Archive for July, 2010

Selfish Herd Theory

Posted on July 27th, 2010

The Selfish Herd Theory is based on the premise that, when an animal is targeted as prey, it bands together with others of its kind in hopes that the predator will eat the other one. When groups of animals are being hunted, it’s obviously safer in the center than along the periphery of the heard. Put you between me and the beast and maybe we’ll both be alright, but mostly me. Schooling up in ever-tightening concentric circles of a bait ball serves menhaden well when bluefish are shredding, and old W.D. Hamilton looks pretty smart for his premise. But this natural defense doesn’t work so well when an Omega Protein boat circles its nets. Go to Save the Menhaden and see how to help…

Reaping the Whirlwind

Posted on July 26th, 2010

I took this picture to disprove the myth. Look a banana on board, while catching fish. Ha ha! Since I took this picture my magazine got sold and moved to Florida, my cat got messed up, I got tagged doing 80 in a 45, and  I broke my best rod hours before my best trip. I have brought this on myself. As the late great John Belushi said, “that’s not bad luck that’s dumb luck.” The Last Straw: One of my best buds drunk dials me and I listen to the message for the vicarious value, and he’s doing laundry by himself at midnight because his dog threw up on the bed and his wife is vexed. He is drinking rum and listening to Hootie…

Suburban Waterfowl Hierarchies, Carp

Posted on July 21st, 2010

The swans kick the crap out of the geese, the geese beat on each other, and everyone pretty much leaves the ducks alone. The swans at the one pond had four cygnets in the spring but two of them disappeared. The raccoons got to them, according to a third party observer. Unless you count creek chub, the carp are the only game fish in the ponds and the one creek. Every few days two old European guys, I believe they are Hungarian, set up long carp rods, rest them on stands, sit in lawn chairs and smoke hand-rolled cigarettes. The carp seem to do what they want to do when they want to do it and when they just loaf around it’s a long…

Benefitting From Geological Events

Posted on July 20th, 2010

Long Island’s north shore formed in the retreat of the Wisconsin ice sheet during the last glacial period. The boulders left behind sometimes expose their tops in the falling tide. Geologists call them glacial erratics but Pete the dockmaster called the bigger ones elephants. Either way as long as you don’t trip and bust your shins or shear off an outboard skeg it’s a hell of a playground and why is it only people from Maryland call them rockfish?

You Need The Glory

Posted on July 19th, 2010

This is a picture of the last peacock bass I caught last year. I’d been shut out at Donuts, Fitness, and the Church Yard and I pulled into the lot behind the drug store. I’d hooked and lost the biggest largemouth bass of my life in the canal there the year prior. The canal runs along the westbound side of a divided road. A construction crew, adding a third lane to accommodate congestion, stood on the opposite bank around a front loader. They all turned and stared at me when I cut through the the bushes and made my way along the sloped bank. The canal cuts underneath a berm built for road access to the frontside of the strip mall that houses the…

STRIPERS FOREVER: "Summer of Discontent"

Posted on July 16th, 2010

From Stripers Forever, via email dispatch: Stripers Forever members – with the exception of pockets of large stripers it certainly appears from all reports that the population coast wide continues to shrink.  What is worse is that there is little chance of a large scale turnaround in the near future since small stripers are almost non existant.  Even if Chesapeake Bay produced a strong year class this year it would be four years before it would do much to help the coastal fishery – and producing a strong year class this year is anything but a foregone conclusion.  On top of this bad news we continue to receive increasingly frequent reports of myco even in larger striped bass.  One member sent us photos of…

Gun Play

Posted on July 13th, 2010

Dave was a country lawyer and a trout fisherman and a friend of my father. I had recently learned to cast, and my dad arranged for him to take along me and a buddy. Dave had permission from a dairy farmer to fish a small stream that cut through his pastures. The stream held wild brown trout. We pulled off a back road in the hills of Central New York into a muddy lot in front of a barn. Muck covered our shoes before we could switch into waders. Dave wore old-fashioned hip boots and carried a fly rod and an ultra-light spinner rigged with a Mepps. Before he closed his trunk he reached into a leather case and pulled out a pouch of…

Suburban Mobile Death Squad

Posted on July 12th, 2010

Pipe bomb? No Cochise. A DIY rod tube, gleaned from the pages of the Roughfisher encyclopedia. Here are said parameters. Lately, with an hour to fish and the nearest saltwater access a half hour away, and the 10  minute effort of suiting up the waders and stripping basket, the need arises to adapt. Months of recon and a built-in nav unit have helped distill the fishable waters within a 15-minute radius to an efficient loop reminiscent of a squad car patrol. The suburbs rank for raising children but on the fishing Richter scale they register barely above zero. No matter. The fish available don’t know they’re supposed to suck. And with an ocean in the backyard, the banks are usually freed up to assail…

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