Fishing With Face

Look folks, one celled organisms pretty much know nothing except contact with food, but when quorum chemicals indicate they are in the majority the one celled organism all turn genes on and off and become a slime mass and act as if a multi organ cell.

Octopus? hunt with chemicals that anesthetize their prey.

Quote: Fleastiff

Octopus? hunt with chemicals that anesthetize their prey.

Also been known to leave their aquarium to go eat a fish in another aquarium.

Octopi are scary smart. Not just for what they can do, learn, and figure out, but because they can do that stuff with no teaching whatsoever. They don't have books to reference (obviously), they have no parenting structure to teach and learn, no social structure to learn by observation, no communication structure to pass on information. Each octopus starts from scratch and builds its entire base of knowledge completely independently. That is nothing short of amazing.

Ah.... the idyllic Bahamas and other Ports O' Call: Grenadinnes and St. Vincent....the entire Caribbean beckons.

Adding up the Canadian and USA travel advisories for the Bahamas its beginning to look like one might be safer handing out Bibles in strife torn Lebanon than cruising the Bahamas in a yacht.

Doctors killed. Tourists hacked for a cheap "gold" chain. Boatswain killed for twenty dollars drug money. And all this in a country that treats firearms far more seriously than heroin.

I'm officially taking at least half the season off racing. That means I can get back into my other love, and revive this thread =)

A bit of a slow start this year. The cricks have been tore up and unfishable until pretty much last week. I've only been there once and saw nothing, but videos are still going around of absolutely massive trout runs just down stream. I think this year will be a case of the trout/bass mix down at the big crick, which I'm gonna take a whack at as early as tomorrow (was gonna be today, but I got distracted)

Jax has been chomping at the bit, of course. Grandma got him a "kids pole", one which had a spinning reel instead of the typical push button. Being a toy, and since all modern toys suck, it broke just putting it together. But seeing the spinning reel got me thinking...

I took Jax out Saturday with my own gear. Sure, even my UL rig is about twice the size he's used to, and he's never used a spinning reel, but I fancy myself a good teacher and even better father. I shit you not - not 12 minutes later he had it down pat, casting dead down the driveway in a manner such that actual fishing was completely doable. So not a half of a half hour after beginning the first lesson, we tossed the gear in the truck and headed to the pond.

I was somewhat prepared and had the aquarium cleaned, assembled, filled, and conditioning for about a week. And of course, since we did catch one, Jax wanted to keep it. It wasn't a slab of a pumpkinseed, but it was big enough it won't be complete torture keeping it fed. The problem is that I foolishly set out the trap and caught 6 juvies. I didn't use my head and realize that there'd be no way the kid was gonna let me release them, and it'll likely be a month before I get something in there to eat them. So now the tank has 6 juvies. WTF am I gonna do with these?

On top of that, the tank isn't really ready yet. It was set up as a smallmouth habitat. Open water, large rocky bottom. I had no structure, no plants, and no trees for these pond dwelling specimens. The adult cruised back and forth trying to make sense of its invisible barriers, and all the juvies dove for the rocks, hiding out of sight. I did make a quick bouquet of branches and sunk my manufactured bush, which did cause the juvies to appear and take up residence. But how to feed them? It does take about 2 weeks for an adult to acclimate and begin eating, but the juvies, much like children, are often more aggressive and adventurous. And hell, even small worms, maggots, or anything else I can usually procure are too big for them. I was pretty lost.

Until today. My garden was a mess so I spent all day getting it ready to be pretty. My pond is obviously filled, and as our winters don't allow year round pumping, it has been stagnant. And, as everyone knows, stagnant water and warmth equals mosquito breeding. That thing is absolutely lousy with millions of wriggling larvae... and the lightbulb went off. Not one to squander an easy resource, I got my bait net, made a dip, and put it in a bowl of water. Tons of larvae filled the bowl. I was on to something.



Now, I don't exactly want to fill my home with mosquitoes. But, then again, what other option is there? So, at the risk of great personal pain and discomfort, I brought in the bowl and loosed 50 mosquitoes into my tank. What a row! The juvies came to life and hammered left and right. Wasn't a full minute before those 6 little buggers cleaned the tank of all 50. Back to the pond I went and in with 50 more I came. They didn't hesitate. And now the fish that had been pretty much locked in cover are all over the water column, swimming to and fro and having a good ol time.

(Needs to be HD or you can't see them)


Cool stuff =) Ain't been two days and already doing new stuff and having a ton of fun. Damn shame they'll all be eaten up by larger fish by the end of the month =/

Cool!

I have heard it said that fish kill more mosquitoes than bats could ever dream of. And I think, really, to breed successfully the skeeters need to find places there in fact are no fish.... which is easily done of course.

Quote: odiousgambit

Cool!

I thought so. Glad you do, too =)

Quote: OG

I have heard it said that fish kill more mosquitoes than bats could ever dream of. And I think, really, to breed successfully the skeeters need to find places there in fact are no fish.... which is easily done of course.

After what I've seen, I don't doubt it. Even though I fed them a hundred yesterday, I fed them again today. I really want to get that pond going, but can't bring myself to lose the resource. So I figured I'll just use all the larvae and then can empty it in good conscience. "100" wasn't an exaggeration; I counted what I saw in the bowl and came up with 42, and some of the bowl was out of shot, and I filled that bowl twice. So when I say I put 150-200 in today, I mean it. I actually though I overdid it and they wouldn't all get eaten, and in two weeks my house would be full of skeeters. Man, it didn't take 3 minutes. Zip, bang, boom, those juvies were all over the place, and before I could say "boo" the tank was eaten empty again. These things ain't but 3cm long yet, and each larvae is close to a full cm themselves. Doesn't matter. They monstered them.

I've half a mind to just put the juvies in the pond itself and let them go wild. But then, of course, I wouldn't be able to watch. So I'll just do it the hard (and rewarding) way =)

So yeah. The crick looks absolutely splendid, the perfect "tea" color that I love to fish. And a buddy of mine posted a pic of a really nice smallie he caught, so with the smell of rain beginning to fill my nose, I headed out today before I missed the opportunity. About the time I packed my pockets with the necessary gear (fishing tool, back up lure, phone, LifeSavers, smokes, lighter, Glock), sprinkles began to dot my driveway. Damn and blast. But, with an email hot off the press notifying me of acceptance to my new employment, I knew time for fishing was soon going to be a hot commodity. So go now, because you never know when you'll be able to go again.

It really was a decent day. Back at my old stomping grounds, the same slate outcroppings I trod on as a kid younger than my son is now. Dreary and overcast, yet somehow containing a sweet melancholy instead of outright depression. The day was sort of like a sad country song; it tore at your heart, but it felt good and made you happy anyways.

I started way up at the end of the big rapids and soon was in full daydream. I began giving a class to no one in particular, going over what I was doing in my mind as if I was training someone. I suppose I'm being guided into teacher mode in preparation for taking out the kid (or in case FrG happens out this way, or I convince Ace to forsake the city for easier living ;)). I think it also is just keeping my own self sharp. Much like the military or anything else that puts a premium on technique, even the simplest stuff needs be gone over ad infinitum to ensure you're at your very best.

And it is kind of neat (to me, anyways) to notice and observe how different fishing is from one habitat to another, or even in different parts of the same habitat. Fishing running water really is unlike most other fishing one does. Most times, and maybe all times for the uninformed, hooking a fish is done through the cue of "feeling the bite". At the crick, this whole idea gets turned on its head.

In a simple 40 foot cast across the crick, the "feel" changes at minimum 4 times through the retrieve, and I counted as many as 8. You cast to the other shore and the water is still. Your lure feels dead on the other end. You approach the rocks on the edge of the channel, and the increase of water pressure as it goes around the rock feels like a pull. You drop behind the rock into an eddy and it goes dead again. You hit the rock and feel a sharp "tonk". You clear the rock and it pulls again, often over smaller rocks that have accumulated which give a bunch of "tink" feelings like nibbles. Into the main channel and now it really pulls. You mix the tinks, tonks, and pulls, and every cast feels like you should have caught 3 or 4 different fish at once. It's something you really have to be aware of. Every time you yank unnecessarily, that's 6' of water you didn't fish. That's pulling a bait out of the water, that ending a retrieve, that's missing a school you were just about to run through. And even with my experience, I still get the skip of the heart or twitch of the wrist when I feel it =)

I had been going over this lesson for nearly an hour, as the rain came down and the water flowed by. I had run over a number of pebble piles, snagged a bunch of rocks, and other than two hard snags, hadn't set on any false bites so far. I was retrieving past an eddy where I knew there were rocks when I felt a double tonk that, for some reason, lit up my brain with "FISH". I don't know why, other than it must've felt different from the 10,000 other tinks or tonks I had already felt this day. I of course figured I probably ran over the back of a sucker, but whatever. I'll snag a sucker if that's what it comes to. I gotta go home smelling like fish, one way or the other.

I casted right back, nothing. I casted again, ensuring I went over the exact same spot. Nothing. If it was rocks, surely I'd feel the same tink and tonk, no? Cast again, and BIG TONK. I set, and hold. Often times a big tonk is just a rock. You set and hold. If you've snagged a rock, nothing happens. You hold, feel no struggle, then ease off the tension and the lure falls loose. If it's a fish, you set and hold and stuff happens. Maybe it slowly pulls toward you, maybe it pulls away, maybe the water explodes in front of you in fury. But always set and hold.

I set, hold, and it pulls toward me. Sure enough, FISH ON! I went out today expecting to hook an early smallie, maybe get a late spawning steelhead. Sure enough, a great silver slab floats to the surface and then explodes into the run. I really wasn't ready. I hadn't set my drag properly, I hadn't set the hook properly, and I even scaled down my gear even further than I usually do. And sure enough, I hooked a monster bow dead in a run. I lucked out big time on this one as it ran out of the run and onto a shale step before it really uncorked its fury, and I managed to get control over it before it really cut lose. Unfortunately, I'm a little out of practice not having caught one of these in a few years, and instead of snagging the gill plate with lightning finesse, I sort of fumbled around a bit. One shake with me holding the line, and with no give in the drag since the line was wrapped around my hand, it snapped my 4lb test and returned to the water. No worries about the lure being left in, they don't call them steelhead for nothing. It was more held in by pressure than puncture, and hadn't penetrated the thick mouth at all. I'm sure one shake sent it loose, and I have no doubt it has already done so.

I was a bit put out. She was 6lbs easy, and I really wanted a pic. I was near the end of my run and contemplated just packing it in, but I figured I needed to retie if for no other reason than to have something hold my line so it didn't tangle. And since I retied, I might as well enjoy the buzz and cast a bit until it wore off. Wouldn't you know... very next cast in the very same spot, FISH ON!

Another steelhead. I saw its silver almost immediately. This one was quite a bit smaller, and that much more full of energy. Dead into the run, jumping, flipping, flopping. And stupid me still hadn't bothered to adjust the drag. So whatever, let it do what it wants, and I'll just chase it all the way down past the bridge if I had to =p Fortunately I was still on that shale step, and after a bit of drama and 5 or 6 really hard runs, I managed to steer it onto it and get it corralled.



Just a three pounder, but every bit as fun. Not a bad start to the season and it's got me hopeful for the rest =)

yeah, that's cool, I'm inspired!

Quote: Face

.... But, with an email hot off the press notifying me of acceptance to my new employment, I knew time for fishing was soon going to be a hot commodity. So go now, because you never know when you'll be able to go again...

New job? Congratulations Face!