nothing really popping up for me to get excited about.
This is the typical scenario, the perfect alignment of activities, seemingly governed by unrelated circumstances. We were doing errands and we just so happen to be near one of my favorite trout ponds. My children were asleep in the car and we had some momentary ‘dead time’ to kill before going to dinner.
“Hey,” I say to my wife. “Since the kids are sleeping, do you mind if I drop by the res and toss a line for a few minutes?”
“Sure.” My wife says. “Don’t’ take too long.”
“I won’t.”
I am positive the previous conversation has occurred before between man and wife, fisherwoman and husband, guy and girl, millions of times since blue-green algae ruled the earth. I was suddenly a young pup unleashed into the wild, wild wilderness, ecstatically trotting down to the lake side albeit for only about twenty casts.
As I walk up to to the sandy shores of the lake, watching the almost still water gently lap the silty and stony bank. It reminds me of the last epic scene from ’300,’ when King Leonidas appears to succumb to King Xerxes before his final stand.
And now, as then, it’s not the skunkings that grips him… Only restlessness. A heightened sense of things. The lakeborne breeze cooly kissing the sweat at his chest and neck.
Cormorants cawing… complaining even as they feast on the thousands of the recently stocked trout.
The steady breathing of his mother-in-law and wife at his back… ready to net the fish without a moment’s pause. Every one of his family… ready to cook.
His camo trucker hat is stifling. His tacklebag is heavy.
Cast now.
You there… Oncorhynchus mykiss.
May you not live forever.
Marlon, your cast!
Wife!
Catch them!
His camo trucker hat was stifling. It narrowed his vision, and he must see far. His tacklebag was heavy. It threw him off balance… and his target is far away.
His cast is long and proud.
The gold 3/8 ounce Kastmaster sings through the still air, like a miniature lightning bolt hurled down from Mount Olympus. Just at the edge of the inflow my luckiest lure crashes into the dreamy underwater world like a Polaris missile hitting its target. In slow motion I look down at my left hand and begin cranking. My eyes follow the tip of my rod as I begin to point it at my lure. Patiently the lure is retrieved slowly but with intermittent pauses and jerks, to give any unsuspecting fish my masterful illusion of an injured minnow, valiantly trying to save his own life by finding the closest entrance into a patch of hydrilla.
The apex of any fishing adventure occurs. I get a nibble, then another… it now translates into a bite committed. Automatically, second nature, both hands give a firm upward tug of my fishing instrument to ensure the deal. My hook has set, the fish is on, and it is a most beautiful battle. The top of the what was once still water breaks as the trout splashes into its domain after a spectacular leap. This Hopkinton acrobat dazzles all of us on shore. My 6 pound line is pulled in various directions meanwhile in the back, my mother-in-law gurgles heroic cries in her native tongue which briefly startles me as I try to win this round on my medium-light spinner.
Sweat hangs on my brow, like Stallone in ‘Cliffhanger,’ as I land the huge trout on the banks of the reservoir. I can’t believe it, it is the largest trout that I have caught in my young angling career. He fought like a warrior too.
This magnificent Rainbow Trout was a tic over 14 inches and weighed in at 1.13 pounds. My wife gives my the high five from the driver’s seat of the car while my mother-in-law stares hungrily at the my catch. I was stoked.
About a few minutes later, I continued to throw spoons a couple hundred feet away at another bank, while keeping one eye on my second ‘dead stick’ rod which had a gob of PowerBait on the business end. Not even a dozen casts I see through the woods and leaves, that the bobber that I have affixed on the line between the first set of guides and the second, rises and the rod tip is bowing down and shaking. My spinning rod that I am holding falls to the floor as I run through the woods under a canopy of leaves towards my arcing stick. For one brief second I take a mental snapshot of exactly what it is I am doing—I am running through the woods under a canopy of leaves towards my arcing stick. So freaking funny and surreal I thought.
What a joyous sight. A rod bent in half. I grab it and take in the slack, then give it a quick upward snap. Hooked! The fish jumps out of the water as I reel in my SECOND trout! 14 inches again, roughly the same weight as previous just a tad shorter. Both of these fish are so fat too!
Most of my planned fishing trips usually yields nary a fish. Most of my unplanned, fishing outings that are constrained by time, convenience and gear, usually produces. Today was a fun flukey foray at this trout lake, with a little bit of 300 mixed in.
WEB EXTRA: The Hogy Holy Mackerel and other creations
Posted: April 12, 2012 Filed under: Creative, DIY, Surfcasting, Tools of the Trade Leave a comment »http://www.onthewater.com/articles/web-extra-the-hogy-holy-mackerel-and-other-creations/
Worth My Clams
Posted: March 29, 2012 Filed under: Shellfish | Tags: Duxbury Beach, Soft Shell Clams Leave a comment »A new text arrives on my mobile.
“Dude, you want to go clamming tomorrow with me?”
“Do one legged ducks swim in circles? I am so there, where?”
“Meet me at my house, we’re going to Duxbury, bring your boots and a bucket.”
Never went clamming before, love clams, enjoy the whole idea of it all. I just don’t know why I haven’t done it yet. I also want to hunt animals with a bow, climb Kilimanjaro and build a trebuchet. I just don’t know why I haven’t done it all yet. But at any rate, I am going clamming!
“Hey Jesse, so, how do I do this, what do I have to look out for, any tips?”
“I like to clam a bit before and after a low tide. You look for divets in the sand, like these (points to a cluster of air holes in front of me) and you will want to set up shop next to it.”
“Should I start digging on top of them?”
“No, you will want to use your hand rake and dig out a hole away from the clams first, so when you start going for your clams you can start depositing that sand into here.”
My buddy kneels down and begins to show me how to do this. He explains that there are size limits with each different species of the mollusks found here. The days in which you can harvest shellfish is as irregular as my grandma’s bowels, so you got to pay attention to each beach’s regulations. You can only take 12 qts per license at the beach we were at, and I believe this may hold true for all of Massachusetts if I am not mistaken.
Digging for the clams is pretty much a finesse job I surmised. I broke the first few which of course kept but I guess that is why they’re called, ‘soft-shelled clams,’ otherwise known as ‘Steamers.’ My hand rake does all the first pass sand removing work but when I target the breathing hole I start using my fingers scooping around both sides of the hole, digging down. A visual clue if attentive is looking out for a lighter colored plume of sand which will lead you directly to the clam. The rest of the sand around when digging should be darker, at least this was the case at this beach.
Like the many rules about clamming, you are not to use any other tool than the clam rakes and your hand. My buddy Jesse has an approved clamming basket with his license affixed to the handle as requested, the proper tools and thing high padded wading boots. Most of the folks I have seen here don the exact setup—save for some other souls, with children’s plastic pails, garden shovels, swimming trunks and no visible clamming permit.
Getting a permit is completed at the town hall but getting information isn’t really easy. When I apply for a regular fishing license I can readily see all that I need in order to know when, where and how I can purchase a permit. I can do it online now and print it out on my home computer. In order to obtain a clamming license I have to seek out a desired clamming beach online and read through each town’s material to know what I need to do. To purchase a license I have to call the town hall or email them, and ask where specifically I need to go, and at what hours am I able to do so. I would assume having this information on the web would be more convenient.
After we got our clams, we filled our five gallon buckets with saltwater, and attached the lid so we can keep our clams alive and also purge them. When you’re finished with purging your clams you’re ready to cook them by way of the many recipes available. What I did was saute tons of garlic in butter in a wok, added some white wine and reduced it to about half of the original amount. I then added about 20 clams and covered the wok for about 3-5 minutes, checking after 3 minutes to see if they’ve opened up or not. By five minutes they all should be opened which means they’re ready to eat. The clams that haven’t open shouldn’t be eaten. They might be dead, but at any rate it isn’t good for you.
I am a non-resident, so my fee is going to be close to $120 a year. For soft shell clams, I can only harvest on Wednesdays and Saturdays during the daytime hours, during the months of April, May, September and October. All other months are off limits. But for those four months, harvesting those utterly delicious soft shells, enjoying dinners with family and friends with something that I have caught, is definitely worth my clams.
SalmonCrazy
Posted: March 26, 2012 Filed under: Websites | Tags: Salmon Leave a comment »What a great and informative site.
First largie of the year!
Posted: March 24, 2012 Filed under: Scouting Fishy Places | Tags: Largemouth Bass Leave a comment »
Ice Fishing In China
Posted: March 20, 2012 Filed under: Exotic Locales, Ice Fishing Leave a comment »http://www.worldfishingnetwork.com/users/gord-pyzer/blog/ice-fishing-in-china-223282.aspx
Behold the Power of PowerBait
Posted: March 13, 2012 Filed under: Family Outings, Tools of the Trade | Tags: Ashland Reservoir, Rainbow Trout, Trout Leave a comment »I decided I wasn’t going to use Powerbait today. Sick of it. Boring. Stinky. Messy. I keep wiping it off instinctively on the sides of my jeans. Now I got these fluorescent smears running down my thighs. It’s giving me too much disco.
Maybe some of you say, “What eez sees, Powerbait ting you speak of?” Or, maybe like many fisherman who prefer to actively fish for their trout instead of just waiting around for the fish to bite, a.k.a. ‘dead-sticking,’ and have no use for it, Powerbait is probably the most commonly used ‘dough bait’ specific for trout fishing. I hear that farm-raised trout are raised on Powerbait, so when they are released in pond and lakes, this is what they usually bite first, until they learn later that insects and other fish are also food. Many fisherman take advantage of this. I prefer not to fish with Powerbait as I think it’s a bit too easy (notice, I didn’t say cheating) but since I am allowed to run two poles when I fish and I do love to eat trout, I say, what the heck go for it. I can’t fish actively with two poles at once, so I usually let my other rig run live bait, such as shiners, worms or in trout season, Powerbait.
Powerbait is a chemically made bait which has impregnated flavor mixed in, to better attract said trout. It works. My ratio between artificial lures and Powerbait in catching trout was once 10-1 in favor of using artificial lures, but now it’s even, or perhaps now in the favor of Powerbait, which disgusts me a bit, as I thought I once prided myself in catching trout with lures, not fake bait. My fishing self-esteem perhaps is taking a hit during the last two seasons.
What sucks is, scooping out a wad of PowerBait is not unlike sticking your finger into a little jar of earwax and slutty colored marshmallows. It gets all under your nails, into the divets and ridges in your hands and comes off as easily as crap on fur. But hey, I am a man, I am fishing, I have butchered scores of fish before so it doesn’t really bother me. But sometimes at work, let’s say I am in a meeting showing a PowerPoint presentation, it’s kinda funny to be pointing on the screen and then I notice a fluorescent, glittering, micro-wad of PowerBait under my fingernail as some sort of weird ass, PowerBait French Manicure.
Using Powerbait requires a specific technique, albeit simple but specific. The major point is, you have to let it float which is one of the chief attributes that makes it work so well.
Fishing for trout you ought to use a light test line, 4lbs or even lighter if you can stand the pressure of potential line breakage. Trout have keen eyesight and are also a smarter fish. Thick lines will be spotted. You can use fluorocarbon leaders too, which I prefer. I guess the knots make fluorocarbon more apt to break, but it’s stealthiness I desire. What I was taught was, which reminds me of a ‘Carolina Rig,’ is off of my main line should be a sliding egg sinker, then a bead (which acts a buffer) then your swivel. After your swivel is your one foot or so leader, 4lb test. Ok, make it 6lbs if you think you’re gonna hook up Troutzilla, then your number #11 hook. Size 10 to 12 is fine. Trout have small mouths. Personally I don’t like using treble hooks because it takes forever to remove Powerbait off of a treble hook at the end of the day, so I use a regular single bait hook. So here it is again, starting from the main line down to the hook; main line, sliding sinker, bead, swivel, leader, hook. I like to use Uni-Knots.
This video clip below fully illustrates everything I have talked about but is somewhat lengthy, not that I write brief posts myself. But at the end, the speaker acts out some mildly comical montages which in the end provides for an entertaining video tutorial, as entertaining video tutorials can be.
Did I digress? Shit.
I decided I wasn’t going to use Powerbait today. Sick of it. Boring. Stinky. Messy. Yada-yada something about disco.
My stupid Kastmaster lure was out to lunch and after using trout worms for this well-stocked reservoir for over an hour, I said, “Crikey, damned if I do, damned if I don’t used that blasted Powerbait to catch a trout today.”(I didn’t actually say that, guys.) It’s a stocked-lake, my Kastmaster mojo has gone the way of the Woolly Mammoth, and if I am gonna bring home some food on the table to feed my poor family of 17, I am gonna need to bring in the big guns. Behold, the Power of Powerbait. A knight in shining armor. My Lancelot. Or the Green Knight whichever you prefer.
Not even five minutes passed when I see my line go taut. Damn, for the first time in months, I got a bite!!! I take in the slack and wait for the bite again, because I had to run to the darn rod, accidentally unfastening my fishing utility belt because I have a Batman complex, dropping it and almost having tripped. I reeled in the line to nothing on the end. I wadded up another ball of dough on the end of my line. Rainbow Trout flavor with glitter, in case you’re wondering what I am using. Everyone uses the same flavor. Someone in Vermont told me once he swore that the White Powerbait was best in those parts. Sure. White. Yeah, sure guy. I did buy some white Powerbait just to be sure. At any rate, I got a second bite, and then a third! I missed them all! I missed setting the hook. What the hell is wrong with me? The easiest way to fish and I can’t do anything right. In hindsight, I had too much slack in my line, I should have kept the line taut to begin with. I was intending for the trout to take the bait and run off with it, not feeling any tension in the line and to pretty much do most of the hook setting itself. Wrong.
Fourth cast a charm. He took the bait, again. I reeled up right away, and felt that exciting nibble on the other end. I made sure my drag was set correctly, earlier it was way loose, couldn’t hook set a tub of cotton candy even if I wanted to. Bam! The stockie jumped out of the air and splashed back down in front of me as I played the fish. The trout was fighting me good on my ultra-light rod. I was about to bare witness to my first catch of the Mayan year, 2012. He was hooked good, a few more flips and flaps, not to mention a god-awful grinding sound emanating from my reel, this rainbow was mine. I can sleep now. Well, not until I can catch another keepah stripah.
Makes me want to throw up in my mouth, but, Behold, the Power of Powerbait.
