Schooling bunker

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 save this integral cog in the oceanic food chain from collapse.

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 some good fish taken at night in the Chesapeake very recently.  All of the 7 or 8 fish that they caught had obvious lesions on their skin and one had a golf ball sized tumor in its mouth.

It is against this backdrop that the commercial fishing cheerleaders on the ASMFC are trying to push through yet another commercial increase.  It was the 40% commercial increase 8 years ago that motivated us to form Stripers Forever.  Public hearings are going on right now, and the ASMFC is accepting written testimony.  This link to our website http://www.stripersforever.org/Info/Stripers_BBoard/I01498E3B will give you a list of the hearings, and a copy of the full Stripers Forever testimony to the ASMFC is attached for your review.  We hope that even if you can’t make a hearing that you will read our testimony and write your own letter to the ASMFC in protest to the idea of raising the commercial quota on striped bass.”

Reading my Sunday New York Times, I’m greeted with this advertisement on page 11. Whew, I was worried BP was going to try and sweep this under the carpet once it disappeared from the news cycle.

I think they could have gone with some better photo choices though.

Did we not see this coming?

The Chicago Sun-Times called out BP three years ago for dumping toxins into Lake Michigan.

A Wikipedia page lists a long litany of offenses, mentioning that Mother Jones twice named BP one of the world’s 10 worst corporations.

Another report says BP’s safety record is worse than you imagined.

I fully realize it does nothing now to care and express anger after the fact. Do we need to refocus our conservation priorities? What good do slot limits and cutting up the little rings on plastic six-pack holders do if one careless, or possibly malevolent, corporation can so effortlessly undo any collective environmental gains?

And who else has the potential to take a dump in our backyard?

©Tosh Brown Photography.

You can see a few more close-ups of my digits in Tosh Brown’s gallery here.

There are actually a lot of pictures of better fly anglers, as it’s the second wave of photos from our in-progress book project. It ain’t about me. It’s about guys like Bob Popovics and the Salty Flyrodders and Jason Puris and John Page Williams. Guys who drop what they’re doing and alter their life patterns around the migrations of fish. And also the guides and conservationists who make it all their life’s work.

We’ve got a couple of more legs to go, and some of us have a couple thousand more words to write, but it’s all good.

The picture above is grainy but it illustrates the reason why grown men leave home at 3:30 in the morning to be on the water at first light when it’s a cutting 36 degrees, with no respite on an open boat. Had the photographer (me) not sucked, he would have captured more elegantly the 80 pound bluefin busting the surface right in front of the boat. Instead he got a small bit of fin.

I am not the hardcore one here. That distinction belongs to Capt. Chris Hessert and his buddy Squid Vicious,  who took me along on one of their Quixotic quests to hook a bluefin on spinning gear. I experienced it a week ago with Capt. Dave Azar and had to try again one more time.

It’s a low percentage game, but the chance to sight cast to giant pelagic fish has been driving these guys to delay hauling their boats another day, to burn through tanks of gasoline, and to temporarily lose feeling in their hands and toes due to cold running. It’s a trade-off that, for even one hook-up, is totally worth it.

Will be watching on Monday from somewhere.

Michael Heintz of Denver sent in this picture of a bull dolphin fought, caught, and released on a trip to Cabo.

Done properly, catch and release is an awesome conservation tool. Mishandle the fish and you’re throwing back dead meat. Hannah Belford over at Flyfishergirl.com is holding a contest to promote proper fish handling and why its important to let big fish keep swimming. Check it out and maybe you’ll win a reel while you’re at it.

The Hamilton Eat-Me is my favorite fly. The Florida guide Scott Hamilton introduced me to his pattern 10 years ago on a trip where we used the same fly to catch baby tarpon, dolphin (mahi), and false albacore. He gave me one and the next day I used it freshwater fishing and caught largemouth and peacock bass.

Since then I’ve caught 21 different salt and freshwater species with an eat-me. Hamilton says the species count is well over 100. (Like Alex said today on 40 Rivers, a good streamer/baitfish pattern will work for just about anything.)

It’s a simple, durable, deadly baitfish pattern. I like simple. I like durable. Deadly, too.

When I started epoxying my fingers together tying a few years ago, I followed suit and made variations in different sizes and color schemes.

Hook: whatever size you need,  saltwater nasty.

Hair: Super hair; white with variations of green, chartreuse, brown, black, yellow, blue…whatever.

Thread: mono

Head: big ass eyes encased in epoxy.