Insecticide On The Water

 It seems I have a lot of catching up to do in my reporting, so I will use this chance to cram multiple experiences into a random stew that a more thoughtful writer would dedicate time and effort to explore on a prompt and individual basis.

 I woke up early Friday and took the dogs our for a walk.  The air was cold.  When I picked up the dog doo in the inverted plastic lawn sausage presentation bags, they warmed my grateful hands. 

 Finally some fall weather.

Secret Skipper had invited me out for my first lobster trip of the year after I got done faking my own death to avoid going to work for a couple of weeks. 

It was a spectacular fail in my attempt to portray a Pez dispenser at a Candy themed Cosplay festival.

I tried to persuade Wendyjo to let Tommy and David loose to assist the aging core of our team and partake in potential bounty of this lobster raid, but dedication to the regimen of competitive swimming and a disappointing resistance to the lure of truancy prevented them from joining us.  Skipper would have to make do with your narrator as his only sternman.

Earlier this month while David and Wendyjo were touring back in Jersey, your reporter took the blue collar route with Tommy and Tash pushing down to Woodland's club near Mexicali for a satisfying day of chasing pheasant and chukar.  Tash was great on point and retrieve, Tommy hit his shots and we cooked up a bunch of tasty game bird dishes.  We even got to drop off a couple of our victims with Rich and Rachel, who we knew would do culinary justice to our harvest.

Your reporter has also neglected to file a report following our lone tuna trip of the summer, so please allow that event to be reflected in the photo below.  Skipper got this 70 pound bluefin on a fly-line 'dine about 15 miles from my living room off Dana Point. I got there by driving up to San Pedro and then leaving with Secret Skipper for a pre-dawn run back down the coast to our backyard from Cabrillo Marina.    

This fish took enough line to force us to chase and back down on it before Skipper recovered enough of his spool for me to get a gaff shot for  a most bountiful harvest with our friends.

That bluefin was a hard-earned chunk of sashimi. I am really just trying to get the non-reporting-of-this-tuna monkey off my back, since Skipper had to grind so hard without literary recognition due to my avoidance of the hobby-driven keyboard during an otherwise work-infested summer. 

The story to which I am about to return is about killing something else.

Skipper and I headed out to the Island of Romance after picking up a scoop and a half of mixed sardines, anchovies and a tale or two from Mike, the master baiter at the San Pedro Bait barge.

The trip over to the island at 1 pm shouldered us into a persistently cranky swell and wind chop out of the west.  We stayed bundled up on a slower than usual passage and started cutting bait and making the gear ready for a deployment that would be complete at 4:30pm.

After scouting the bottom for structure, we placed our ten hoop set on a steeply rising tide with no moon. 

We put out three in the 250 and deeper range, three in the midrange under 200 and four in 150 or less. The wind chop was still capping in the water where we made our deep sets in the 250 foot range. 

 The current was ripping as we motored downwind to cast for some bass in shallow water.

The wind was blowing us east at trolling speed and casting plastics on heavy heads resulted in no bites and cold hands.  I eventually hung my swimbait on the bottom and snapped it off when the drift stretched it to the tink point. I was happy to wind in the slack, rack my stick and go into the wheel house to get out of the wind and into my sandwich bag.  Skipper joined me on a pre-pull munch-out a bit later as the gray began to envelope a pale sunset.

When we started pulling at 5:45, we discovered that the deep rigs were all "pegged," meaning that the wind  and current had blown the buoys back to the point that the counterweight had retreated into the back of the buoy while the hoop and current were combining to tug the lighted float below the surface.  Skipper did a great job of pulling us into the wind to try to take up the slack on our retrieves.  The tension on the line was difficult to overcome in getting the rope up through the yard and mast pullies and then down into the newly upgraded line wheel on the Bagram.

The first four were empties, but we knew that we were on the bottom because of the big turban snails that festooned the mesh like Christmas ornaments.  It was starting to feel like one of those "paying your dues nights," with the  stiff, cold breeze and stubborn tug-back  from the resisting hoop lines.   I reminded myself just to be glad I was standing up and back out here.

Finally, on number 5 in the midrange, we got a real nice crawler and were on the board.  We got another whose size condemned it to the dubiously named livewell from the 120 foot range before moving into the last two of our shallowest  tries in less than 100 feet. 

The wind was starting to die down and was significantly less brisk in the lee provided by the shallowest drops.  These last two retrieves were not pegged and we were able to get slack on the line before pulling on what skipper declared to be a heavy load as he sampled the resistance to the wheel.  We both peered hopefully into the depths as the hoop started to come into view in the milky light that seeped into the water from the flickering light housings in our hull.  We had dropped these last two in an area of heavy kelp, which often creates a bit of  friction through which to drag.

"It's full of kelp and that what's causing the drag", Skipper noted as we saw a proliferation of brown against the mesh of the ascending platform.  The hoop popped into the surface lights as the "kelp" mutated into the grunting, insect forms of  our quarry, causing both of us to hoot like apes as I hauled it over the gunwhale and onto the deck.  Seven legal lobster, including a couple of three pounders, flopped about and were deposited in the tank amidst high fives over the sudden reversal of our fortune.

Like the lucky tailor from Brother's Grimm, we struck Seven at a Blow with this epically stupid pull.

This haul was a full limit in a single lift and was a new record for your narrator and Skipper.  Suddenly, we had 9 bugs going into our last pull of the first set of the night.

We were now completely energized from the cold doldrums that had so afflicted us a few minutes earlier.

We got the last hoop line onto the wheel and Skipper sampled the resistance.  "This one feels even heavier than the last."  We got hopeful again and beamed our expectations down into the darkness below.

This time, as the hoop popped up to the point of my interception and removal from the pulley, the top of the cone was completely shrouded in kelp.  We noted something below and cleared off the heavy cabbage to discover this hog holding court below.

In two consecutive pulls, we had hit what for me were personal best records for both quantity and quality in decades of this pursuit.  After a bit of tribal dancing around the deck, we gathered ourselves back enough to snap this shot of Skipper presenting our prize like Mufasa thrusting Simba up for consecration.

Now we headed out for a second pass knowing that a big crawl was on and we could probably fill our limit while recovering and breaking down our gear for an early end to an evening that had started out so slow.  This gambit is always a risky exercise in hubris, but it seemed warranted in the giddy mood that swept over us as the wind died off and the chop laid down.

The deeps were still pegged and uninhabited when we pulled them in, dumped the bait, removed the lights and began stacking them for transport in the stern.  

We got another couple of big ones and then found ourselves in the high clover of throwing back large lobster as we worked through the heavily occupied shallow drops.  We had all the gear packed, stacked and the decks hosed down for running home at 7:50 pm, as we listened to the Clippers begin their defeat of the Lakers.

Although I would have nodded and said "Yeah I know that" if somebody told me our biggest roach weighed 8 pounds, the tale of the scale revealed a different reality as this bug tipped the digital de-liar at 5.96 pounds.  I will be rounding up to six every time I talk about this trip.

Larry let me take home the big one to show off to my kids.  We all got to take turns posing with our victims before I got medieval on them.

David cracked WendyJo up while channeling Maxwell Smart as he tried to secretly contact PETA to report our cruel harvest on the Live Lobster phone, while a not-so-innocent bird dog lurked near the bottom of the frame.

Since our yard is under construction, the traditional "Lobster Life"  growth chart photo was an indoor job this time. Jen got into the portrait to pull down the lense as Tommy has begun to encroach on David's altitude.  This photo is a clear demonstration of the concept that animals are capable of complex reactions to stimuli.  Although I hate the despicably overused derivative of this term, Dersu is clearly expressing AWE at the sight of this most dominant Lobster.

We were able to coax Sarah and Connor up from San Clemente, as well as drag Randy and Suzanne down from Corona Del Mar to help us consume another big kill.  

I made all of our guests line up like the Usual Suspects behind the food before I would let anyone eat.  Suzanne did not want anyone getting her plate or cutting her first place in line during the delay.

Once again, our One-True God provided abundance to the Chosen as we celebrated Hanukkah with the traditional Hebrew fisherman feast of shellfish and beef.  There was plenty left for lobster omelettes and other lobster-themed consumables for the remainder of the weekend.

We hope that all of you are sharing in the bounty of the fall harvest, as we count our blessings, light the last of the candles to fully stoke the Menorah, and always remain mindful of the fact that

THESE ARE THE DAYS

Mammoth Getaway

  Gentle Readers. 

It has been far too long since your reporter pushed another essay at you from behind all of these covid based excuses.

I am reaching back to the beginning of what turned out to be a hectic summer to try and recapture a trip our offspring conspired to deliver as a Christmas present to their parents.  They decided that their gift to us would be separate vacations.  The girls took Wendy to Topanga Canyon for  some kind of hippie-chick encounter workshop while the full compliment of kids planned a fishing trip to a Big Bear Air B&B in May with Dad.  The owners apparently did a little bit of research and then contacted us to let us know that we were no longer welcome to stay there when we were pretty committed to that time frame.

Fortunately, our good friends Rich and Rachel, who have hosted us on prior occasions, volunteered to allow us to totally horn in in on their vacation plans for Mammoth during the first week of June.  The loss of the Big Bear time slot meant that Isaac was rubbed off on the rail of adverse scheduling.  He had to leave by then to begin his new job as a lobsterman in Boston, so we had to carry on without him.

 

Sarah, Tommy, David and I  left in the predawn darkness of a Sunday morning for a cruise up 395 to our traditional rally point of an 8:30 am  breakfast at Jack's in Bishop. We were a couple minutes late and there was a line of mask wearing feeders ahead of us, but we got seated soon enough at our favorite table.

We made it to Mammoth and hung out with Rich and Rachel for a day of acclimation followed by the first of a really great series of dinners.

The next morning, we snuck out in the gray light for our 6 am  rendevous at Lake Crowley with Joe Contaldi, our favorite guide in the eastern Sierra.  Joe had planned a day of midging near McGee creek.  This kind of flyfishing involves using a weighted brace of two tiny midges suspended just above the bottom and below an indicator that dips when a trout sips at one of the flies. You have to keep a constant eye on the indicator and strike violently when the bobber exhibits any movement. This year, the bite was mostly cutthroats that were feeding in 25 feet of water, so it was especially challenging to cast with that much sinkered line that had get through a sliding bobber.  It is too much line to allow for a fixed indicator.  We used rubber bands on the flyline as wind-on stoppers for the sliding bobbers.  The rubber bands have a tendency to hang up in the guides as we tried to work our casts away from the boat, so we had a hard time getting distance and then waggling our rod tips so that the line would feed down through the float without bringing the whole rig back towards the boat.

Our difficulty with getting distance on our casts did not really prove to be an insurmountable obstacle, as the fish were periodically feeding through the zone over which we hovered.

Sarah hooked up early and often as the morning clouds kept us cool and the wind stayed off our spot.

She landed a pretty nice rainbow and was the high stick for the day on a nice grade of Cutts.

Below is an example of one of Sarah's  bronze-back cutthroats

Joe now has a special fishing guide edition camera lense which dramatically enlarges the size of the angler's hands.  Below is our favorite example of this  effect, as David hoisted up a trout big enough to have bitten his head clean off.

As is almost always the case, the wind came up round noon and it was time to get off the lake.  It was great to see Joe after a few years of no contact.  He has always delivered and we look forward to trying out his Pyramid Lake technique for monster Lahontans when the opportunity presents itself.

We went back to Crowley the next day to try our luck without Joe. Your narrator was able to put the kids on fish, with Tommy taking big fish honors with a beautiful Brown that ate a Tazmanian about four colors down on leadcore line just north of the entrance to the Crowley Marina.

After we got off the lake, we headed up to Lee Vining for a great lunch at the Whoa Nelli Deli and some hiking near Mono Lake.

Sarah is still their big sister, but Tommy and David have reeled her in on the height chart.

We hit Hot Creek for some fly fishing in the evening before coming back to have another fabulous dinner with the Clampitts.

On day three we went back to Crowley for another shot at the trout.  This  time it was David's turn to score prettiest fish honors with this nice brown he got on a firetiger Tasmanian. Net man Tommy and sister Sarah remained cloaked against the cold of these early June mornings despite the sun on the water.  All fish were successfully released and none seemed too worse off for meeting us .

Lizzy finally was able to join us from Sacramento on Thursday after we got back from Crowley, so we bopped around town and celebrated with another fun dinner after our mandatory cocktail hour set the tone for the flow of another pleasant evening

We got in some tennis with Rich and Rachel.  The kids even got in a workout at a local pool so that we did not completely abandon Wendy's swimming protocol. Oh, and I got to read from Rachel's really beautiful hardbound edition of Typee each night.  I finished before we left as part of my respect for cannibals.

The last day we all had a chance to be together, we decided spend the day on a pontoon boat at Convict Lake, which is one of my favorite places on earth. The kids and I got there early to take possession of the boat and scout around the lake.  We were joined by Rich and Rachel later in the day, as only my children willingingly subject themselves to the kind of lengthy tours of duty that boating with their dad creates for unsuspecting passengers.  We had great snacks and good tunes while orbiting the Lake.  We spotted deer and just basked in the majesty that pulses from the walls of this granite cathedral as the sun came out and warmed up another breathtaking day.

Sarah and Rachel kicked back on the couch. Lizzy got master fishing honors on a day when scenery, food and tunes took precedent over angling dedication, although we kept a line in the water  most of the time to keep the fish honest.  Lizzy even jumped in the lake in the afternoon to scare them away.

  

We topped off the trip with a fancy dinner at the Convict Lake Restaurant.  I think I would rather eat at this place than any restaurant in the world, because that would mean for sure that I was at Convict lake and likely among those humans I hold most dear.

The next morning we said good bye to Rich and  Rachel, as they decided to postpone the rest of their Mammoth vacation and come back when we were finally gone.  They  explained that they wanted to be able to generate the kind of distance that would allow them to miss us.

We had one more glorious day to spend with Lizzy.  We made the most of it with a dash back up 395 to spend the day hiking below Yosemite along Lee Vining Creek and then heading down to spark about along the so-cool-it-looks-fake June Lake Loop.  We stopped for a tasty lunch at the delightful Silver lake Cafe before hiking and getting in a bit of dry fly fishing along Rush Creek between Silver and Grant Lakes.  I could spend a month on the loop and not put a dent in all that it has to offer.

The next morning we said our sad goodbyes to Lizzy before we escorted each other out to 395. She turned north as we waved one last time and pointed south.  We checked her progress on our cell phones and celebrated the fabulous opportunity we took to be with each other in this magical part of the world.

We have so much for which to be grateful and I am certainly full of thanks to Rich, Rachel and my kids for bringing me more wonderful experiences and memories from which to project future plans and find refuge in wistful moments of dreamy serenity.

The clock has hit pause and the days are suddently shorter as winter beckons. 

 I hope that all of you have a wonderful Thankgsgiving and  try to keep in mind that

These are the Days

Winter Solstice Greetings 2020

 This has certainly been a strange year and I hope this note finds all of you gentle readers safe and comfortable.

Before the pandemic hit the beach, we were fortunate enough to take a trip with family to our favorite ashram at Punta Bozo in February.  We caught fish, waves and sun as we frolicked, oblivious to what lay ahead.

After  what would prove to be our last restaurant experience on March 13th, 

it was mostly just Wendy, Tommy, David and your reporter hunkered down at home with dogs who now think that we will never leave them alone.

The boys have grown like weeds and have adapted to life without high school culture or sports. Every day is a snow day. Wendy has been forced to deal with sharing the house all day with five males who just won't go away.  

Our own sacrifice has been mostly one of inconvenience as opposed to mortal danger.  One of the many realizations beyond toilet paper anxiety that your reporter has experienced is that the projects and personal betterment that this confinement might have inspired have been cast aside in favor of  weight gain and whacky TV previously thought of as a waste of time.  On the plus side, we seem for once to be living within our means, as  my frivolous impulses have fewer outlets.  WendyJo has laser-focused on trying to have decent, healthy meals, getting the right amount of exercise and reading good books to counterbalance my investment in a giant sloth life coach.

We did get outdoors with the dogs for some hiking with guns and other misadventures. 

Tommy with Tashtego along the Mojave River.  The training continues in a catch-as-catch-can kinda way.

Sarah and David made sure the light was still on at the  namesake site of the 1853 sinking of the cargo ship Carrier Pigeon on its maiden voyage from San Francisco.  

   

The girl's club got in a little camping before covid, but the young are so indestructible anyway.  

Your narrator was selected by Secret Skipper as his covidmate for a few offshore getways that stocked the freezer and put some salt in our lungs.

The boys got out for a little  rod and reel crab fishing off the Half Moon Bay jetty at Thanksgiving. This legal specimen received a proxy pardon for the turkey that escaped to Isaac's Oakland tenement convincingly disguised as leftovers.

Isaac auditioned for the Musical "Florence of Arabia", but production was cut short by the shelter in place order in the spring.  If only the producers had waited until the coast was totally clear in the summer, this would be a poster on Broadway.  

  These restrictions have certainly shined a light on the level of sacrifice that some Americans are willing to make for the sake of their  most vulnerable fellow citizens, from the brave and tireless health care workers providing comfort for elders dying in isolation, to the mask-burning freedom fighters baying for their God-given right to server-provided cocktails on the San Clemente pier.

Covid has certainly made us aware of the countless services people perform for our society that have previously gone underappreciated.  Perhaps we will keep these things in mind when circumstances improve and we have a chance to show our gratitude in person.

  Wendy and Jenni took off their masks long enough to let me photograph them doing their part to get out the vote and avoid amputating the electorate to install a ruler.

The Reaper definitely took his cut this year as the  family generation before ours passed. 

 This pandemic has made bedside goodbyes an unavailable emotional luxury and put our ability to honor our dead in suspended animation.  Weddings and funerals have been postponed, but funerals outrank weddings in our world of reasons for gathering.  

Wendy and I are no longer on deck.  We are in the batter's box.

 The local community also lost our beloved Pigrim, icon of Dana Point.  Who could have known that an ancient wooden ship would be hard to keep afloat without maintenance?  It was on life support too long with the triage of shipwrights perfoming an ancient art, waiting for an appointment with a drydock shipyard that was postponed one time too many as the economy closed off and priorities were reshuffled.

The Winter Solstice is once again upon us, perhaps as a more spectacular metaphor than is usually the case.                                         We have seen the foundation of the imperfect but functioning democracy we took for granted under a full-court press from an Alternative Reality in much the same way as our nation's health has been under seige, but we hope the tide is turning.   The limitless informational platforms that we once thought would serve to prevent the suppression of truth have proved to be a frighteningly powerful firehose that can wash accuracy off the deck in a torrent of targeted misdirectional messaging.  

      There are certainly some dark days of winter ahead of us and this pandemic malady is not yet in retreat.  We are lucky and still standing, with a horizon on which to focus as the vaccine rolls out and we continue to take precautions for the sake of others

Once again, there is a reason for hope as we face down the darkness that still envelopes us and work together to share an expanding light to the tune of Optimistic Voices:

We're out of the woods,

We're out of the dark,

We're out of the night.

Step into the Sun,

Step into the light!

May all of you and your loved ones, along with those we do not know, stay warm and safe as we look toward a brighter year than the one that still stubbornly beckons from our wake.

Getting through these difficult times together helps us appreciate all that we have and certainly serves as a reminder that

These Are The Days.

 

It's a Wild Northland, Part Two

  When I left off, I believe that we were going to go fishing out of Homer on the Artemis again.

     On Day two of our campaign in Homer, I joined Nike, Demeter, Dionysus, Diomedes and Sophacles on the Artemis, while Ajax and Hermes went on another boat (we had to split up our group each day because of Covid distancing, which most Alaskans seemed to take seriously).

     Our destination was the Barren Islands, which consitute the northernmost chain of the Kodiak Archipelago.  It was close to a 70 mile run in seas that were alternately calm and then roiled into a froth at specific locations where currents rubbed each other the wrong way.  These more remote islands feature a shot at big ling cod, which is the fish I primarily came to Alaska to kill.  They are not cod at all, but rather are the biggest and nastiest of the Greenlings.  They will eat anything they can bite.

The Halibut fishing started off slowly, but eventually we found the larger grade.  Naturally, Nike caught another biggest one of the day, even as I tried to convince her that my second place flatfish was a contender for that honor.  Everyone got their big one out here and we hit the small halibut spot on the way back.

  We also targeted the rockfish, with several of our anglers indicating their desire to get the rare yelloweye, which is a lot like the cow cod that we are no longer allowed to keep in SoCal.  Your narrator, having been made aware that we were fishing an area where we might encounter the big ling I was obsessed with engaging, blew off any pretext of fishing for  rockfish, pelagic or otherwise, and concentrated on relentlessly yo-yoing the biggest jig the crew could provide in my Ahab-like quest for a big ling, which I consider the fiercest of the deepwater fish.  My previous personal best was a 24 pounder caught during the Nixon administration at the Farnsworth Bank, which is now another MLPA-prohibited spot in California waters.                    

Diomedes cranked up a pretty yelloweye, which gave others hope.  As it turned out, the only other yelloweye anyone would catch was his second one.  It was twice as big and had to be released because he kept the one in the photo.  Fish are counted individually, so there is no sharing or trading for purposes of managing limits to maximize take.

Nike got a beautiful little tiger rockfish.  My companions also caught Quillbacks, which are another of the "pretty"  non-pelagic rockfish that come over the rail as a complete limit in that category.

Demeter and Diomedes each caught big lings, which have to be 35 inches to qualify up here, as opposed to the 22 inch qualifying length in California.  I was jealous, but refused to trade out my giant exculsionary leadhead jig that I was employing like a harpoon intended only for Moby Dick.  I got several nice lings that did not qualify until I finally hooked the one I knew was what I came for.  I did not allow him to get his dick in the dirt and cranked him up steadily like I would die if it got off.  I was mighty stoked when David sank the gaff and took him over the rail.  It was over four feet long and was the absolute highlight of my trip.

  Nike, who was really rooting for me to fulfill this obsession, was nearly as happy as I was overtaxed to hoist this gator up without popping a hernia.Once again, our crew lined up the catch for us as this day was even better than the day before.

     On Sunday, the others went on a fly-in trip to get close to grizzly bears while I opted to fish the Kasilof River with guide named Grant, who owns the Fly Box in Anchor Point.  I was targeting trout and Dolly Varden for catch and release fishing.

We had the river virtually to ourselves.  We started off flossing for sockeye.  Naturally, since that was not the focus of my trip, I had no trouble catching a limit, which Grant immmediately cleaned in accordance with the rules of the river.

I caught and released numerous trout and was able to cross Dolly Varden off my list of fish to catch.  We stayed on the river until 8 pm.

On Monday, we were set to go out with O'Fishial charters out of Homer one more time.  On this occasion, the weather which had been so kind to us reared up and blew a gale outside, causing all of the boats to cancel.  We had plenty of fish already, so we spent the day blasting around the Spit, shopping for souvenirs and grabbing cocktails at the famous Salty Dawg Saloon, which is a must for kooks like us.  Below, Dionysus and Diomedes prepare to pick a fight with strangers.

We spent the last day picking and packing up our fish to head out.  That was harder work than it sounds.  Nike and Demeter struck a pose with our haul before the trek back to Anchorage.

If I make the chance, I am coming back here, because it is big country, with big fish, cool people, and...

These are the Days