Fishing Logs

I have been asking myself a lot lately whether or not I would be a complete dork if I kept a fishing log. In a couple books I have read by avid anglers they swear by them. I have never been one to take into account the tide or wind. Usually my fishing is of opportunity. If I can find a slot of time then I get out there and go. Perhaps if I keep a log and I do have the chance to get out I can look at where I fished in the past on that date to have a reference as to if there are fish in a particular location or not. I have actually thought about getting a few of those composition books and not only logging my experiences, but borrowing from others as well. A couple great fisherman have online blogs/logs and if I coupled mine with theirs it could be a great situation.

Fishing lately has been pretty hit or miss around the Cape. I have heard of decent success in the canal, but I just really do not enjoy fishing there that much. I will go to the Railroad Bridge on occasion, but that is about the extent of it. Weather will be bad this weekend so my trip to NH to here Martin Sexton is timely. I foresee a couple mental health/fishing days off from school in the near future.

Memorial Day Weekend

Friday - Christine took her students to Six Flags for a Great East Festival so I had the kids. We ended up swinging by Parker's after dinner. There was a lot of bait again. I decided to fill up a trash bag for the freezer. Everytime I snagged a menhaden they got chased by small stripers. The third one was chased by a beautiful 30" ish fish though. I tried leaving the menhaden out there, but no luck. Tried fishing with a Hogy and a Storm shad, but unable to get a fish to stay on.

Saturday - Andrew, Susan and Baby Aidan were over and we had a nice day at Thomas' baseball game and then a kids fair at North Falmouth Elementary. Later that night I took my students on a field trip to see the Boston Pops. John Williams was the conductor. Last year was my first year seeing the group in person at Boston Symphony Hall and I was brought to tears by the amazing sound and accuracy of the orchestra, but mostly by the brass section. The program was excellent and I was excited that they concluded the entire evening with E.T., my favorite movie score. The french horns were breathe taking.

Sunday - We decided to head out on the boat and we ended up having a great time. We headed out to the West End of the canal and then into Onset Harbor. By the time we made it into the harbor it was 11:00 and close to lunch time. After being convinced to dock the boat we did and we found the legendary pizza place, Mark Anthony's. Unbelievable pizza. We got home by 1:30 and it felt as though we were all ready for bed. I am impressed by my ability to launch and take out the boat. For a relative newbie I think I am the fastest at it that I have witnessed. Now if I can just get my boat driving skills up to that level I would feel a lot better. Getting there. Unfortunately, we missed out on going to a cookout at Mike Kennedy's that we had been looking forward to for some time. Christine and I were under the impression that Andrew and Susan would be leaving Sunday, but it didn't happen. It was impossible to talk Andrew to coming to the cookout with us and both Christine and I were uncomfortable leaving our kids with the Garcia's at our house. Overall a great day, but would have been nice to see some friends at Mike's. That would have been an unbeatable day if topped off with that.

Monday - Memorial Day Parade was a success. Wished I had more students there, but with how my scheduling has been for the past two weeks I can not blame me or the students. Thomas got sick and it was a frustrating cookout / graduation party / birthday party at the Kerrigan's because of it. He was a trooper as always and after he finally puked he seemed fine.

Attempting to find the ...........irony?

Now I have resorted to not only trying to find the fish, but now the irony in the fact that I have not caught any fish yet. Perhaps the first fish I catch this year will be a keeper and not a schoolie. Maybe I am going to have the best run I have ever had at some point. Maybe I am going to win the boat, or a weekly prize in the Striper Cup. Better yet, maybe the Toyota Tundra. Probably none of these are going to happen, but it sure would be nice to say," Isn't it ironic that I started off the season so slow and... (insert improbable happening here)."

At lunch today I got a bump at Trunk River, but just one. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........................

Might have to do some early morning fishing this weekend. Saturday, Sunday, or both.

Strike One, Two, Three, You're OUT!!

Getting more and more frustrated at my lack of caught fish this year. Thomas and I dropped Gwen off at lacrosse and had a solid hour and a half to find some fish. Gene had caught some fish at Megansett the night before and I had seen a ton of bait and a nice fish at Parker's. So, we started at Parker's and worked our way back to Falmouth High School. We went out on the end of the docks at Parker's - Strike One. We took some casts at Megansett after that - Strike Two. One more stop, West Falmouth Harbor - Strike Three. Being the cartoon junkie that I once was I remember a Bugs Bunny where he struck out three batters on one slow ball. Similar? Probably not.

Got back to pick up Gwen with 15 minutes to spare and Thomas and I played catch for a while. He is finally starting to be less afraid of the ball when catching. He has a rocket arm and can catch, but he constantly steps to the side if the ball is coming at him and catches the ball beside him. He'll get it and last night was a great step in the right direction. We had a stretch of 9 tosses back and forth where no ball was dropped. Thomas' new goal is to play for the Commodores when he is in college. That would be amazing even though I am not holding my breath.

Why I hate lacrosse

Yes, I am being sarcastic, but with Memorial Day approaching I have yet to land a fish in '08. I love that both Gwen and Thomas are active and becoming more athletic. Gwen especially has become so much more comfortable with her body through lacrosse and gymnastics. I love it, BUT by this time last year I had already brought in close to 50 fish, schoolies, but fish. Now with Monday - Thursday nights all filled up with lacrosse practices I only have three possible days really to get any fishing in. Friday evenings I like to spend with the family and I am usually quite beat after a week of work. Saturday mornings Thomas has baseball at 9am. This is not a very good excuse because it has been going on for a month and he has only had one game! Why? The second thing that I hate - the weather. Every weekend the weather has been windy and rainy making the windows of fishing time even smaller than what they already are.

PHEW!!! I'm venting and I really don't hate lacrosse or the weather, I am just frustrated. Last night after work I swung into Parker's and had a nice fish follow my Amber Hogy in. I would say the fish was in the neighborhood of 28". About 20 yards past my cast I could see a huge school of menhaden and eventually they worked themselves to the dock I was casting from. They were huge and plentiful. I snagged one and livelined him, but had no takers. The fish I snagged had to be 14" long and weigh close to 2 or 3 lbs. That's a big bunker and there were about a hundred just like him. The rains came and I was still in my school clothes so I got out of there.

Just had to share this

Here is a video from youtube that I find to be absolutely hilarious. Yes, I love both Jackass and Jackass 2. I cannot help myself in laughing at other peoples ability to have the cajones to do extra crazy and stupid things. This video shows two kids jumping in the fish tank at Bass Pro Shops. My favorite part is just before the second kid jumps he yells,"Canonball!" Looks like all the fish were unharmed.

They're Here

In the immortal words of Poltegeist's Carol Ann, "They're here." Only I am not referring to the "TV people," but rather the bluefish that have made their way into Buzzards Bay. I was able to take the kids out yesterday and shortly after leaving Megansett we happened upon some diving birds. Again, there were no fish popping up, but obviously there was a large amount of bait getting pushed up by something. Gwen took a few casts, but her shad was not heavy enough to get down to the bottom. For some reason Thomas was not into casting yesterday even though he has gotten really good at it. after casting into the birds and coming up empty I decided to ride over where the birds were and checked out the fishfinder. A lot of bait and some fish hunkered down deep. Like last week, 30 feet of water. I trolled around with a heavy white bucktail jig and managed to hook up. I could tell right off the bat that it was a bluefish, but I was never able to see him to confirm. I could see my white bucktail hanging out of somethings mouth right before it shook me free. During the rest of the short trip I was able to mark some more fish, but unable to get more strikes. I even found this unbelievable ledge that had a huge amount of fish stacked up right behind it. By the time I was able to get the gear on to it I had lost the spot and was unable to find it again. Tough without GPS and I am hoping to fix this problem pronto and also tough with Thomas doing a blood sugar and looking to have a snack. It was a beautiful day and all in all I had a lot of fun.

Proud Papa

Here is a picture of Thomas just after scoring his first goal in lacrosse. He is standing right in front of the coach in red. By the way, the goon in the background with his arms up is me acting like Thomas just scored the winning goal in the Olympics to upset the Russians. It was a pretty neat play. There was a huge scrum just to the right of the goal and Thomas entered it a little late. he got his stick in there, dug out the ball and turned to view a clear path to the goal. He threw an excellent bounce shot and that was that.

About my last post --

Christine gave me a bunch of garbage about a product review in my blog. Obviously this is really stupid, but it is not as dorky as it may seem. Its actually pretty cool. While searching around the humminbird website looking for a new unit (more on that later) I saw a place to write reviews. On a couple of message boards that I frequent Humminbird really gets a bad rap and I like mine so I decided to write a quick review. When I was done writing the review it asked me if I would like to post it to my blog. Not that I really cared, but I thought it would be cool to see how they did it. I just sent them the blog address and then a pop up window asked me for my blog password and it was done. Pretty cool.

Why am I looking for a new fishfinder unit? On the last fishing trip I talked about how Mike and I were marking fish and making a drift, but what I failed to mention is how hard it was to turn around and make the same drift. It would have been very easy if I had a GPS unit. Mark the spot on the GPS unit and return to it after the drift is done. This is the case with most companies, but apparently not Humminbird. I had been told that if you want to change electronics you need a whole different transducer and mount etc. I went on to the Humminbird website and found a unit of the same size, but had GPS. I currently have the 343c and the 383c has GPS. The price difference is not even $200 and I think that if West Marine had this on display I would have bought this in the first place. I called Humminbird and they said that their units are completely compatible, meaning that all I need to do is attach the face of a 383c to the base of what I already have and I am good to go. Now I am pumped up. I decided to check out ebay and see what is up with prices. It looks as though I could sell my 343c for about $200 (probably a little less since it is used). It also looks like I could buy a brand new 383c for around $360. Pretty good deal. I will probably end up buying the 383c first and sell the 343c on ebay with the mount and transducer that comes with the 383c. I have also thought about calling Humminbird and seeing if I can just send in the face of my 343c and pay the difference for a 383c face. Wish me luck!

My Review of 343c

Originally submitted at Humminbird

The 343c features a brilliant color 320V x 240H 3.5" display and advanced DualBeam PLUS sonar with 2400 Watts PTP power output.

343c

Happy overall

By Tom from Cape Cod, MA on 5/14/2008

 

4out of 5

Pros: Screen Resolution/Clarity, Reliable Performance, Screen Size, Sonar Performance

Best Uses: Saltwater, Boat Navigation

Describe Yourself: Recreational Boater, Avid Angler

I have only had my boat for a short period of time and love the unit. Very clear and easy to read. Marked some fish on it this past weekend and started catching. Loads of fun. I wish I was not a cheap mooron because I would have bought the 383c unit with GPS. Looking to upgrade right now and I am told that the transducer and mount do not have to be changed which I think is rather unique in comparison to other companies.

(legalese)

Finally!!

Mike Earley was instrumental in getting us out on Mother's Day to fish. Somehow he persuaded Suzanne to take the other wives out to an extended lunch/dessert on Saturday. This gave us 4 hours of fishing on Mother's Day morning.

It was windy and a bit cold, but doable. We decided to head to the West End of the Cape Cod Canal and then work our way back. On the way to the Canal we came up on a huge flock of birds that were diving. It was clear by some of the rises that there were fish breaking under the birds. I feel pretty confident that I did not get too close to spook the school, but as soon as i got us within casting distance the birds took off and so did the fish. We slowly went over where the action had been occurring and I noticed that there were some interesting marks on the fishfinder. I have not yet taken the time to completely figure out how it works. I was pretty sure that this had to be fish. Mike and I took some casts and Mike hooked up to the first fish of the season, a small 20 incher. We turned around and repeated the drift. As soon as I told Mike we were over the fish he hooked up again. I was very excited to be reading the fishfinder accurately. We repeated the drift a few more times and I finally got a hit, but it felt like areally small fish and he never really latched on. Mike got a couple more hits too, but we were unable to boat any more fish.

We went up to the West End of the Canal and did see some bird action, but there were no fish under them. On the way back home we swung into the mouth of Red Brook Harbor and made a few casts into the rocks at Wing's Neck. After a while we saw a few striped bass working on some bait in tight to shore. About ten feet away from where we could reach with a cast. Could not tell what the bait was. Looked too small to be herring. Bigger than peanut bunker and smaller than adult menhaden.

I am going to be trying to take advantage of any free time I can muster in the next month as the fishing is really going to start heating up. A couple sick days may be in order as well.

So Close

I took a few casts here and there yesterday during lunch and after work. I have not been hitting a lot of the usual early season estuaries and river systems, but I have been fishing the warmist water I can find easily. Along the south side of Falmouth there are many outflows from small estuaries that dump out into the open ocean. I fished a few of those and had my first hit of the season. I admittedly was not ready for it and probably could have hooked up if I wasn't in a daze. Stayed for another 15 minutes and was unable to draw another strike.

I took Thomas for a few casts at West Falmouth Harbor before Christine's concert and we had a lot of fun. Thomas was excited to finally try out his new RED fishing rod. He also put on one of the shad lures that I got him at Bass Pro Shops last weekend. He casted really well. I am hoping that he or Gwen get into their first keeper this year. I had another hit, but again I missed it.

Saw a really promising fishing report on Surf Talk from a boater who went out yesterday. He told of a lot of top water action in Buzzards Bay, including the West End of the canal. Of course, like last weekend, the weather is supposed to be horrible this weekend. I do not think I am going to sit around and do nothing this time though. I am finally going to put the foul weather gear to the test and rough it. No Excuses!!