fishing, but not in UK - or in UK if you like. All manner of fish and shellfish.

[Joonsy]

Nice photo of the canal george47, what year was that about, don’t suppose you ever stopped at Caggy’s boatyard by Tipton (in the Black Country near Birmingham), I knew some of the folks that lived on boats there in the 1980s when Caggy was still alive, he was well known around the canal network. The canals have changed a heck of a lot since the 70s/80s around Birmingham, they have been done up to attract tourists and now million pound flats and coffee shops overlook the towpath. Your comments about your time as a youngster in London reminded me of a book I read called Tales of a London Poacher by Cleve Edmonston from Walthamstow., who knows you may have even known him, like you he went shooting in the areas around London in the 1960s, things have changed a lot on that score too.

An old photo of Caggy (Alan) Stevens, he worked the waterways in the old ways, now dead but his boatyard is still there, photo shows the canal as it was but many have been ''poshed'' up now.

Cleve Edmonston talks about shooting in areas in London in the 1960s in vid below (he talks in the vid from 1:24)

[video=youtube;oDtRDXATEAE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDtRDXATEAE[/video]

 

[george47]

No Gooner, those days are over. As kids we would be off on our bicycles covering our part of London in a huge radius fishing or hunting - or in central London going everywhere, night and day on foot via tubes and buses. I totally knew the West End, Knightsbridge, Piccadilly Circus and all the penny arcades (I used to do all the penny games, loads of them like shove-a-penny machines, and then collect the Victorian great huge pennies which would still be in the circulation, but pretty rare - I still have a bag of them somewhere, all worn smooth, Leistcer Square - the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Victoria and Albert, British Museum, Harrods (Harrods had the pet shop still then with agouties, chinchillas, ocelots, birds and such exotic things - the third floor toy section had a Magician who did tricks for you as a sales man, Hydepark (renting boats on the Serpentine - and fishing there, one bought a day ticket from a guy who would come round and collect a shilling of so). I was amazingly lucky to live a wile in Knightsbridge (no taking air rifles out there) - the best place in the world - and then in a couple Suburban parts which were OK, still on the tube so still had a gateway to the city) Different world then - at 15 going to SoHo strip clubs and drinking pints, at 16 buying little foil wrapped grams of hash - Lebanese green or Paki black.

Young people have no freedom to run like we did. When I was in my early Teens we lived in an Italian port city and had the run of it - no being told not to go here or there - just off with the fishing gear to the harbour, buy some coquinas from a roadside stall for bait - bread rolls from the baker, sliced meats from the meat shop, and be off on our bicycles - exploring the bombed out sections still there and yet to be demolished. Kids had such freedoms then. bicycles were our wheels from 11 years on. Hike down to Piazza Grande for pizza, or the 'bar' for pastry, hot chocolate, and always pinball.

They say crime is going down but as you mentioned with the hidden cams and such - it is freedom that has gone down dragging some crime down with it. People today are much less moral and without all this government spying things would get really bad. We also had no electronics so always were doing stuff - going somewhere, building stuff.

Goat, I know what you mean about being in a tiny boat and disappearing down in the bottom of the swells, in a world of towering water on all sides - then up to crest a huge roller, way up in the air, and the drop down into the water canyon - weird and scary, awesome sense of your tinyness in this raw power. I have a Zodiac with an awesome 15 horse Nisson motor and we would take it way off into the North Pacific to the water you described.

For todays gratuitous picture here is me and my always company dog (I am within a few foot of a dog 24 hours of a day, all day, every day - dogs are my sidekick and almost part of me, three lie next to me as I type now in bed) But this is the real "LONDON BRIDGE" dismantled stone by stone and sent to Arizona and reassembled in Lake Havasu City connecting to a small Island of a tourist resort. A very weird thing to go under and over - I had crossed it in Lindon, and now in some little Arizona town.

Goat, I am a reader - I am into philosophy is a small way, military ethics was always a big thing for me, now I have just read a PG Wodehouse, the big Rumpole 'The Second Omnibus' book, Black Hawk Down (my deceased brother was a special opps solider rising to Major - he gave me the book and I just reread it. He also gave me several books of the LRRPs and such.) Letters from wagon train women, Tasictus, Churchill's 'The Grand Alliance' and Frazier's 'Quartered Safe Out Here' of the Burma Campaign WWII, Clavell's 'epic 'Gai-Gin' - those are the ones on my my night stand.

"Can't see the boat for the wall, was it a barge or something else?" It was a 16 foot sailing dingy with the mast off - notice all the rope on the lock wall - to manhaul you have a long rope across your left shoulder running across your rt ribs. The end of the loop of rope is tied at the bow, the other tied to the stern. By shortening the one to the stern the boat is headed away from the bank wile being towed - or tighten the bow rope and it will tack in or straight. It is easy to steer but only wile underway. Bit of a trick to learn but simple enough once you get it. I also would accept being toed by barges and met some great people that way - one barge I spent time on being towed was a bunch of newspaper journalists having a cruse together - I think it may have been from the Guardian - they were a lark and drank a lot. I managed to sneak through the mile long Blizworth tunnel which was closed at the time because a local guy who was pretty drunk at the pub by the entrance had the gate key and we paddled through with a small torch - it was like an endless underworld, water flowing from the celing, the bricks covered with flowstone like limestone living caves - on and on till it seemed an eternity of dark cave - and then out the end and the guy's wife arrived to take him home, about 2 in the morning - we had drank a lot - and taken plenty with us. Paddling a small sailboat is very inefficient, very slow. Blizworth tunnel has no tow-path being made for diesel barges.

But fishing. I had skipped the previous nights sleep altogethers so did not go last night, but my friend Bob did, so he came by and I netted shrimp for him - he does not know this whole thing of proper fishing and I am teaching him. 10% catch 90% of the fish - and of that ten percent 3% catch 80% of those fish - I am in that 3%. The netting seems easy - watching me catch fish seems easy - but they are not. Not many fishermen have the time, or the mentors, to learn to get out of the 90%. It is not at all as easy as it seems.

Casting my small net on the bayou, my shell point, for pogies for bait and to feed the chickens who love them.

My wife just got back from work for a bit - almost 8 a.m. and I am to make her French Toast and a sausage - the coffee made.

 

[george47]

Back in for the rain - I finished scouting my outside electrical fault - the dreaded intermittent one - I shut down my outside library circuit and it seems to be holding. When I put a roof on it a bit ago I worry I stuck a long, 4 inch, screw into the celling wire (needed those to put purlins down over the accumulated, bad, roofs I had laid over the years which always failed eventually - so I would stick on more salvages stuff that did not fit.. Now I have a proper steel roof (bought as salvage instead of found on the side of the road.)

But Bob's fishing report: Bad. Waves were breaking over the seawall at the parking area - a bad sign. Then out on the long walkway were half a dozen fisher persons with no luck, just staying anyway. Bob had the live shrimp and only got 3 white trout! The water was all chop and wind blowing your line, no sign of fish, no popping. His third fish, (in two hours) he got the hook, past the barb, into his thumb with the fish on wile unhooking it - and a woman fishing there cut the line for him and took the fish off that way! So he went home, and eventually pushed the point out the other side of the thumb and flattened the barb and backed it out. I regretted not being there - back in the late 1970's I attended nursing school and am pretty good at stuff like this, but he did well.

And at dark I will try to net 250 shrimp and we go out at 2 A.M. He has to do stuff the rest of the week and this is his last chance. I have had a total of 10 hours of sleep in the last 3 nights so may be a bit spacey missing another one - but it is lovely out there and hard to miss going. And the sun has popped out and I should be doing taxes and an amortization schedule - but am off to work in the garden.

And for my gratuitous picture here is my garden library - the one with the bad electrical circuit - could be rats in the walls, a roof screw - who knows - not a problem, I am an electrician - when I get around to it it will be easy.

 

[george47]

Hi Joonsey - I just read your post - had missed it. The poacher man was very reminiscent of those days - but our area was much more developed and having an open gun was not possible. We did have a tiny 4.10 break barrel single shot but only used it in the bigger bits of woods. I really liked his stories of the police chasing him. We could only go out at night mostly and then police were a joke as they were as much good in the woods at night as a bear on a bicycle, they did try for us a couple times - but with him during daylight, and in open ground especially, they would be much more formidable. We would poke squirrel nests to run them out and shoot them in silhouette, and look for pigeons roosted also against the sky - in winter when the leaves are gone. We ate the squirrels and pigeons although pigeons were pretty rare with the pellet rifle - hard to find at night and mostly high. I was just someone who wanted to be outside and that was what we did. I shot large amounts of clay pigeons, and a huge amount of targets during those years and was extremely good. I even worked at a shooting ground for a year then. My family has a history of being experts with firearms.

Other times of year would mean being out at dusk to be effective - but we were good, this being kind of what we did - that and fishing, and working on our bikes and motorcycles and stuff.

 

[george47]

Sorry to wander off into the TLDR lands previous, but will do it again now - but fishing..Bob and I went out the night before last for specks but they were pretty scarce, the white trout thick! If one casts out a shrimp randomly withing 30 seconds the float goes under and a 9 - 10 inch white trout is on. If you were to fillet one and cut it into chunks, called cut bait, and put it on two hooks with a weight, well it would be one to two a cast and the bait lasts for multiple fish. If white trout are the goal no need for all the shrimp netting and using a bucket with an aerator and live bucket floating...........

First the shrimp netting was very slow, 3-7 a cast and I bait 5 spots off the friend's dock, so two to three dozen after a 15 - 30 minute wait for the bait to work. I come home between casts - just down my gravel road, but it takes a couple hours to amass the couple hundred you want. At the harbour wall, midnight, it was lovely, water smooth as glass with very little fish on the surface and only two soldiers out fishing. I always like fishing around the military guys, always polite and respectful young people. The white trout mostly deeper and not popping much - and some, few, specks were cruising the top in pairs to half a dozen. This time of year with the white trout you have to sight cast the specks or the bait is just grabbed by the whites, which makes it much more demanding - first you have to train yourself to see the difference in the cloudy water - the darker tail on specks is the main clue, the size not so apparent in the cloudy water and they way the fish come up a couple seconds and then disappear again. Also specks move in a lazy way and white trout are in a hurry.

Single specks, or small groups cruising tend to be less interested in a sight cast shrimp as they all are full up from the huge numbers of anchovies - but a group of 3-6 will give a bite very often as they will compete, taking it because the others may if they do not. Typically I would be casting 50 foot and the shrimp needs to land right at the trout - so it is a challenge, mostly to see the fish, then to drop a bait right on them. This sight casting is the main way specks are caught under the light August to November, but sometimes a location where specks have concentrated can be found and normal float fishing done. When a dozen fishermen, or 6, have grouped under the light one can not sight cast this way as you can only fish the bit in front of you, and at each end where there is room the water is too dark to see fish. Fishing after 1 a.m. is best when the place is sparsely crowded - by 4 a.m. it gets busy from people coming for a bit before going to work.

We had a nice night, staying 2 1/2 hours till some white trout fishermen showed up and set up on each side of us. Men casting multiple hooks and getting 1-3 fish a cast, filling coolers with them. I do not find that kind of fishing very aesthetic, cast, haul up white trout, cast repeat - it is good for filling the freezer, but makes what we were doing less enjoyable - being boxed in by these (happened to be) cheerless guys with their cut bait and coolers.

Also an occasional redfish lurks right under the light - an arms length from the wall. Bob was dangling a shrimp right on the top under it and one about 24 inches darted up and got it - an amazing sight. I caught 1 dozen specks but only two legal, bob got one. In the process we kept about 14 pounds of white trout too.

Then the next day we cleaned them at my fish cleaning station netting some mixed game fish, and with my hand cranked grinder, about 5 pounds of chopped white trout meat for fish cakes. A nice time, and some gorgeous fish. A medium cooler full.

An old picture of some specks and a flounder, and a couple shrimp. I have not been flounder fishing much this year - normally I would, they are a great fish in every way

Today I have run the crab traps - I had 4 out but not with much bait and the catch was poor, 6 keepers, and some of them small, a couple great big white ones, fresh shed and in a brand new shell with a bright white undersized and almost empty of meat inside - which will turn brown in the bayou waters when it has meat grown inside, they are let go. I also got 2 more traps and stuffed then full of fish remains, so all 6 out along the bayou bank. Soon it will turn cold, still 80f now during the day, 26C, and they will go off shore or bury in the bottom mud till spring warming. So we are going to get some meat to freeze, for soups.

 

[george47]

This video is from last year - and it shows the shrimp may be too late, they only came in for a brief spell, and are not here now. Next week I will work on shrimp before the season has gone and not getting any

[video=youtube;fi0N2Qed36c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi0N2Qed36c[/video]

I know it is too long, but shows a typical trip out and back.

 

[george47]

Come on - someone must fish - or eat fish, or want to learn to fish - I am expert at catching fish to eat in most climates/habitats. I have caught thousands of trout (for example) from Afghanistan to Alaska, North Africa to Arctic. Much of those were eaten. I am good at fresh water fish, salt water fish, ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, bays, oceans and so on. I have been a small commercial fisherman and worked in fish processing. I am also good at cooking seafood - and have collected crabs, all manner of shellfish, squid, shrimp, and likely something I cannot think of. (like samphire, and crayfish and turtles, which I also caught and cooked, say)

Anyway - we cruised around a bit last evening looking at the scenery and talking to people - and bought a half gallon (1.5 l actually) of "Grandma's Pumpkin Pie Icecream" which we ate for dessert and then finished for a late night snack. A holiday edition flavor - a winner. $3. Also a great deal, super creamy.

And talking to my Cuban shrimping friend at the harbour he said it had been terrible, 2-5 pounds a trip, and he puts out a couple gallons of bait he makes, and spends hours netting, virtually every night. He is shrimping mad, and really good at it. That was not too encouraging. People are beginning to talk of years when the shrimp just failed to show up in any numbers......... We also talked to a Chinese guy I know who was fishing in a different part of the harbour from his usual and he still had a half cooler of white trout - they are thick this year. Then being shrimp eaters possibly there is a connection, but I doubt it, more like chance.

Redfish are out, but mostly the over 20 pound size, so not so good to eat, but big fillets. Specks about only hard to fish for.

Bob and I are going scouting tomorrow afternoon and will think of trying a new part of the harbour without lights - but wheelchair access. Then take my boat battery and some LED lights I have and be out at night with no crowd. We can no way compete with the huge light we fish under, but using a cart he has - carry the battery and lights up the wheelchair ramp and it would take no effort - be a change if nothing else. It is also a beautiful spot. I talked to a flounder fisherman there yesterday and he had caught a couple which is good.

 

[santaman2000]

George do you ever get any Pompano?

 

[Goatboy]

Hmm never had pumpkin icecream before. Knew some American folk when I was in my teens, they invited me to a thanksgiving dinner at their house. I was looking forward to this, Turkey with all the trimmings, creamed corn, everything a growing lad could ask for. All through the meal all they talked about was how much they were looking forward to the pumpkin pie. I'd never had pumpkin up 'till this point. Even though we've been eating it here since the 1600's when they were sent back. At this point they still hadn't become popular due to Halloween.
So the moment arrives and out comes a really nice looking pie. Smells good and all the Americans are looking so excited. The serving knife goes in and big fat wedges of plump pie are steaming on the plates which are then passed around. I don't know what I expected it to taste like. I suppose I thought it may taste like a mellon. But no as I bit in I was looking at the rapt faces around me as they savoured their national dish. My mind stopped, were they playing a trick? This was the famous pumpkin pie? It tasted like turnips that someone had added sugar & some spices to. I was disapointed but was taught to be poilte.
Since then I've learned that there are lots of types of pumpkin and some are better than other. And I do like squashes and pumpkins a lot these days. Pumpkin & cheese bread with roasted pumpkin seeds on top is on of my favourite loaves to bake. But I still always smile when I think back to that "turnip pie".

On the fishing front I think it's quiet here as the trout and salmon seasons are over if I remember correctly.
Not sure about the course fishing side of things as I was never really into that side of things. I'm too far away from the sea and am carless these days so never get a chance to do that these days. I do tie flies during the winter to give me something to do though.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[santaman2000]

I'm more apt to make a sweet potato pie myself. There's not a lot of difference between the two (taste and appearance are very similar) It's just that the sweet potato is more traditional down south. And your right GB, it's not as sweet as you'd expect.

 

[george47]

I love pumpkin pie - Goat your bad pie is not normal, they are wonderful. I made a peach pie last night and it will be very much enjoyed tonight. I Aways keep a pie in the refrigerator - I am making a berry pie for my wife's friend as she is not feeling great. Anyone get sick and I make them custard (with our natural eggs) which I am really good at - and when I was a child in the middle East was my fathers cure for upset gut - very regular thing then.

Last night was fun in a long drawn out way. I am looking for shrimp - I do not want the season to escape me. So at dark I baited my bayou but only small ones, and not so many of them. My net is 1/2 inch and the medium ones and small go through it. If I had bought a 3/8, like everyone else I would be getting a lot of small eating sized ones.

So then I went to the industrial canal and talked to the netters who were getting so little it was not worth it - and to my secret bayou place on another bayou - nothing, then to the harbour, No one there netting! Unheard of. So I baited and threw - nothing. Back home I threw on my bayou again and the old bait had the shrimp in a bit and got about 60 bait sized and a pint of medium I refrigerated. Now I had a hundred bait in my floating tank.

After dinner I went out to the light on the wall and NO one was there - cold winds. I saw some mullet and tried a throw of my big net and hardly could lift it over the railing with the weight of jelly fish - fifty pounds of them. But it was wonderful out. Strong breeze at my back, calm water fight below. No visible fish but every so often a speck would dash up and grab something, likely an anchovy. I lowered a shrimp and bam - a trout just undersized took it. Watching a trout come up and take the bait is amazing. Within 20 minutes I had released 3 almost legal and had one nice keeper and thought I was going to really do well - but the specks dwindled and in an hour were gone altogether, I released a dozen and only had the one nice one. But I ended up with 12 pounds of white trout a woman we knew wanted and she gave me $ 15 for those, which was nice.

Then seeing huge shrimp swimming on the top occasionally I thought they may have moved into the harbour so re-baited on the inside wall and netted again, but nothing. And home at 5 a.m.

A really nice time, all my old constellations were out in the bright sky, a crescent waxing moon, and some lovely trout.

The winds have gotten strong today and moved to the East so that place will be rough, still Bob and I are going out right after dark for a bit - coming home last night I threw the net again on my bayou to see how it was doing and got another 60 bait shrimp so there is a fair amount ready - and that means we should give it a go, it really is lovely out at night under that one light.

 

[Gooner]

Hi George you are fortunate that you have access and are allowed to reap the harvest from nature.
Here in the South East of UK the fishing from shore or pier is not the same as it use to be.
I use to fish Dungeness from the shore and it was quite productive, plaice, dabs, codling however we noted that the smaller trawlers were coming in closer and closer, sport soon dried up.
Now I am led to believe that it is mainly whiting,pouting and undersized ling that are caught.
To fish the rivers and lakes fishing at night is not always permitted and if allowed fish have to be returned.Net fishing is definitely a no no.
Some fivers have been invaded with American signal crayfish these are destroying our native ones, however to be able to trap these special licences have to be obtained and it is very few that are issued.
There are also discussions going on to try and get all anglers sea and fresh water to have a license currently only fresh water anglers need one.
You are so lucky to have what you have on your doorstep, we can only dream of doing what you are.
Keep it up

 

[george47]

Thank you Gooner. The wonderful writer, Peter Flemming, (Ian's brother) of amazing books on travels in remote places was a huge sportsman and told of how no fish we ever catch exceeds the first sticklebacks caught with a jam jar on a string and some crumbs. The most memorable fishing I have was my youth on the banks of the London river my angling club held leases on - sunrise as the fog would burn away, waiting for the first rod tip movement or the float to wobble. It was a glorious place and we always would spend the opening night in my father's old WWII Arctic two man tent on the grass by the river, or other good nights when no school or jobs would keep us home. We would catch crayfish with a small net and bit of bacon for chub bait - then it was a mile walk to a pub on a gorgeous village green for a mid day pint, then home or back. We would go on our motorcycles.... lovely times although we never did catch much, and all released.

I have fished all over - and do appreciate the fishing here, it is why I stayed - because the nature is rampant, but then here is a bit of a social and cultural deficit - smaller town on the coast. I fish so much because that is all I can think of doing. I would like to live in a huge city, love it. And I could live back in London, but then I get a bit frantic not having my garden and being so packed in with no personal buffer. I live here as the best of what I can tolerate, but it is by no means exactly what I would like as that does not exist unless you are wealthy. Then I would have a big house with a big walled in garden somewhere like Northwood London.

So we went out last night to the harbour, Bob and I - high winds from the East, white caps but we had a lee where we fish, although if you cast out far the float and line would waterski the shrimp in the cross wind. The bit of wall across from the light had 7 young fishermen with a mountain of gear and a dog that looked exactly like an opossum, and told us the bad news. It was 9 p.m. when we got there, no fish to see at all, and they said they had been out since 6 and had jointly caught one white trout and one gaff topsail cat! So we fished a good hour with 1 bite, a white trout Bob lost as he lifted it up. Several times we had the float go down slowly to find a small squid holding the shrimp, which would squirt out its mantle of water and drop off a couple foot in the air. And that was it. The shrimp were still almost untouched and in great shape so I put them back in the floating shrimp tank when I got home, and unable to help myself threw the net a last time over the spots I had baited hours ago, and caught another thirty shrimp - and put them in too.

It has to be a front moving through as I have never had anything like this out there, I always get something, even if it is not a fish you would want. We even tried using a weight on the bottom and the shrimp would be untouched! That is never done, pinfish, croakers, white trout, catfish, ground-mullet, something will always get a shrimp on the bottom and nothing at all was unbelievable. But we really enjoyed it - the stars were crisp in the clear sky, the water like smoky green under the light and out was black with small whitecaps, very cool wind - one did feel alive and nautical, it was better than being at home. Oh, and I had emptied the crab traps earlier and got a 15 inch flounder in one! We had had it for dinner, with curried shrimp, gumbo, soup, garlic toast, peas, and my peach pie and whipped cream. My wife is at Walmart and she is getting another 5 pounds of the end of the season peaches, not bad ones, and getting me a $69 camera as mine has died - so I may be able to take a shot of the night fishing again

 

[george47]

Gooner, I saw is where you are posting from - I happen to be using a Kent IP address now because of all the good times I had there - my parents had a terrace house in Ramsgate as a beach house for 30 years and I would stay there a lot, about a mile walk to the Harbour - Peter's fish and chips, Waitrose, loved it. Terrible fishing though. That is where I got disgusted with the English fisheries policies - the fishing should have been marvelous. Fishermen in salt water need a salt water fishing license so they can be counted! Here it is $13 a year. This gives the fishermen a voting block, and a voice in decisions. Shows they are hundreds times the economic importance of inshore commercial fishermen.

Here in USA, which by the way is always the leader in conservation in the world, a State salt water fishing license is needed, and in Mississippi the money is dedicated to bettering the fisheries for the public. Then there is a small percent levied by the state on all fishing, boating, camping, hunting gear sales which goes into the same pool. From this many public fishing piers are built and maintained, studies done, and law enforcing paid. And the fish and game lawmen in USA are real serious - zero tolerance, and fully licensed policemen in the state, paid by these funds.

The hotels, restaurants, bait and tackle sellers - the money is huge spent by fishermen, and the State knows this so promotes good fishing to attract this money. I used to get so angry at the coastal fisheries in England who let the inshore, sport, fishing become wrecked in Kent. Sheer vandalism by the government. Ramsgate could have used the fishing tourist business, and the ocean there could have the fish....

 

[santaman2000]

......We even tried using a weight on the bottom and the shrimp would be untouched! That is never done, pinfish, croakers, white trout, catfish, ground-mullet, something will always get a shrimp on the bottom and nothing at all was unbelievable....

How are you getting mullet to hit shrimp? Ours in Florida are vegetarian (algae and grasses) The omly way we can harvest them is either with a net or a grab hook.

 

[Gooner]

George I think you are right the businesses around the fishing spots are definitely missing a trick.
I do not think anglers would mind paying a little extra for bait, tackle etc if a percentage went back into protecting the fisheries,unfortunately this does not seem to be the case here.
Bad luck last night still that's fishing (here anyway).
Keep going, tight lines

 

[george47]

How are you getting mullet to hit shrimp? Ours in Florida are vegetarian (algae and grasses) The omly way we can harvest them is either with a net or a grab hook.

It is the whole local name thing. Here what you likely call whiting (and is correctly Gulf Kingfish, although a more un-kingly fish is hard to imagine) we call 'Ground Mullet'. The Grey Mullet you are thinking of is called pop-eye mullet here - utterly different fish; what goes on with naming stuff does not always make sense. The fish that exists in untold millions in my bayou is correctly called Menhaden and forms the base of the food chain for much of the predatory Gulf fish at some part of their lifecycle, we call pogies.

And they filter feed jammed into shoals which can be huge, shoulder to shoulder harvesting the amazingly fecund algie this bath warm water produces - I net them for fish bait, shrimp bait, and natural food for my chickens. This is pogie bread, basically some corn meal, bit of flour, and lots of pogies and anything else - this purple one was from blackberry seeds from canning berries. Then pogies on top - Kate dog eats them live and flopping.

So we went out last night at 9 p.m. - under the light at the harbour, here - this walkway is about 400 foot long and gives the place, if it is not thronged, a feeling of the ocean - being sort of remote from buildings and asphalt.

A couple of older Black men were fishing in the high wind making it all a job keeping our floats from rushing into the other guy's place. The wind had the floats charging Westward. Then after a wile a couple Vietnamese guys joined us, and then about - what seemed like dozens - of their kids showed up all shrieking and being kids in Loud mode, and in half an hour those guys gave it up and left, leaving silence and more room with the four of us. I talk to anyone who gets within talking range - this always worries the people sitting by me in a London bench or the Tube - but I meet a lot of people that way. So we all had a good time talking of fishing and some on deer hunting. One of the men having 150 acres backing onto National Forest and shoots them from his porch. There even was an exchange of numbers with Bob maybe going to shoot a deer on his land.

But the fishing was pretty poor. One good pod of specks came through and I got one right behind the other - 2 on 2 casts, and nice, about 15 inches. Bob was re-doing his tackle and did not get to cast at them - and they were gone. We picked up a speck here and there, but only 1 more legal one. We had taken a vast supply of live shrimp - did I mention the shrimp are coming in and they are very easy to get on my bayou - 60 per three casts, 5 minutes, so my floating shrimp tank had 3 hundred + in it.

And the white trout are disappearing, they go offshore when it cools, and according to one guy - go to Florida and get big. We ended up with 40 nice white trout and 3 specks. I had pre-sold the white trout (I have a hook and line commercial license and fish retail permit - the quantities of all the game fish are set by ridged quotas) so I took all the fish. Bob and I mostly keep all the catch in a common cooler and divide them up at the end, according to who wants what, or just down the middle.

I am not allowed to sell specks so we will have those for dinner, the white trout I can. Redfish; the quota is filled so cannot be sold, and flounder too, I think.

But it was lovely out. Windy but definitely autumn, about 65f, 18.3c. The water was a bit of effort the way it drove the floats about, we saw a huge alligator gar swim lazially past, not much other fish visible, occasional speck sightings - but very pleasant as we got along well with the other fishermen men - and stayed till 1:30. We left them 100 live shrimp in a cooler they had that we filled with water.

Tonight I focus on shrimp I hope. I have 2 pies to make (one for a friend), pogies to net (Hopefully some are left here and will not have to go out in the boat for them) and grind into shrimp bait - one more raised micro bed to dig in and fill with 400 pounds of dirt, and the two I installed yesterday, to plant the raspberries I have started.

And paper work, and if possible some plans of a carpentry job to figure and draw (and do a "Take-Off" or a list from the drawings of all the materials needed.) So If I am not banned I should have more fishing to tell of - and my wife bought me that camera so possibly pictures.

And empty the crab traps and pick the meat from two pots of steamed crabs (estimated, guessing what is in the crab holding cage and what will be in the couple traps I had bait for.) and freeze the meat - about 2 pounds of meat.

 

[santaman2000]

Thanks George. that clears that up nicely. yeah we have mostly Silver Mullet and Striped Mullet here.

 

[sandbender]

What happened to george47? See this thread.

 

[Gooner]

What happened to george47? See this thread.

Seems a bit harsh to ban somebody because they might have different views to others?