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BETWEEN SEASONS
- Well the first frost has landed and being extremely wimpy, it means
my fishing season is over for this year. But ever day the next season
clicks a little closer. Over the winter we hope to try our hand at rod
building. I'm sure I can put together a page for it once we begin. It
should be pretty funny, I'm not handy at all so we'll see what comes of
it.
As for this year? What did we learn? Well we definitely made out well
with plastics, didn't use live bait all season and still managed to land
quite a few fish, least till we got the boat. Which my be painted in fish
repellent. Our wading adventures this year were the most plentiful and
other then the weariness it brings to my old battered body, probably my
favorite way to fish, for short periods that is. For the long long days,
boat is the best way to go, cept of course if you don't catch any fish
with the boat. Going to be a long winter before we find out.
October 4-5th
- Man oh Man but we took another beating this weekend, not a hint of fish,
and the wind ad cold made for a Perfect Storm kinda fishing day. The boat
however ran quite well, no "mechanical" problems at all. As
for the Boat Extraction....well if you've ever seen the Three Stooges
you got almost an idea of what went on when we tried to pull the boat
outta Long Pond on Saturday. Ok here is the scenario, winds are gusting
at a bunch of miles per hour, there are waves slapping up against the
boat launch, which is a not-wide boat launch, maybe 4 feet on each side
of the boat. On either side of launch are some pretty damn decent rocks
and very shallow water. OK so you have a bit of the visual. Since we haven't
quite gotten the hang of backing up the trailer yet, we use the "drag
the trailer to the water and then bring the truck over and re hook it
up" method for the Boat Extraction. OK, so here we go, got the trailer
in the water and pulling driving the boat at it, once in position we usually
hook the pull strap onto the front and crank it in, however this time,
the boat was still way out, so once hooked there was about an 8 foot dash
to get to the crank to start winding. Meanwhile the wind and waves are
moving the boat sideways AWAY from the trailer. So we needed to get the
boat back out into position, but since the water was shallow we couldn't
have the motor down to driver us out. So we attempted, using an oar, to
push the boat out of the shallow water into deep enough water to allow
us to drop the motor and drive out and back into position. But as soon
as we were pushed out enough and then ran back to drop the motor before
starting it, the wind and waves pushed us back into the shallow water.
Are you seeing this? One running from the front of the boat to the winch
and back, and forth, while the other pushed away from the shore and then
ran back to the motor only to run back to pushing away from the shore,
over and over and over. Kinda sucked while it was going on, however if
there was someone watching it musta been hysterical. Obviously we made
it ashore and onto the trailer, using the bang and drag approach but we
got her on the trailer and were in the truck afore the rain began.
Now if we can only catch some fish....
September 27th - Give me a break! Another long day of fishing and all we got was 3 fish? 2 of them we don't even know what they hell they were, resembled Blue Gill, but they were silver, Silvergill? And the other one we pulled on board was a teeny weeny little perch and it was caught on the gill, not ever sure if that counts. Last couple times we've fished rain was coming in, some folks say that turns them off, and of course regarding all fishing information I find, the other half says that it turns them on, go figure. Still not a bad day, boat ran well. Even had subs delivered, life is good. Hopefully the fishing will be good soon as well.
September 20th - Finally we were catching fish again, 4 of them to be exact, not a "glorious" day of fishing but we did set some records. Most fish caught off of the Grammy, most fish we ever caught on Lake Cochiate, we had spent 8 hours here last summer without even a tickle of fish. They say that fishermen are superstitious which I think they become after fishing for a while. Once the "here fishy fishy" thing didn't work we invoked the name of Barbara and after that we caught fish. Bud actually did most of the catching, I dragged in one. But we caught fish and the boat worked. Cross your fingers and knock on wood that our next trip is even more eventful.
September 13th - Another day out on the boat, Nick joined us today and did no better then us, the weather was beautiful, boat ran fine, lunch was great ("what is this? a freaking picnic?) but fishing? well lets put it this way: There is an old adage that says "some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you", which makes me glad I'm a fisherman, we couldn't have bought fish today. I'm thinking its the pre-rain/storm thing that seems to disable our ability to fish time after time. Still a good day.
September 7, 2003 - Went fishing today again, or should we say we went out tooling around in the boat. Which pretty much sums up the day, not a SINGLE FISH on board, couple nibbles but nothing took the bait, literally. But we are getting more comfortable with the boat.
September 6, 2003 - The maiden voyage of the Waverly II. The novices have entered an entirely new realm, we are now actually motorized with a real boat and today we took "her" out. Made it to the water and launched it without any real problems. Cruised around Weymouth and checked her out. Willie visited us so we cruised in and grabbed him and things got odd. Once back out into the water the engine wouldn't turn over. Had to be towed to shore, after Willie made a strong attempt to row us in and we went off to find a new spark plug. Once we put it in, still no luck. Messed with kill switch and it started working and we had no further problems. No boating problems, we did however have fishing problems, well catching problems actually, by end of day (after about 7 hours of fishing) we only landed one fish, a 19 incher but thats all we could bring on board. At one point I actually brought up an OLD BOOT, just like the old fishing stories, but the line snapped before we could get a pic of it. But the trip was successful boating wise and the weather was great. Pics will be posted shorty.
September 2, 2003 - Bud has returned from Arruba and we spent a good chunk of the day wading in the Norton Reservoir. There wasn't a lot of access to fish "good spots" but we did manage to grab 3 monster bass,(Bud 2, Jerry 1) towards the end of the day. I'm really starting to understand why they call it fishing and don't call it catching. Because I think we've gotten pretty good at the fishing part and we are definitely getting better at the catching part. Considering we were fishing in No Cover, No Structure and were still able to snag a couple of big ass bass.
September 1, 2003 - Did my early morning Weymouth trip again today, and let me just say one thing, I am so glad I'm not trying to feed my family on what I catch for fish. Caught one li'l eight-incher. But still a good day.
August 30, 2003 - Another morning in Weymouth, just a few hours, caught three landed two, you figure it out. I did work with the Big Ass Carolina rigs and the worked fairly well, cept I caught the hook on my chair and nailed myself off the back of the head with about a 3/4 ounce of brass. BUT the big news is I was able to work with baitcaster/Quantum PT and not a single backlash, heavy line, well heavier then usual, 12 lb P-Line (my new favorite line), and the heavy carolina brass, but it worked real well. I may actually get the hang of this.
August 23rd, 2003 - Fishing solo this morning, Bud gave up fishing to go to Aruba, but I have my priorities in order, so I went all by my lonesome this morning. Started using the Carolina Rig exclusively, rigged my own as a matter of fact, 1/8 weight, beads etc and was able to successfully land 4 decent bass, one small one, mini me a la Bud, and just before leaving saw a mess of fish leaping outta the water so I cast right into it, thinking that I had me a school and wanted to get them in and get back out for more, and sure enough I got a good solid hit when I landed there and dragged it home only to find a nasty little pike on the end of the line. Least I think its a pike, that's what we call them anyhow, long skinny slimy with some nasty ass teeth. He was even chewing on my pliers as I tried to remove the hook. But catching the pike explained all the little fishes jumping out of the water. So the Carolina Rig worked out well for me. I got a kit that has all the "appropriate" pieces for the rig, all brass and glass, but to my surprise they are freakin' huge. The smallest bullet weight gotta be at least 1/2 once.
August 16th, 2003 - Nother great fishing day in Plymouth, Billingsley Sea, not a great catching day, but a good fishing day, weather was wonderful, we landed in Plymouth a little after 5 and fished till about 10, Bud snagged 4 fish (mini mes) he calls them, and I landed an "average" smallie. If we were competing I'd call it even, or as Bud put it, put them in a blender and it pretty much evens out.
August 9th, 2003 - Bud and I headed out to Ayer at the ass crack of dawn and we were in the water by 5:30 and spend the next 5 hours pulling in smallies. Ya gotta love a fishing day when you lose count of fish. We did the wader gig and traveled the shoreline. Most of what we landed were on "our" green worms, but did manage to grab a few on dark blue french fry and Bud even brought one in on a fly, off of a spinning rod. The sky started darkening with the threat of thunderstorm and as we've learned from experience, for some reason the little buggers stop biting. But it didn't dampen (dampen....get it?) our day, we caught a bunch of fish and had a bunch of laughs. Guess we can label this one another "Freddy Day".
August 2nd, 2003 - Didn't even know for sure if I was going to go fishing today. It was supposed to rain, T-storms coming tonight, but I awoke at about 5ish and said why not. Thank you God for getting me there. Grrreat fishing day, in about 2 hours landed 8 bass, 5 decent ones, 2 good size and a freaking behemoth. Biggest damn thing I've pulled out of freshwater in my life. Heavy downpours of rain, but they kept biting so I kept fishing. When the biggie hit, it hit like a freight train and ran straight out away from me, so I reeled and pulled and waited and reeled and pulled and waited and then it started to zig zag in towards me, at about 8 feet away it went down and stayed there, I couldn't get any give on the line, so I figured the little bugger had wrapped the line around something so I waded out (yep in waders) to see if I could get close enough to change the angle and maybe loosen things up, by now I was pretty sure I had lost the fish but as I approached the area he took off to the right and then came right at me, must have passed by about foot near me, I spun around and started bringing it towards me. When he was close enough to grab my rod was bent into the water due to the weight, mind you this is on 6 pound line (thank you IronSilk) so I wrapped some line around my hand and pulled it outta the water. My mind flashed to my buddy Q and her warning about sea monsters, this think was huge. Standing in water up to my waist, arm straight up in the air and his tail was still in the water. I looked all around and waited about 10 minutes praying that someone, anyone would see me with this thing, but no luck, well in that area anyhow. So I unhooked him and sent him on his way. Still trembling I tossed out another cast and bang, another fishy, regular size. After I unhooked him and dropped the hook into the water another fish grabbed it right in front of me. Hell it was practically a "freddy day". So all in all, 8 fish in two hours, soaked to the bone, shivering and so damn pleased with myself it was amazing. But I will never fish alone again, someone really should have been there to see this puppy. This is why I fish.
July 22nd, 2003 - New Hampshire fishing day. Nick, Danny, Charlie and me (Jerry) hit the "spivey" watering hold for some hot, late day fishing, results were as expected, practically no fish, however.....Nick did snag a few blue gills on worms and Dan gave a spinner bait a shot, his first try with one and landed 2 bass. Another spinnerbait addict is born.
July 19th, 2003 - Headed off to Weymouth by my lonesome, and stayed that way all day. I don't think I could have even bought a fish that day. Kinda hot and muggy which might be part of the problem. On a more positive note, there was some big ass fish breaking water about 40 feet out from the furthest point I could get to, back and forth breaking water fairly regular. But happily one of the local birds swooped down and took his arrogant self away. So it wasn't a bad day altogether.
July 12, 2003 - Lots of fishing today, not a lot of fish, Bud and I hit Billingsley Sea again this morning and landed one big ass bass, little over 16" and that was about it. Headed back home and met up with Deb and Mary, as well as Sarah and my niece Casey Rose, who had never fished before, but was eager to try it. Casey caught 4 bluegills and was pleased as all hell with herself. Everyone else got some practice. Deb and Mary are actually licensed to fish now, which is a good thing as we had a visit this morning from our Local Game Warden.
July 6, 2003 - Heading down to Plymouth for a few hours, Billingsley Sea, did some wading, hit a lot of smallies and one bluegill. Caught the biggest bass of my life, well so far, bout 18/19 incher and one heavy ass monster. Almost scared i'll catch something bigger. The green worms pulled through for Bud again, I had a lot of luck with a 6" black sluggo.
The MAINE Experience - Three days in the land of the Yahoos, four guys, bout 40 plus fish and some scary adventures, as if the backwoods of Maine's wasn't scary enough. That's the short version for more details read the long version. Great trip, tons of laughs, lots of fish, not much sleep. And Buddy came up with the best green worm presentation I've ever seen. >>Click to view<<
June 21, 2003 - Great day in the morning, and into the afternoon, Bud and I, as well as Nick and Jerry Jr hit Ayer about 6:00AM and the games began, hit fish all day long, smallies and trout. Nick caught the biggest one, possibly a largemouth, while him and Jerry, Jr. were tooling around in the Waverly, we swapped off and in and out of waders and pretty much landed fish where ever we tossed our hooks. Of course they were loaded with our Shakin Worm Grasshopper and the Ayer fish love love love it. Got some pictures which should be on the (in the?) Gallery by midweek.
June 15, 2003 - Fathers Day, Grrreat fishing day, Bud and I hit Ayer at about 6:00 AM and snagged a few trout, couple of smallmouths (or Sallies as the Mad Fisherman would say) and a HUGE bluegill, who said they aren't fun to catch. Did the wader routine, which is working out quite well, covering lots of distance catching lot o' fish and easily getting away from folks that we don't want to be around. Even had a double hit of 2 decent smallmouths while some guy was on the beach telling his kid that there are only minnows in the pond, Big ass minnows if you ask me..Loving our shaking worm, bringing it all home.
June 14, 2003 - Spent the morning on Captain Johns outta Plymouth with a bunch of folks from work, 1 decent fish outta 12 people, not the best day I ever spent, but the weather turned out great and there were a lot of laughs.
June 8,
2003 - What a wonderful life, headed out to our "secret"
sweet spot, weather was cloudy and mild, and hit for about 8 bass today,
waders and spinning, doing quite well with the Yum 5" Shakin Work
Grasshopper from Cabela's seems to all I need for now, well that plus
rod, reel, hook and TIME...which I can't complain about I got a lot of
fishing in this week. And yesterday we were given a new rule by Buds soon-to-be
grand kid (too long to explain, so trust me) as soon as you catch a fish,
you add 10 to the amount you've caught, so if its only one you can still
say its 11, etc. Sounds good to me...We also came up with a little question,
when a river empties into a lake or pond, the spot where it empties is
called the inlet, if you're in the river, its the outlet? Does this sound
right?
June 6/7, 2003 - Weaseled outta work early and met up with Bud and spent about 4 ours in Weymouth at "Sandy Beach", our name for it. And caught absolutely nothing. Tried again this morning and landed about half dozen bluegills, but not a sign of anything else, few guys with waders had no luck whatsoever, so I guess it was a good day, till it started raining.
June 2, 2003 - Nother day of just me, did the weymouth gig, got a late start, sending cherubs off to school and it was pretty mild fishing, bunch of bluegills, but no bass, sigh, then the construction crew showed up, apparently they're rebuilding a wall around the pond (so it don't escape maybe?) so my fishing day was cut short, but being in "fishing" mode, I came home and caught 2 videos from NAFC, which I've learned a lot from, paid a lot, but learned a lot, but what price can you put on knowledge?
June 1, 2003 - "On my own again..." Bud went off to MD (the state not the profession) for a few days, and I was fortunate enough to weasel my way outta work for two days, the results? I went fishing. Today was decent, not even 10 minutes after arrival, I landed a nice 16" plus chubby largemouth, (which I measured with my hand, 8" from outstpread pinkie to thumb, tip I got from Shaw Grigsby, well from his show actually, never really met the man, much fun. it was downhill after, couple blue gills and then some nasty ass pike, long skinny snakelike slimy bugger, and nothing after that, I changed bait, but still nothing. Asked a few newsgroups whether pike remnants on the hook and/or bait can keep other fish away and the general consensus seems to be either "definitely not" or "probably" so I still don't know.
May 31, 2003 - Cost of Plastics: $3.49 Price for Gas: $4.50 Coffee and donuts: $5.00 The good time we had fishing: PRICELESS, never thought I'd actually get to use that. We had one of our best days yet, definitely the best day this season. One of Bud's sources directed us to a little place off of the Mass Pike, which will remain nameless, till we're either done with it or someone offers me cash, small pond which we had heard was recently stocked with trout, and it would appear to be true. We caught close to 20 fish between us, figure 12 of them were real fish, not little baby ones, bunch of trout, couple good size bluegill (bigger then my hand) and some "other" fish, we we haven't identified yet. We did the wader thing and spent the day up to our ass in water, which for this case was a good thing. No live bait was involved or hurt during our little trip, we used Sluggo, silver and white, thank you Charlie Moore, and these 5 inch watermelon colored Yum worms, the worms worked the best, the sank slowly and fish were hitting them all over the place. Even got to help out one of the fish that seemed to be having a hard time once returned, but we were able to reach him and get him moving again. All in all a great day, hopefully more to come.
May 18, 2003 - BACK TO BASICS - This was the theme of the day, fished from shore, used nightcrawlers and caught a bunch o' fish. Over a dozen between us, few bass and the balance blue gills. Nothing big, nothing fancy but we finally go fish on hooks, well I finally got one, Bud got one last week. It was a short day, but a great day. Bud was even able to land one on the fly rod, so you know he was/is one happy camper. Hopefully the streak is over, I'm guessing, or at least telling myself its been the weather that's been hurting us, not lack of skill.
May 11, 2003 - The streak has ended, we actually caught fish today, well actually we caught one fish, well actually Bud caught a fish, actually it is going to be a fish when it grows up. But we got one, the "boat caught one". But the weather was great, motor worked, fishfinder died, but we found a little spot near a little variety store and got new batteries. And it showed that we weren't the problem, there weren't a lot of fish to get at, but we'll be back.
April 26, 2003 - Weather was beautiful, nice enough to take out the boat, but as fate would have it. The motor died (found out later it was a wiring problem) so we had to row all over the place. And to continue on our streak, not a single fish. Fish finder saw a few, but that was the closest we came. Still it was a great day, quiet warm, and we was fishing. Remember they don't call it catching, otherwise the day would have been a total failure.
April 19, 2003 - Tried again, too freaking cold for both us and the fish, plus the fact that we got the "large" shiners which were huge, but it sure did increase our casting distance.
April 7, 2003 - Well here we are second week of April and still not a single fish, matter of fact we are currently waiting for 6 inches of snow here in boston, which I have a problem fishing in. Maybe this coming weekend? So I'm still putting on new line and organizing lures etc (and reorganizing over and over). Hopefully spring or at least spring like weather will be upon us soon and we can break out the USS Waverley and harass some bass.
March 23, 2003 - Tried again at Whidden Pond in Weymouth, our usual spots are still frozen, the boat launch and the sandy beach, names we've given them, pretty profound, ya think. But there is also "the bridge" which has never been a good spot, but this early in the season its even worse, spent about 2 hours casting and reeling in, and that's about it. No fish, no sign of fish nothing. We even tried shiners against our plan for the year, but to no avail. Weather is warming up and should be out again this weekend.
March 22, 2003 - Another day at the water, still haven't landed any fish or actually seen any at this point, but we're at them. Started our day at Cochuate State Park and found some unfrozen water, with a guidance of some truck driving lady. But no luck, so we decided to head off for green pastures, pretty much cruised the Wayland, Waltham area and found a few great spots, which hopefully we find again someday when they aren't frozen solid and then headed into Cambridge to try out luck on the Charles River. First spot we hit was pretty crowded with cars, lots of guys alone looking for other guys, but we tried fishing anyhow. First spincasting attempt on a river, different style of fishing but we adapted and still caught nothing. We traveled more towards boston and found a nice little spot with a deck hanging over the water and fished for a bit, it was fun, lots of laughs, but alas, no fish.
March 16, 2003 - We actually made it out fishing, missed the St. Patty's Day parade, but small price to pay. Went to our usual place in Weymouth (can't remember the name right now, but it'll come to me) and it was still frozen, so we drove around to a bridge inlet on the same lake and viola, no ice, well not a lot of ice..so we were actually able to fish. Didn't catch anything, cept the usual leaves and weeds. But we were actually able to cast and all that fun stuff, consider it a practice run.
March 15, 2003 - Weather is getting warmer, supposed to be 40 today and in the 50s, tomorrow, I actually went and un-storaged fishing gear last night, restring a few reels today, sort out some tackle boxes. Just start getting ready, and also to help the detoxing i've been going through. But it did bring the reality of "fishing season is almost upon us" into view.
March
5, 2003 - This is where I hope to chronicle our fishing,
but as of today, its too freakin cold and everything
is frozen........ but soon, very soon.....
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