Too many lawyers and not enough old fashioned common sense.
Is it possible that y'all have the circle hooks but just know them by another name? http://www.in-fisherman.com/files/2013/01/Circle-Hooks.gif
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fishing, but not in UK - or in UK if you like. All manner of fish and shellfish.
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Too many lawyers and not enough old fashioned common sense.
Is it possible that y'all have the circle hooks but just know them by another name? http://www.in-fisherman.com/files/2013/01/Circle-Hooks.gif
The point of a circle hook is they will not hook in the gut, but slide up because the point is turned away. The fish clamps onto the bait which is trying to be pulled away and the curve slides behind the jaw lip bone and then the point can come to play and the fish ends up lip hooked.
We had a nice 5 hour day. Insulated some ceiling and put doors on salvaged floor cabinets. These cabinets were built in by a building owner, and later ripped out - and I got given them by asking the workers wrecking them out. Massively overbuilt, and by someone who does not know much - so just uses bigger wood and more fasteners - but super tough. I had dismantled them and rebuilt them from the components with modifications. Nice cabinets for the cabin utility room - where I will store my tools.
And wile looking for a 10 ft rod I stumbled on a half price sale! Walmart. A 'ugly stick' (American good brand) 10 foot surf rod, big pen level wind reel, big spool 40 pound line, for $66! Then a light 'girls' rod and reel, pink, was at $80, paid $35! And a small, shoulder bag, fabric and plastic, a tackle bag, $9! Amazing timing, I have been looking for a big fish rig for muscling in sheephead fish off the harbour wall this winter. And for bull reds (over 25 pounds - pretty common here)
And here is a gecko on my kitchen celling, one lives in the cabinet, a couple others here and there in the house, and on the porch several ones stick to the side of the house around the stair light. Then the tub of white trout in the kitchen is 20 pounds of fish. In the video when I say 'they are all here' was when someone caught a small redfish and the first specks had shown up - so the 3 kinds of fish had arrived. Only the specks were very scarce, appearing for a bit and gone again. Most of the fish in this video are 'Ladyfish' a very fast silver fish not regarded as good to eat but a strong fighter and leaper - and is a nuisance in this place, but mostly do not bite the baits being used for trout and reds. In amongst then are trout - hard to tell if you do not know them well - but any darker one, or especially one with a darker tail - is a trout. Most of the ones popping on the top out a bit are trout. Everyone filled their cooler with the whites. They are good to eat, just small fillets.
And you can see how everyone is clumped up at the light. You cannot see everyone, on the other side of the light pole are half a dozen not showing up in the video. There were 11 of us then. I actually really enjoy the crowd. Always a different mix, American White country people, Black people, country and urban, Chinese and Vietnamese a lot, an African and a Dominican Republic guy. I know them all and get along with everybody, or the about 25 people who come often - even the crazy ones (only a couple of those). Always good company as everyone is there to enjoy themselves so tries to keep the mood friendly - being in the group, and knowing so many, the dynamic of the people is real fun if you go with it and not be all judgmental. (they are mostly not very middle class - almost none of them really - this is not a spot middle class would ever show up at) So some will litter, make a mess, get drunk (not much - 'public drunk' in USA is a going to jail thing) throw old fishing line over the fence, leave dead fish of the kind that is bothersome laying on the pavement dead...... Cast over your line, crowd in, play bad music on a portable player, and so on. But it really is lots better than fishing alone - or even with a friend, the group has a bit of buzz to it. But 90% are just friendly and considerate and leave no mess.
[video=youtube;SGRglA9BYGI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGRglA9BYGI&feature=youtu.be[/video]
The cooler we filled, the one I open, is me and Bob's fish, he is my main fishing friend (very middle class) we thew back 3 for every one kept - many are quite little.
We had a nice 5 hour day. Insulated some ceiling and put doors on salvaged floor cabinets. These cabinets were built in by a building owner, and later ripped out - and I got given them by asking the workers wrecking them out. Massively overbuilt, and by someone who does not know much - so just uses bigger wood and more fasteners - but super tough. I had dismantled them and rebuilt them from the components with modifications. Nice cabinets for the cabin utility room - where I will store my tools.
And wile looking for a 10 ft rod I stumbled on a half price sale! Walmart. A 'ugly stick' (American good brand) 10 foot surf rod, big pen level wind reel, big spool 40 pound line, for $66! Then a light 'girls' rod and reel, pink, was at $80, paid $35! And a small, shoulder bag, fabric and plastic, a tackle bag, $9! Amazing timing, I have been looking for a big fish rig for muscling in sheephead fish off the harbour wall this winter. And for bull reds (over 25 pounds - pretty common here)
And here is a gecko on my kitchen celling, one lives in the cabinet, a couple others here and there in the house, and on the porch several ones stick to the side of the house around the stair light. Then the tub of white trout in the kitchen is 20 pounds of fish. In the video when I say 'they are all here' was when someone caught a small redfish and the first specks had shown up - so the 3 kinds of fish had arrived. Only the specks were very scarce, appearing for a bit and gone again. Most of the fish in this video are 'Ladyfish' a very fast silver fish not regarded as good to eat but a strong fighter and leaper - and is a nuisance in this place, but mostly do not bite the baits being used for trout and reds. In amongst then are trout - hard to tell if you do not know them well - but any darker one, or especially one with a darker tail - is a trout. Most of the ones popping on the top out a bit are trout. Everyone filled their cooler with the whites. They are good to eat, just small fillets.
And you can see how everyone is clumped up at the light. You cannot see everyone, on the other side of the light pole are half a dozen not showing up in the video. There were 11 of us then. I actually really enjoy the crowd. Always a different mix, American White country people, Black people, country and urban, Chinese and Vietnamese a lot, an African and a Dominican Republic guy. I know them all and get along with everybody, or the about 25 people who come often - even the crazy ones (only a couple of those). Always good company as everyone is there to enjoy themselves so tries to keep the mood friendly - being in the group, and knowing so many, the dynamic of the people is real fun if you go with it and not be all judgmental. (they are mostly not very middle class - almost none of them really - this is not a spot middle class would ever show up at) So some will litter, make a mess, get drunk (not much - 'public drunk' in USA is a going to jail thing) throw old fishing line over the fence, leave dead fish of the kind that is bothersome laying on the pavement dead...... Cast over your line, crowd in, play bad music on a portable player, and so on. But it really is lots better than fishing alone - or even with a friend, the group has a bit of buzz to it. But 90% are just friendly and considerate and leave no mess.
[video=youtube;SGRglA9BYGI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGRglA9BYGI&feature=youtu.be[/video]
The cooler we filled, the one I open, is me and Bob's fish, he is my main fishing friend (very middle class) we thew back 3 for every one kept - many are quite little.
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Tired last night, spent much of the day on a ladder - and I wrecked my feet standing on ladders for so many years, then with nerve damage from something else - so did not enjoy that. So I did the lazy kind of fishing - I cast out some rabbit food pellets and some of my special pogy based shrimp bait off th neighbors dock, went home and got the soup ready (clam/shrimp/crab chowder with potato, celery and onions)
Then back to cast on the 3 bait spots - not much, lots of bait shrimp but only 18 eating shrimp, and those small. So more bait (I use a tiny bit of the made bait, a golf ball size divided for the 3 spots - which are only 10 foot apart, and 2 oz of rabbit food) and home to eat the soup - then back to cast again with a couple dozen keepers - go home (just down my road 300 m) have dinner (hamburgers with garlic and onion mixed with the meat - wonderful, a nice change from fish, and a salad) Out to cast and only another dozen keepers, and put my stuff away and finished, and then pie and whipped cream. A total of a quart (US = 32 oz volum) will make enough to accompany a fish dinner.
I really worry the shrimp will pass us by this year. They should be huge and thick now, and I should be filling the freezer with them. Shrimp swim in shoals like fish, they move about at the same speed as small fish - they only walk on the bottom to feed and sleep. They bury in the sand, or mud, during the days mostly and move about at night, which is why I net them after dark. This is what is being caught - a gallon of them (US), which is work to get now. And small, but good.
Then back to cast on the 3 bait spots - not much, lots of bait shrimp but only 18 eating shrimp, and those small. So more bait (I use a tiny bit of the made bait, a golf ball size divided for the 3 spots - which are only 10 foot apart, and 2 oz of rabbit food) and home to eat the soup - then back to cast again with a couple dozen keepers - go home (just down my road 300 m) have dinner (hamburgers with garlic and onion mixed with the meat - wonderful, a nice change from fish, and a salad) Out to cast and only another dozen keepers, and put my stuff away and finished, and then pie and whipped cream. A total of a quart (US = 32 oz volum) will make enough to accompany a fish dinner.
I really worry the shrimp will pass us by this year. They should be huge and thick now, and I should be filling the freezer with them. Shrimp swim in shoals like fish, they move about at the same speed as small fish - they only walk on the bottom to feed and sleep. They bury in the sand, or mud, during the days mostly and move about at night, which is why I net them after dark. This is what is being caught - a gallon of them (US), which is work to get now. And small, but good.
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No moon last night! It was all windy and rainy with full cloud covering and I missed the blood moon eclipse. Then the drum circle on the beach fizzled out too - then I canceled work today because we have to cut the wood outside and I cannot hang wet ceiling and wall coverings or the moisture would be trapped - I have insulated all the walls and celling.
About midnight last night the rain had stopped so I went to my floating bait tank and got about fifty shrimp and went out on the harbour wall just to get outside. The wind was very strong from the East and the wall was breaking the small whitecaps so under the light was fine, choppy and windy, but easily fishable. And as always now, a white trout bite right away, on every cast. I did get a nice one on the first cast but had decided to only keep specks so gave it away - and then another. The fisherman who was taking them gave me a bucket and I ended up filling it 1/4 full of nice ones, 8 pounds of them probably. I regretted giving them all away when leaving as they were all nice ones - but could not empty the bucket into my bag after giving them to her. Just as well - I catch too much fish.
Today I am going to grind the white trout fillets from Thursday that I have left, 3 pounds, with what shrimp I have from a bit of weekend casting, maybe half a pound of peeled meat - and the spicy cooked shrimp I also caught last week and Cajun boiled Friday, 4 ounces of meat. It is not enough shrimp. There is the very last bag of frozen shrimp from last year, a small one, about 8 oz of meat. Total is 3 pounds white trout, 1 1/4 pound shrimp. Then 2 eggs and 2 pounds of cold, mashed, Russet potatoes.
This is exactly the meat grinder I have, works well - we always had one to process the deer we would shoot, and now days use it for grinding alligator gar to make fish cakes. (photo from web)
I hope the cakes work well. The taste of speck and white trout is one I am tired of, too much for too many years - I had thought of grinding it with a can, 14.75oz, 418g, of drained Alaskan pink salmon - which you can buy at The Dollar store, just down the road from me, for $2.50. We never tired of eating salmon and I thought it would change the flavor completely, for the better, but my wife says she wants it without any non-local additions so we can try it. The canned salmon is one of our favorites, I make excellent salmon cakes and salmon loaf from it, a nice change from local seafood. I even sometimes buy fish sticks, fish fingers, as they are a food group of their own, and also wonderful.
Lots of ways to get some fish. (pictures from web)
About midnight last night the rain had stopped so I went to my floating bait tank and got about fifty shrimp and went out on the harbour wall just to get outside. The wind was very strong from the East and the wall was breaking the small whitecaps so under the light was fine, choppy and windy, but easily fishable. And as always now, a white trout bite right away, on every cast. I did get a nice one on the first cast but had decided to only keep specks so gave it away - and then another. The fisherman who was taking them gave me a bucket and I ended up filling it 1/4 full of nice ones, 8 pounds of them probably. I regretted giving them all away when leaving as they were all nice ones - but could not empty the bucket into my bag after giving them to her. Just as well - I catch too much fish.
Today I am going to grind the white trout fillets from Thursday that I have left, 3 pounds, with what shrimp I have from a bit of weekend casting, maybe half a pound of peeled meat - and the spicy cooked shrimp I also caught last week and Cajun boiled Friday, 4 ounces of meat. It is not enough shrimp. There is the very last bag of frozen shrimp from last year, a small one, about 8 oz of meat. Total is 3 pounds white trout, 1 1/4 pound shrimp. Then 2 eggs and 2 pounds of cold, mashed, Russet potatoes.
This is exactly the meat grinder I have, works well - we always had one to process the deer we would shoot, and now days use it for grinding alligator gar to make fish cakes. (photo from web)
I hope the cakes work well. The taste of speck and white trout is one I am tired of, too much for too many years - I had thought of grinding it with a can, 14.75oz, 418g, of drained Alaskan pink salmon - which you can buy at The Dollar store, just down the road from me, for $2.50. We never tired of eating salmon and I thought it would change the flavor completely, for the better, but my wife says she wants it without any non-local additions so we can try it. The canned salmon is one of our favorites, I make excellent salmon cakes and salmon loaf from it, a nice change from local seafood. I even sometimes buy fish sticks, fish fingers, as they are a food group of their own, and also wonderful.
Lots of ways to get some fish. (pictures from web)
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I cannot help going out to the harbour - Bob and I went out again last night and the white trout were crazy. If you put on two rubber bodied jigs, or two hooks with cut fish bits you would get one or two every cast. We fished shrimp for specks but still ended up with loads of white trout, and I have - I would guess, 10 pounds of them to clean now, maybe more, with the ice it is half a cooler.
And when we gave it up and left the specks were just biting as the white trout had gone deeper leaving the surface to specks - and we were out of bait. That is the thing, the specks are there but the white trout hit it right away - and the specks wait till later when the others are full.
Lovely out, the water flat like a bath - trout everywhere swimming and popping the top. Lots of people though - we left after the majority and I took over half a 5 gallon bucket of trash they had left - what is it with people? The main group were a particularly rough bunch - about 8 younger men fishing together, but polite - I imagine they would be a scary group if you were not from here, but they are not a problem. Then about 6 other people were crowed in with a couple Chinese and some country White men and a Black couple. The big group left a few big beer cans - but like most Americans - do not get drunk in public. The place is very diverse - and almost every one says hello and are polite - rudeness is almost unheard of. We are crowed onto a walkway 3 foot wide and over 100 meters down it from the parking - and all under the one light, so crowd in. 16 of us.
Is anyone fishing?
And when we gave it up and left the specks were just biting as the white trout had gone deeper leaving the surface to specks - and we were out of bait. That is the thing, the specks are there but the white trout hit it right away - and the specks wait till later when the others are full.
Lovely out, the water flat like a bath - trout everywhere swimming and popping the top. Lots of people though - we left after the majority and I took over half a 5 gallon bucket of trash they had left - what is it with people? The main group were a particularly rough bunch - about 8 younger men fishing together, but polite - I imagine they would be a scary group if you were not from here, but they are not a problem. Then about 6 other people were crowed in with a couple Chinese and some country White men and a Black couple. The big group left a few big beer cans - but like most Americans - do not get drunk in public. The place is very diverse - and almost every one says hello and are polite - rudeness is almost unheard of. We are crowed onto a walkway 3 foot wide and over 100 meters down it from the parking - and all under the one light, so crowd in. 16 of us.
Is anyone fishing?
I cleaned the load of white trout yesterday and after filleting I cut off the belly meat and slice it for the chickens - they are mad about it and with the rib bone and meat strips have a good pound of it for today.
I microwaved 3 whole white trout yesterday for the chickens - 2-3 minutes a side for 3 of them on a plate. When cooled I took the meat off the biggest one and put it where the chicks could get it and they went mad for it! All the rest went to the big chickens and they loved it. The whole backbones would be eaten like a noodle, swallowed longways and every last bit eaten except the jaw bones which I had removed as too toothy and bony.
I microwaved 3 whole white trout yesterday for the chickens - 2-3 minutes a side for 3 of them on a plate. When cooled I took the meat off the biggest one and put it where the chicks could get it and they went mad for it! All the rest went to the big chickens and they loved it. The whole backbones would be eaten like a noodle, swallowed longways and every last bit eaten except the jaw bones which I had removed as too toothy and bony.
Time to pull the crab traps and cook the catch - we have a dozen in the holding cage as well. The problem is picking the meat - I want my wife to work at it with me but she seems to expect me to pick them. It is a chore, I can do about 14 an hour so if we end up with two dozen will take just over an hour togther. We put on some TV and she does the claws wile I do the body. I find about 16 crabs to a pound of meat.
Cold today for the first time, cold enough for the first sweater of the year. Gray and wet out. The night before yesterday the first shrimp began showing up at the most popular spots. The harbour has the boat launch covered with netters and an industrial canal that has about 150 foot of public water has the 6 spots to net occupied by mid afternoon. They set up with coolers and lights and hold the spot till dark. Not many good spots you can drive up to. Room for about 30 people/small groups; places with good shrimp near here. Naturally when the shrimp get going you have to get at one of them early to wait for dark and the shrimp. When shrimp are in a netter can get his fifty pound daily limit provided they know the process of baiting and throwing. More typical would be 25 pounds. They will be Jumbos (9 to 25 count - the system of sizing shrimp, how many tails to the pound) during a few weeks and then people get really wild. These will be big enough to butterfly and BBQ, or just any way.
Like these from last year
Anyway they always say the shrimp come in on the cold weather, and here it is. Since May you have only to have shorts and a T shirt day or night, now, today, it is sweater at noon.
I need to net fifty pounds of pogies for the chickens winter ration and freeze in bags - and also 20 pounds to liquidize for shrimp bait. I have a 1 gallon bucket of a new kind of shrimp bait I am trying, and will go out on the bayou tonight to see how it works, and to see if they have come in here yet. My bayou is never good shrimping, but I have a private spot that is pretty good sometimes and then I have a good shrimping spot from my boat, if they go there - shrimp are unpredictable.
Like these from last year
Anyway they always say the shrimp come in on the cold weather, and here it is. Since May you have only to have shorts and a T shirt day or night, now, today, it is sweater at noon.
I need to net fifty pounds of pogies for the chickens winter ration and freeze in bags - and also 20 pounds to liquidize for shrimp bait. I have a 1 gallon bucket of a new kind of shrimp bait I am trying, and will go out on the bayou tonight to see how it works, and to see if they have come in here yet. My bayou is never good shrimping, but I have a private spot that is pretty good sometimes and then I have a good shrimping spot from my boat, if they go there - shrimp are unpredictable.
Last night I went around a few spots - the small bayou, the Industrial canal, harbours, places where the shrimpers set up and all there was were 3 groups set up on a boat launch. Then out on the wall, under the light 4 guys were catching white trout. They said the ground mullet had been biting before dark and white trout were biting within a minute of casting - they were filling up a cooler with them. Also the night previous a guy had gotten 100 pounds of mixed shrimp - most being in the 20's size (big) but most others had done poorly.
I have lots to do, today a metal shed roof - then I have to organize my life's paperwork. The end of all BP oil spill claims deadline was this June 8 and we submitted 9 claims in all, with 5 jammed in on June 7. To do these I had to completely undo all my file cabinet of about everything! The spill was April 12 2010 (about) and having to reconstruct it all was a huge thing. Tax records, every kind of land deed, plat maps, building permits, surveys, wetland determinations, old fishing licenses, boat registrations, proof of attending oil cleanup classes, PB boat captain contracts and classes , oil cleanup jobs dates and companies, - then printing off pictures, receipts................. And since that time all my paperwork is in huge piles in my office/guest bedroom, on the bed, chairs, and desk 4 inches deep with empty file folders.
Then I have to file my taxes, dreadful! Self employed, deprecation schedules, just horrible, late too, and then I need to get the drawings together for that cottage and file a claim against a title insurance company, and finally I have hired on to a job starting in December so need to get back to London to see the parents before that...... Does anyone live near London? want to meet up?
What this means is fishing is something I will need to plan rather than just do - if it means being up all night especially. And it is cold out for here, for this time of year. High 28C, low 18C. I use a British IP address so when I look up the weather in my town it gives it in Centigrade! Then I have to convert it to F (82F, 64F) I cannot believe Britain went metric, horrible giving up Imperial measures - Canada and Australia too! I am proud of USA sticking to Imperial with our gallons, miles and inches, and Fahrenheit. I remember decimalizing the money in about 1970 - terrible, and I think why the younger people cannot do arithmetic. No more adding twelve and fourpence, two pounds thruppence hay-penny and seven and ninepence in ones head.
Anyway, I want to get out fishing Wednesday night. I bought a 12 foot rod on half price sale, $100 reduced to $49.99, a light surf casting rod. My plan is to use it for dappling live shrimp under the light on the wall. See, directly under the light are all manner of troublesome fish. Sometimes little 4 inch sail cats will be so thick one cannot see water between them! But mostly it is loads of pinfish and croakers, just down a foot or two. If you put a live shrimp there very soon they come up and kill it, it just takes a second - you see them rising and before you can gently reel in your bait they have hit it, killing it. I want to try just placing the shrimp on the surface, and lifting it as they come up, and putting it back when they go back deeper - 'dappling' it like one does with a fly. Specks hang under there but the bait is killed before they get to it. Sounds cool.
Big bull reds are out and I may put out a rod for them - although I do not think I want one, but then one under 25 pounds would be worth trying maybe. Here is one a woman got out there
Mostly they cook the big ones on the 'half shell' on the charcoal grill so they have lots of flavor and my tiny charcoal grill could not accommodate anything like one of those fillets - but I may experiment.
Then I need to get out to my shrimp spot in the boat. I hope my old battery is up to it, it is about a 40 minute run out and 40 back - and the battery is pretty old. I use a small electric motor to push my boat, just a car battery that is made for deep discharging and recharging. Rowing back would be something my old carpenter's back would not like.
So anyone fishing? Anyone at all? I have to go roofing. Here is a July roof - this roofing we buy as off cuts very cheap and it is good for 100 years, galvanized and aluminum coated and then baked on paint, heavy gage steel. Today is a small shed roof - and I want to chainsaw some 12 foot marine pilings in half lengthwise too - I do not know if I can, never tried a long rip, and marine pilings are super hard with all the copper they are injected with - they feel heavy having so much metal in the wood.
[video=youtube;4IEx5_IhT1M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IEx5_IhT1M[/video]
I have lots to do, today a metal shed roof - then I have to organize my life's paperwork. The end of all BP oil spill claims deadline was this June 8 and we submitted 9 claims in all, with 5 jammed in on June 7. To do these I had to completely undo all my file cabinet of about everything! The spill was April 12 2010 (about) and having to reconstruct it all was a huge thing. Tax records, every kind of land deed, plat maps, building permits, surveys, wetland determinations, old fishing licenses, boat registrations, proof of attending oil cleanup classes, PB boat captain contracts and classes , oil cleanup jobs dates and companies, - then printing off pictures, receipts................. And since that time all my paperwork is in huge piles in my office/guest bedroom, on the bed, chairs, and desk 4 inches deep with empty file folders.
Then I have to file my taxes, dreadful! Self employed, deprecation schedules, just horrible, late too, and then I need to get the drawings together for that cottage and file a claim against a title insurance company, and finally I have hired on to a job starting in December so need to get back to London to see the parents before that...... Does anyone live near London? want to meet up?
What this means is fishing is something I will need to plan rather than just do - if it means being up all night especially. And it is cold out for here, for this time of year. High 28C, low 18C. I use a British IP address so when I look up the weather in my town it gives it in Centigrade! Then I have to convert it to F (82F, 64F) I cannot believe Britain went metric, horrible giving up Imperial measures - Canada and Australia too! I am proud of USA sticking to Imperial with our gallons, miles and inches, and Fahrenheit. I remember decimalizing the money in about 1970 - terrible, and I think why the younger people cannot do arithmetic. No more adding twelve and fourpence, two pounds thruppence hay-penny and seven and ninepence in ones head.
Anyway, I want to get out fishing Wednesday night. I bought a 12 foot rod on half price sale, $100 reduced to $49.99, a light surf casting rod. My plan is to use it for dappling live shrimp under the light on the wall. See, directly under the light are all manner of troublesome fish. Sometimes little 4 inch sail cats will be so thick one cannot see water between them! But mostly it is loads of pinfish and croakers, just down a foot or two. If you put a live shrimp there very soon they come up and kill it, it just takes a second - you see them rising and before you can gently reel in your bait they have hit it, killing it. I want to try just placing the shrimp on the surface, and lifting it as they come up, and putting it back when they go back deeper - 'dappling' it like one does with a fly. Specks hang under there but the bait is killed before they get to it. Sounds cool.
Big bull reds are out and I may put out a rod for them - although I do not think I want one, but then one under 25 pounds would be worth trying maybe. Here is one a woman got out there
Mostly they cook the big ones on the 'half shell' on the charcoal grill so they have lots of flavor and my tiny charcoal grill could not accommodate anything like one of those fillets - but I may experiment.
Then I need to get out to my shrimp spot in the boat. I hope my old battery is up to it, it is about a 40 minute run out and 40 back - and the battery is pretty old. I use a small electric motor to push my boat, just a car battery that is made for deep discharging and recharging. Rowing back would be something my old carpenter's back would not like.
So anyone fishing? Anyone at all? I have to go roofing. Here is a July roof - this roofing we buy as off cuts very cheap and it is good for 100 years, galvanized and aluminum coated and then baked on paint, heavy gage steel. Today is a small shed roof - and I want to chainsaw some 12 foot marine pilings in half lengthwise too - I do not know if I can, never tried a long rip, and marine pilings are super hard with all the copper they are injected with - they feel heavy having so much metal in the wood.
[video=youtube;4IEx5_IhT1M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IEx5_IhT1M[/video]
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Did the roof on the shed, easy and a good job. Then I thought why not go down to the harbour during the day and see how the white trout and ground mullet are doing. These little guys - small inshore here, but tasty, thought highly of by the local fishermen. (picture from web)
And it was a wild. fifteen people out on the long wall and I got amongst them and fished with some dead shrimp - then caught a pinfish, filleted that and used bits of it for trout and mullet bait. (no relation to gray mullet) I had two hooks and would get one to two a cast - wild fishing. Great fun and I was giving most away to the others who come out a couple times a year to stock the freezer. When I left an hour later there were 30 people there to squeeze by.
Today was warm again, T shirt weather and my friend wants to go out tonight, either late for specks, or an hour after dark to try for white trout and ground mullet. I have to decide if I want to join him - will be fun but have to consider tomorrow because if I go out later I like it out there on the Gulf at night I know it will be 4 a.m. before I come home. I take Flora and Jack dogs and they sit in the truck back in the parking area - my dogs love to go anywhere in the truck, even to just sit in a parking lot.
So, who is fishing? Are there any sea fish biting in UK? I seem to remember cod would come in during the cold months - what about mackerel?
Any trout or other fish? Pike?
And it was a wild. fifteen people out on the long wall and I got amongst them and fished with some dead shrimp - then caught a pinfish, filleted that and used bits of it for trout and mullet bait. (no relation to gray mullet) I had two hooks and would get one to two a cast - wild fishing. Great fun and I was giving most away to the others who come out a couple times a year to stock the freezer. When I left an hour later there were 30 people there to squeeze by.
Today was warm again, T shirt weather and my friend wants to go out tonight, either late for specks, or an hour after dark to try for white trout and ground mullet. I have to decide if I want to join him - will be fun but have to consider tomorrow because if I go out later I like it out there on the Gulf at night I know it will be 4 a.m. before I come home. I take Flora and Jack dogs and they sit in the truck back in the parking area - my dogs love to go anywhere in the truck, even to just sit in a parking lot.
So, who is fishing? Are there any sea fish biting in UK? I seem to remember cod would come in during the cold months - what about mackerel?
Any trout or other fish? Pike?
Replying to myself... At least I have an interesting person to talk to.
So Bob and I went out at 9 p.m. with cut bait, I had a 2 oz weight with two #4 circle hooks spaced two foot apart above it, on 4 inch droppers. Mad fishing. About 35 people under the light and I was getting one, sometimes two a cast. Keeping in close as the lines were going everywhere with the people crowded in, some using floats, some on the bottom, all dark but the big light above the middle bit. About 1/2 I would let go for being small - all the white trout are small, but some very small. No ground mullet. In about an hour we gave it up, there were 50 in the cooler and no more wanted, at least for then.
And I do enjoy the crowd, occasionally though. The people are cool - different from my typical mix, enjoyable, tough but very personable. Everyone tries hard to be friendly and all get along because we are all there to enjoy ourselves. I have been in many a "Combat Fishing" situation in different places where a crossed line can mean a cut off fish and brings out hostility and anger, possible fighting - but not his place.
At 4 a.m. I could not sleep as I was compulsively running amortization schedules through my head over a complex mortgage situation I am trying to get resolved with some other person - and money gets people worked up. And it has so many possible permutations depending on how you count principal payments made in the past versus wither they were insurance payments or tax......and compounding interest and missed payments and what the interest was..... My brain is bad about turning off when math and legal issues come together.
So I got up, put some shrimp bait, a net, a diet cola, and two dogs into the truck and went back to the harbour - a wonderful time, the people mostly gone and all is clear and still. Shrimping was poor - big jumbo shrimp, but only 1-3 a cast, and that was waiting ten minutes between throws for the bait to work. I quit after half an hour with 2/3 a gallon of nice ones and went exploring on foot. I know the night folk there, and every bit of the harbour. A friend was netting at another spot, getting less than I was and we talked - a local tough was watching - a good community man, but not so friendly, and absolutely not someone to ever mess with. He had a bit of a go at the kid I was talking with - amicable, kind of turf based, and I had to laugh a bit, as I do about most things. Some guys were hanging about on the chance shrimp would begin running, both had had a few strong beers - one had been swimming in the harbour retrieving a net that had hung on a snag, soaking wet but the night was warm enough he was fine and kept waiting for daylight.
My friend from the Caribbean Islands was out and had a big redfish on, so I got to hang with him as he walked it back down the 400 foot of the wall to the harbour proper to where he climbs 5 foot down the wall to a big rock and lifts it up with his hands. A 20 pound fish. He has been catching one or two every night this week - he is one of the 3 good fishermen in my circle there - and always does well. And then it was 5:20 and I had to get back and made my wife ham and eggs, sent her off to drive her 40 foot truck, and went to bed.
So Bob and I went out at 9 p.m. with cut bait, I had a 2 oz weight with two #4 circle hooks spaced two foot apart above it, on 4 inch droppers. Mad fishing. About 35 people under the light and I was getting one, sometimes two a cast. Keeping in close as the lines were going everywhere with the people crowded in, some using floats, some on the bottom, all dark but the big light above the middle bit. About 1/2 I would let go for being small - all the white trout are small, but some very small. No ground mullet. In about an hour we gave it up, there were 50 in the cooler and no more wanted, at least for then.
And I do enjoy the crowd, occasionally though. The people are cool - different from my typical mix, enjoyable, tough but very personable. Everyone tries hard to be friendly and all get along because we are all there to enjoy ourselves. I have been in many a "Combat Fishing" situation in different places where a crossed line can mean a cut off fish and brings out hostility and anger, possible fighting - but not his place.
At 4 a.m. I could not sleep as I was compulsively running amortization schedules through my head over a complex mortgage situation I am trying to get resolved with some other person - and money gets people worked up. And it has so many possible permutations depending on how you count principal payments made in the past versus wither they were insurance payments or tax......and compounding interest and missed payments and what the interest was..... My brain is bad about turning off when math and legal issues come together.
So I got up, put some shrimp bait, a net, a diet cola, and two dogs into the truck and went back to the harbour - a wonderful time, the people mostly gone and all is clear and still. Shrimping was poor - big jumbo shrimp, but only 1-3 a cast, and that was waiting ten minutes between throws for the bait to work. I quit after half an hour with 2/3 a gallon of nice ones and went exploring on foot. I know the night folk there, and every bit of the harbour. A friend was netting at another spot, getting less than I was and we talked - a local tough was watching - a good community man, but not so friendly, and absolutely not someone to ever mess with. He had a bit of a go at the kid I was talking with - amicable, kind of turf based, and I had to laugh a bit, as I do about most things. Some guys were hanging about on the chance shrimp would begin running, both had had a few strong beers - one had been swimming in the harbour retrieving a net that had hung on a snag, soaking wet but the night was warm enough he was fine and kept waiting for daylight.
My friend from the Caribbean Islands was out and had a big redfish on, so I got to hang with him as he walked it back down the 400 foot of the wall to the harbour proper to where he climbs 5 foot down the wall to a big rock and lifts it up with his hands. A 20 pound fish. He has been catching one or two every night this week - he is one of the 3 good fishermen in my circle there - and always does well. And then it was 5:20 and I had to get back and made my wife ham and eggs, sent her off to drive her 40 foot truck, and went to bed.
I donno George I still use imperial, doesn't really mean anything if someone gives me a mountain height in metric, whereas I can "feel" it in feet. Then again working in forestry we tended to use some pretty antiquated measuring systems that confuddled the heck out of others. Like: - Link, Perch, Rood, chains, furlongs, cords. All sorts.
Promise to try and get out soon and photograph the local burns for you. Either not had the time of the weather has been pants.
Was a real good hard frost last night though and once the mist and harr had lifted out of the dips it's been a glorious day. Hopefully get a few more too.
Promise to try and get out soon and photograph the local burns for you. Either not had the time of the weather has been pants.
Was a real good hard frost last night though and once the mist and harr had lifted out of the dips it's been a glorious day. Hopefully get a few more too.
Hi Gooner.
So Bob and I were to try selling white trout at the Farmers market tomorrow - and were going fishing at midnight last night to fill a cooler with them. I poped out to my small dock, other dock, and shell point after dark and threw out a ball of shrimp bait at each, about 1/2 the size of a golf ball, and then in to make soup - back out in half an hour to cast with my small 4' net - the big problem is I did not really carefully mark where the bait ball landed, and with such a tiny net you have to hit right on it. And caught about 35 bait shrimp. Next I threw out the 3 baits again and went inside where I made fish cake dough, back out and again forgot exactly where the bait had landed.
It is all dark and my bayou bank is solid brush with the 3 tiny clearings - and I got another 35. Not good netting. So put bait out again and back upstairs and finished the soup (curried coconut base with shrimp with potato and carrots - shrimp were big ones from a bait netting a few days ago) Then back out to throw a last time and got about 50 more. As we were getting ready to eat Bob called and canceled. Dinner was lovely, the fish cakes are the way to go as I am so utterly tired of these Gulf trout flavor.
8 oz white trout, 3 oz peeled shrimp, in a small food processor, zip to chop. Microwave a 7 oz Russet potato 3 minutes, mash and let cool, stir in 1 egg (a broken one from washing customers eggs earlier), chopped onion, the fish, some salt and seasoning (I used a Mexican general mix) Make into cakes and press into planko crumbs, sautee 1/2 hr wile having soup course - in 2 T soy oil, turning twice to brown. Here they are. I also made tarter sauce, boiled turnip greens, coleslaw, pear/berry pie, coconut shrimp soup, and a couple ground mullet fillets for my wife to try.
Last nights fish (I went without Bob, and let most fish go - keeping 1 speck and 20 white trout)
The cakes, really good!
Too late to tell of last nights fishing - but it was great, getting home at 4:20 a.m., cleaning up all the gear and then making crepes and sausages for my wife's breakfast (rolled up with cherry jam and cottage cheese), then served with maple syrup - a favorite of ours, so easy and fast to make, and then to bed.
My fish cleaning station at the small dock - I love it, finally put in the 85 foot of water line this summer for $32 - all else salvaged. One of the spots I throw for shrimp.
So Bob and I were to try selling white trout at the Farmers market tomorrow - and were going fishing at midnight last night to fill a cooler with them. I poped out to my small dock, other dock, and shell point after dark and threw out a ball of shrimp bait at each, about 1/2 the size of a golf ball, and then in to make soup - back out in half an hour to cast with my small 4' net - the big problem is I did not really carefully mark where the bait ball landed, and with such a tiny net you have to hit right on it. And caught about 35 bait shrimp. Next I threw out the 3 baits again and went inside where I made fish cake dough, back out and again forgot exactly where the bait had landed.
It is all dark and my bayou bank is solid brush with the 3 tiny clearings - and I got another 35. Not good netting. So put bait out again and back upstairs and finished the soup (curried coconut base with shrimp with potato and carrots - shrimp were big ones from a bait netting a few days ago) Then back out to throw a last time and got about 50 more. As we were getting ready to eat Bob called and canceled. Dinner was lovely, the fish cakes are the way to go as I am so utterly tired of these Gulf trout flavor.
8 oz white trout, 3 oz peeled shrimp, in a small food processor, zip to chop. Microwave a 7 oz Russet potato 3 minutes, mash and let cool, stir in 1 egg (a broken one from washing customers eggs earlier), chopped onion, the fish, some salt and seasoning (I used a Mexican general mix) Make into cakes and press into planko crumbs, sautee 1/2 hr wile having soup course - in 2 T soy oil, turning twice to brown. Here they are. I also made tarter sauce, boiled turnip greens, coleslaw, pear/berry pie, coconut shrimp soup, and a couple ground mullet fillets for my wife to try.
Last nights fish (I went without Bob, and let most fish go - keeping 1 speck and 20 white trout)
The cakes, really good!
Too late to tell of last nights fishing - but it was great, getting home at 4:20 a.m., cleaning up all the gear and then making crepes and sausages for my wife's breakfast (rolled up with cherry jam and cottage cheese), then served with maple syrup - a favorite of ours, so easy and fast to make, and then to bed.
My fish cleaning station at the small dock - I love it, finally put in the 85 foot of water line this summer for $32 - all else salvaged. One of the spots I throw for shrimp.
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Hi Red.
I fed the dogs, they are eating, each at their bowl, and when in the refrigerator to get the tiny bit of canned food they have on their dry, I saw the fish fillets in 3 different jars (my wife uses jars to keep food and leftovers which works well). One is trout from 4 nights ago, or so, the night before last jar of white trout fillets - both about a pound of meat, and 1/4 pound of white trout from further back that will be microwaved for the chicks. Then still the half gallon of whole jumbo shrimp from days ago and a tub of crabs, steamed and needing picking. (I sold a bag of 10 pounds of white trout for $10, whole, to an egg customer.)
I think this fishing may be becoming too close to being an addiction - getting hard to either take, or leave, it. Last night I had trouble sleeping, as I do so often. I love the night more than the day. So much of my life has been in remote and exotic places where the modern, mundane, civilized normal is left behind. Day time all is there in stark view. Roads and cars, Walmart, gas stations, houses with grass and trimmed shrubs, power lines and people all about just going about some thing - and it all is so without magic - like one is an ant and all the short life is in the ant mound, the universe is this go through the day, like last day, like tomorrow, do it again with everyone else..........
But night all that goes away and it can be magical again. Few, if any, people. Stars, clouds, moon, planets filling the sky - my good friend the night sky - I lived 16 years in camps without the electronic background. Nights were usually unlit and often I would be out in it - I could navigate celestially, I know the stars, the main constellations, the sky at night is utterly familiar to me.
As a boy and young man in London at night we would take our high powered air rifles out tied to our bicycles (later on motorcycles, and finally in cars) to the local woods - London having bits of woods all over, Greenbelt and parks, and hunt squirrels and wood pigeons. This would all be without lights which could not be used in this urban setting - out with our guns. And we learned to see in the dark, a learn-able skill - casting ones eyes about to bring the peripheral rods into play. On occasion the local woodsman or police would try to catch us - and we were so woods wise it was impossible. Our detection heightened - and we knew the woods like we knew our neighborhood - could run through the forest in the dark without light - we were wild things ourselves, un-catchable.
Eyes have two cells for seeing - rods and cones. Cones see colour, rods black and white. Rods see in low light and detect any motion, being very fast. - Cones are slow and work in brighter light. Being colour seeing animals our eyes have cones at the center of the retina, so poor dark vision. The rods ring the retina and have dark vision and fast detection - that is so we can detect anything on the periphery sneaking up on us - 'see it out of the corner of the eye'. In the dark to look straight at anything is to have it disappear as the cones come to focus on it. Casting the eye side to side will bring the rods to bear, the low light sensors. This is why night seeing animals see in black and white only, they cannot have the high light needing, slow, cones. Dogs and chase animals have all rods too - they are so fast to reset that they can see everything in fast motion - to see the prey dashing through the brush and grasses.
Then leaving home I spent 5 years living out of a backpack and the outdoors were my house. Mostly I did not even carry a tent, weight being everything when you live out of the pack and are not just camping. Years in the remote lands, and amongst the historical antiquities - or the human free wilderness.
So night brings back that ingrained state of being remote from all the developed world. 2 a.m. on the Gulf, under the light at the end of the 400 foot long wall - the sky and lights from shipping and buoys off in the distance, shrimp boats all lit up dragging their trawls - stars and moon, behind; the lights of the harbour and town, remote and giving the atmosphere of quiet and also very pretty. Sail boats moored behind us chink their pulleys against the masts with breeze - the shrimp boats come and go with diesel roars making the tight turn at the mouth of the harbour where we sit - the deck hands look at us, the boat passes all lit up 30 foot from us, we bring in our lines. Lots of porpuses blowing and swimming, night birds, fish splash, big ones off out of the lit water, and trout popping in the light, and me and a couple fishermen are out there in what seems to be a bit of lit water remote from all the rest of the universe. It is just so lovely. Last time the water flat like a bath. Jellyfish, darting baitfish being chased, gray mullet, trout, occasional shrimp which gets chased and it goes off leaping from the water in skips - And then watching your float in this. One can often watch your shrimp bait swimming and a trout rises to it - the shrimp leaps and the trout pops the water behind it several times missing it, then grabs it and off - with the float darting under the water. The fish are beautiful! A living fish is perfect beauty which fades with death to become dull. I release more than I keep, the smaller ones, and am careful to release them unharmed, and off they go.
So I did not go to the harbour last night, just having a night walk with the dogs, as I do. Sometimes we hunt cotton mouth moccasins at my pond at night - the only time I carry a light, otherwise it is my trails in the dark and we know every bit of them, and the 1/4 mile dirt road down the bayou I live on. Always splashing and night birds - sometimes the pack (4 dogs, 2 chihuahuas, a lab and a wired haired terrier) will set off a opossum or raccoon and off they go in full charge through the woods.
And going to bed at midnight I lay awake and finished Tacitus; 'The Histories' which ends on the war to re-conquer the Jews (ad 74 I think), the rest of his writing on this has been lost through the two thousand years intervening. The Germans mostly subdued, The Emperor Vespasian has won the civil war, and mid paragraph it is over, so I took a sleeping pill and wishing I was going down to the harbour with the couple dozen shrimp I have in my floating tank, slept.
And todays gratuitous picture, me as a young man; I man-hauled this small boat around the English canal network - I think this is Birmingham, my favorite part not being the pretty countryside, but the decaying Industrial revolution industry sites - and they are huge, what made us, and the world, what we are.
I fed the dogs, they are eating, each at their bowl, and when in the refrigerator to get the tiny bit of canned food they have on their dry, I saw the fish fillets in 3 different jars (my wife uses jars to keep food and leftovers which works well). One is trout from 4 nights ago, or so, the night before last jar of white trout fillets - both about a pound of meat, and 1/4 pound of white trout from further back that will be microwaved for the chicks. Then still the half gallon of whole jumbo shrimp from days ago and a tub of crabs, steamed and needing picking. (I sold a bag of 10 pounds of white trout for $10, whole, to an egg customer.)
I think this fishing may be becoming too close to being an addiction - getting hard to either take, or leave, it. Last night I had trouble sleeping, as I do so often. I love the night more than the day. So much of my life has been in remote and exotic places where the modern, mundane, civilized normal is left behind. Day time all is there in stark view. Roads and cars, Walmart, gas stations, houses with grass and trimmed shrubs, power lines and people all about just going about some thing - and it all is so without magic - like one is an ant and all the short life is in the ant mound, the universe is this go through the day, like last day, like tomorrow, do it again with everyone else..........
But night all that goes away and it can be magical again. Few, if any, people. Stars, clouds, moon, planets filling the sky - my good friend the night sky - I lived 16 years in camps without the electronic background. Nights were usually unlit and often I would be out in it - I could navigate celestially, I know the stars, the main constellations, the sky at night is utterly familiar to me.
As a boy and young man in London at night we would take our high powered air rifles out tied to our bicycles (later on motorcycles, and finally in cars) to the local woods - London having bits of woods all over, Greenbelt and parks, and hunt squirrels and wood pigeons. This would all be without lights which could not be used in this urban setting - out with our guns. And we learned to see in the dark, a learn-able skill - casting ones eyes about to bring the peripheral rods into play. On occasion the local woodsman or police would try to catch us - and we were so woods wise it was impossible. Our detection heightened - and we knew the woods like we knew our neighborhood - could run through the forest in the dark without light - we were wild things ourselves, un-catchable.
Eyes have two cells for seeing - rods and cones. Cones see colour, rods black and white. Rods see in low light and detect any motion, being very fast. - Cones are slow and work in brighter light. Being colour seeing animals our eyes have cones at the center of the retina, so poor dark vision. The rods ring the retina and have dark vision and fast detection - that is so we can detect anything on the periphery sneaking up on us - 'see it out of the corner of the eye'. In the dark to look straight at anything is to have it disappear as the cones come to focus on it. Casting the eye side to side will bring the rods to bear, the low light sensors. This is why night seeing animals see in black and white only, they cannot have the high light needing, slow, cones. Dogs and chase animals have all rods too - they are so fast to reset that they can see everything in fast motion - to see the prey dashing through the brush and grasses.
Then leaving home I spent 5 years living out of a backpack and the outdoors were my house. Mostly I did not even carry a tent, weight being everything when you live out of the pack and are not just camping. Years in the remote lands, and amongst the historical antiquities - or the human free wilderness.
So night brings back that ingrained state of being remote from all the developed world. 2 a.m. on the Gulf, under the light at the end of the 400 foot long wall - the sky and lights from shipping and buoys off in the distance, shrimp boats all lit up dragging their trawls - stars and moon, behind; the lights of the harbour and town, remote and giving the atmosphere of quiet and also very pretty. Sail boats moored behind us chink their pulleys against the masts with breeze - the shrimp boats come and go with diesel roars making the tight turn at the mouth of the harbour where we sit - the deck hands look at us, the boat passes all lit up 30 foot from us, we bring in our lines. Lots of porpuses blowing and swimming, night birds, fish splash, big ones off out of the lit water, and trout popping in the light, and me and a couple fishermen are out there in what seems to be a bit of lit water remote from all the rest of the universe. It is just so lovely. Last time the water flat like a bath. Jellyfish, darting baitfish being chased, gray mullet, trout, occasional shrimp which gets chased and it goes off leaping from the water in skips - And then watching your float in this. One can often watch your shrimp bait swimming and a trout rises to it - the shrimp leaps and the trout pops the water behind it several times missing it, then grabs it and off - with the float darting under the water. The fish are beautiful! A living fish is perfect beauty which fades with death to become dull. I release more than I keep, the smaller ones, and am careful to release them unharmed, and off they go.
So I did not go to the harbour last night, just having a night walk with the dogs, as I do. Sometimes we hunt cotton mouth moccasins at my pond at night - the only time I carry a light, otherwise it is my trails in the dark and we know every bit of them, and the 1/4 mile dirt road down the bayou I live on. Always splashing and night birds - sometimes the pack (4 dogs, 2 chihuahuas, a lab and a wired haired terrier) will set off a opossum or raccoon and off they go in full charge through the woods.
And going to bed at midnight I lay awake and finished Tacitus; 'The Histories' which ends on the war to re-conquer the Jews (ad 74 I think), the rest of his writing on this has been lost through the two thousand years intervening. The Germans mostly subdued, The Emperor Vespasian has won the civil war, and mid paragraph it is over, so I took a sleeping pill and wishing I was going down to the harbour with the couple dozen shrimp I have in my floating tank, slept.
And todays gratuitous picture, me as a young man; I man-hauled this small boat around the English canal network - I think this is Birmingham, my favorite part not being the pretty countryside, but the decaying Industrial revolution industry sites - and they are huge, what made us, and the world, what we are.
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And last night I went out to net a couple shrimp and they were slow. I would typically get three times as many a cast - but all sea creatures are erratic. I kept about a pint of small eating size for my gumbo and crab soups and 100 for bait. The still picture of the fish at the beginning of this dark video (taken last night) is from a week ago - the cooler I have to fillet now is twice as many but I forgot to take its picture.
At 2:30 a.m. I decided to go to the harbour, the wind was coming from the SW and right at the wall - also cool and I put on my one piece long underwear, but then just a shirt was needed although I took a jacket. I brought my usual 100 shrimp and went out. Three guys were there; anywhere but here they would be scary, young men with scowls and muttered answers when I talked to them. Also they would cast right onto my line and talk in strong language when I caught a fish - they were getting nothing, using dead shrimp and not knowing what they were doing. I could not decide if they were being actively hostile and aggressive - or were just completely un-socalized.
Young people, especially underclass ones, are getting pretty different with their electronic lives - socializing is not promoted as it was. I find some young people can not speak in proper sentences, let alone paragraphs. Illiteracy is kind of a norm, and illspeach is the new problem. Anyway they were dragging the whole mood down, I actually was casting in places where it was unlikely I would get a bite as they were so negative when I would catch one. It is a very long way out there on top of the wall, 400 foot or more and being under the light with 3 big unfriendly, bordering on hostile, young men certainly reduces the aesthetic side of the whole scene. But I had my 100 shrimp - and the cool wind in your face; bringing in small breakers and chop - and the surface was totally covered with anchovies, and the trout popping them with the loud sucking sound and splash still apparent in the rough water. It was gorgeous and I would wait them out - and did, after half an hour they gave it up and sulked off.
But you know, they really did add to my night. They were a force, a focal point that punctuates the fishing trip. I like people - I have hung with the roughest and crazy and all messed up people a lot, and I like them. A mean and bad person is actually the most unhappy person - they are the product of meanness and brutality, emotional and physical, they are made the way they are by pain of some sort. We are nice - because we had niceness given to us by decent people. Bad people had a cruel childhood of neglect and hardship. It was sad, that little group - but good to see, to see nature in all its forms. The beauty of the wind and sea and fish, and the harshness of it - me killing the shrimp and fish, the fact that all these sea creatures will ultimately be eaten, and pretty soon as life in nature is short. And the lot of people - the meeting gives one something to reflect on, life and its ways - that even people one would avoid as much as possible - they are human with souls and hurts just like us - but how fortunate we educated and nice ones are, and how we must appreciate that. How we did not earn our niceness and good social behavior - as they did not earn their ignorant thuggishness - it was given to us, and how lucky we are.
And then at 3:30 the Vietnamese guy shows up - every time. He does not speak any English but for individual words, but is cheerful and pleasant - and he absolutely nails the white trout! He uses a tiny, white, rubber bodied jig and just throws it out 20 foot and lets it sink with small twitches - and bam - a white trout. He fills his 3 gallon bucket every day, and then leaves at light. The Caribbean guy showed up as he does at 4 a.m. - I am a local there, everyone knows me - I am an odd looking person so people always remember me - The Caribbean guy, Patric, cast out his 3 redfish rods for 20 - -30 pound redfish and tied then securely to the railing, and then used cut bait and went to filling his bucket with white trout. These regulars really know how to fish this place.
I love it out there, and I do like the people - they are never like the guys next to you on the Tube - just anonymous. They all have something to say or do that asserts their presence. They are characters of this wall fishing, not bland.
And I have several legal specks and 40 white trout to clean. I like that too, the filleting at my fish cleaning station on the bayou - always some bird singing - always bird song here, everywhere, all the time. Fish splash, our fish are very loud, mullet leaping clear of the water, gar and redfish swooshing - It is not onerous.
[video=youtube;gwf0V_sNyxg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf0V_sNyxg&feature=youtu.be[/video]
And last night I went out to net a couple shrimp and they were slow. I would typically get three times as many a cast - but all sea creatures are erratic. I kept about a pint of small eating size for my gumbo and crab soups and 100 for bait. The still picture of the fish at the beginning of this dark video (taken last night) is from a week ago - the cooler I have to fillet now is twice as many but I forgot to take its picture.
At 2:30 a.m. I decided to go to the harbour, the wind was coming from the SW and right at the wall - also cool and I put on my one piece long underwear, but then just a shirt was needed although I took a jacket. I brought my usual 100 shrimp and went out. Three guys were there; anywhere but here they would be scary, young men with scowls and muttered answers when I talked to them. Also they would cast right onto my line and talk in strong language when I caught a fish - they were getting nothing, using dead shrimp and not knowing what they were doing. I could not decide if they were being actively hostile and aggressive - or were just completely un-socalized.
Young people, especially underclass ones, are getting pretty different with their electronic lives - socializing is not promoted as it was. I find some young people can not speak in proper sentences, let alone paragraphs. Illiteracy is kind of a norm, and illspeach is the new problem. Anyway they were dragging the whole mood down, I actually was casting in places where it was unlikely I would get a bite as they were so negative when I would catch one. It is a very long way out there on top of the wall, 400 foot or more and being under the light with 3 big unfriendly, bordering on hostile, young men certainly reduces the aesthetic side of the whole scene. But I had my 100 shrimp - and the cool wind in your face; bringing in small breakers and chop - and the surface was totally covered with anchovies, and the trout popping them with the loud sucking sound and splash still apparent in the rough water. It was gorgeous and I would wait them out - and did, after half an hour they gave it up and sulked off.
But you know, they really did add to my night. They were a force, a focal point that punctuates the fishing trip. I like people - I have hung with the roughest and crazy and all messed up people a lot, and I like them. A mean and bad person is actually the most unhappy person - they are the product of meanness and brutality, emotional and physical, they are made the way they are by pain of some sort. We are nice - because we had niceness given to us by decent people. Bad people had a cruel childhood of neglect and hardship. It was sad, that little group - but good to see, to see nature in all its forms. The beauty of the wind and sea and fish, and the harshness of it - me killing the shrimp and fish, the fact that all these sea creatures will ultimately be eaten, and pretty soon as life in nature is short. And the lot of people - the meeting gives one something to reflect on, life and its ways - that even people one would avoid as much as possible - they are human with souls and hurts just like us - but how fortunate we educated and nice ones are, and how we must appreciate that. How we did not earn our niceness and good social behavior - as they did not earn their ignorant thuggishness - it was given to us, and how lucky we are.
And then at 3:30 the Vietnamese guy shows up - every time. He does not speak any English but for individual words, but is cheerful and pleasant - and he absolutely nails the white trout! He uses a tiny, white, rubber bodied jig and just throws it out 20 foot and lets it sink with small twitches - and bam - a white trout. He fills his 3 gallon bucket every day, and then leaves at light. The Caribbean guy showed up as he does at 4 a.m. - I am a local there, everyone knows me - I am an odd looking person so people always remember me - The Caribbean guy, Patric, cast out his 3 redfish rods for 20 - -30 pound redfish and tied then securely to the railing, and then used cut bait and went to filling his bucket with white trout. These regulars really know how to fish this place.
I love it out there, and I do like the people - they are never like the guys next to you on the Tube - just anonymous. They all have something to say or do that asserts their presence. They are characters of this wall fishing, not bland.
And I have several legal specks and 40 white trout to clean. I like that too, the filleting at my fish cleaning station on the bayou - always some bird singing - always bird song here, everywhere, all the time. Fish splash, our fish are very loud, mullet leaping clear of the water, gar and redfish swooshing - It is not onerous.
[video=youtube;gwf0V_sNyxg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf0V_sNyxg&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Good picture in the post two up. You look very like a chap I used to work with. Can't see the boat for the wall, was it a barge or something else? I like boats on inland water but out at sea I'm not a happy bunny. Used to go on fishing trips out to sea but I likes getting on dry land again, or at least to a point where I thought I could make a swim for it. Same when I canoed and kayaked. Great on lochs , rivers an rapids. But out at sea you're just a speed bump to bigger craft and when you sink down in the trough of a wave an it's water all round those few seconds can feel very lonely. I'll leave the sailing to SWMBO as she's the sailor.
Enjoying your musings on the human condition. Found working in forestry I had a lot of time to think as I was on my own so much. But as a job it seemed to attract all the characters, nutters and oddjobs. Made it fun though apart from the time I had to tell off on of my work gangs who were all ex cons and also tell them that the price was going down. One teenage lad in the middle of no-where with a bunch of angry scarey blokes... It didn't look like it was going to go well. After some initial anger and threats they calmed down.as I'd always been good and honest with them.
You always liked classical literature?
Been a fan since a kid, as much as I liked comic heros an the likes, tales of the Greek & Norse epics really got me. Remember asking for the Iliad & Odyssey as a kid and folks thinking I'd never read them. Thought they were brilliant and still do. We can learn a lot through the likes of Homer & Tacitus.
Enjoying the posts.
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
Enjoying your musings on the human condition. Found working in forestry I had a lot of time to think as I was on my own so much. But as a job it seemed to attract all the characters, nutters and oddjobs. Made it fun though apart from the time I had to tell off on of my work gangs who were all ex cons and also tell them that the price was going down. One teenage lad in the middle of no-where with a bunch of angry scarey blokes... It didn't look like it was going to go well. After some initial anger and threats they calmed down.as I'd always been good and honest with them.
You always liked classical literature?
Been a fan since a kid, as much as I liked comic heros an the likes, tales of the Greek & Norse epics really got me. Remember asking for the Iliad & Odyssey as a kid and folks thinking I'd never read them. Thought they were brilliant and still do. We can learn a lot through the likes of Homer & Tacitus.
Enjoying the posts.
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
Great write up yet again George, don't think you would get away with going out now in London with an air rifle, the police would be all over you.
Just recently there was an article in a local paper about four guys out at night shooting Phesant with cross bows, they were caught on trail cams around placed around the wood.needless to say the police are on the look out!
Once again well done and keep up the thread
Just recently there was an article in a local paper about four guys out at night shooting Phesant with cross bows, they were caught on trail cams around placed around the wood.needless to say the police are on the look out!
Once again well done and keep up the thread
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