The next four months of this blog

Last year from November through  February I didn't write to much on the blog. Being winter, I didn't get out much. As far as I concerned, I didn't really have much worth saying. This year I am going to be a more active writer. So I have a few ideas of things to write about. I thought I would share them now.

Why share them now? Because writing this means I can stall shoveling the four inches of wet snow currently melting in my driveway. I have two branches that fell in my yard from last nights storm, both are so large, I can't drag them myself. If I give it a couple of hours most of the snow will be melted and DJ will be up and can help me drag the branches. So I write..

November- If we are lucky there is about three weeks left in the striper season. The snow storm may have shortened that timetable.  Many fish could be high-tailing it south right now. I plan on giving the ocean a shot a couple more times. I also still want to give Wachusetts another shot. I still haven't caught a lake trout or salmon. This week I might give it a go depending on the weather.

December- The state of Massachusetts stocks broodstock salmon the first week of December. I want to catch one very badly. There are  some ponds in Plymouth and the Cape  that I am going to try. I want to catch a salmon so much, I will be willing to stand in freezing cold water in my waders in below freezing temps to catch one. I WILL put in my time to catch one. 

I am also hopeful that stripers will over winter in the Providence winter in numbers like the good old days. I doubt this will happen, but I can dream can't I. Whether the fish are there or not, there is only one way to find out. So I will be giving the river a try at least a couple of times.

I can't say I have any fishing destinations lined up for January and February. If Jeff is around we might talk me into ice fishing. That said I will have stuff to write about that I hope you find interesting. I'm going to do more product reviews. I think they will be useful to outdoors people. I also plan on doing a couple of fish recipes. I'm finally going to give my list of favorite outdoor movies and books.

Basically what I am saying is even though winter is coming, keep reading I won't go into hibernation like I did last year. Thanks for getting this site up to 5000 hits!!!!

The best news in a while!!!

I have been complaining a lot about how bad the striped bass fishery has been the last few years. I have given my opinion on commercial fishing. I've complained many times that to many spawners are being taken out of the population. I've complained that the number of schoolies only 40% of what it was only five years ago.

So today I finally have some good news. Actually I feel it is great news. I am trying to convince myself to be only slightly optimistic, but truthfully I have images of the old days ( five years ago) of ten fish nights. The good news is... This has been a great year for striper reproduction in Chesapeake Bay. It seems that many young of the year striped bass  have survived their first few months of life. Actually, the young of the year index is the 4th highest total in history. This is great news, if this year class is as good as they say and there are no environmental disasters, we should have loads of 17- 22 inch schoolies in three or four years.

These fish will hopefully, in a couple years from now be a wall of schoolie sized stripers invading the Atlantic coast. In six or seven  years there should be a large number of just legal sized stripers along our shores. These fish will be legally protected in most states until they are 28 inches. Then recreational fishermen will start taking them. Recreational fishermen do very little to hurt the population. When this year class reaches 34 inches ( the size in Rhode Island) commercial guys will take their toll.

I feel that strong year classes should be protected for long term success of the species. We have not had a good strong juvenile recruiting year in six years. That is far too long. If we are only going to have good year classes every six years, then the strong classes should be protected to keep the population stable long term.

Although, I am getting ahead of myself in excitement, there is a downside. The group in charge of regulations on the entire Atlantic coast has finally realized there are a lot less stripers than five years ago. Next year they want to tighten regs ( its about time). Having a good year class will give commercial interests a little leverage on keeping quotas high ( read: above sustainable levels). They will claim taking large numbers of spawners has no affect on small stripers. To me, the more spawners you have during years when conditions are right for young of the year survival, the better.  Still, this is good news. I am not going to dwell on the politics of it and be happy and hope that three years from now, I may again find ten fish nights a common thing!!!

50 inch striper caught by my friend's son

Ben Pickering, the college age son of my friend Dave caught a 50 inch striper the other night. Although I have been friends with Dave for many years I just met Ben about a week ago. After he measured it and took a quick picture, he let it go. You gotta give the kid a lot of credit for letting a once in a lifetime trophy go like that. I tip my cap to him. Great job Ben!!! I could write all about it, but it makes more sense if you read the write up by his proud father www.ristripedbass.blogspot.com

My buddy Amber

Last night my buddy Amber slept over. I didn't tell her, but my plan for this morning was to take her kayaking. Amber loves going out in the kayak. Before today we had gone twice this year. The first was just out to Falls Pond. The second time was when we went camping in Rhode Island.

Today, we waited until 9 am before loading the kayaks. I wanted it to warm up a little first. It turned out to be a nice day. The high I guess was about 65 degrees. I didn't actually have a plan until after we put the kayaks on the car. I ended up choosing to kayak Olney Pond in Lincoln Woods. We put the yaks in at the boat ramp and headed across the pond. There was a breeze kicking up waves on the launch side, so we headed to the lee side of the pond. We paddled that half of the pond. We landed at the beach. We used the porta john. Then we fished a little bit from the beach without any luck. We paddled back to the car and after loading the kayaks we went home for lunch.

This afternoon was the Rhode Island chapter of the Carp Anglers Groups semi-annual fish in. A fish in is a group get together. We fish for a few hours. Exchange infomation, and talk about the lakes the carp are hitting in. Since Amber was still over, I dragged he to the fish in. I promised her we would only be there a couple hours. It started at 3 pm. I assumed if we made it until 5 pm before she got to bored, it would be an accompishment.

About 8 of us showed up. My friend Dave is the president of the RI chapter.He is in charge of when and where the fish ins take place. This one was at Scotts Pond in Lincoln Rhode Island. Unfortunately, the fish were not hitting and when I left no one had caught a carp. To keep Amber entertained I brought a trout rod and worms. It was good that I did since the carp were not co operating.

After an hour of talking and no fish, we got out the worms. Within minutes Amber was into fish. She landed a sunfish and was pretty excited to be the first person to catch fish. We only had seven worms. So she wasn't going to have hours of panfishing. She ended up catching six sunfish and one white perch. The perch was the first one she ever caught. When the worms ran out it was almost dark. I figured she had enough and it was time to go. When we got in the car I realized it was 6:45. She buckled her seatbelt and told me she had a really fun day. I was happy about that. Its always cool to watch a little kid have fun, especially when its doing your favorite hobbies.

The best three seconds

Other than loosing my virginity, the most exciting intense three seconds I know of are the three seconds from when a striper hits an eel until you set the hook. For those of you that don't know, the way to fish an eel is to cast it out. Reel it in slowly with the rod tip held high. When a fish hits the eel, you drop the rod tip parallel to the water. When line tightens, you rear back and set the hook. Waiting for the line to tighten is intense. Eels usually attract big stripers. I've caught very few schoolies on eels. Almost all the stripers I have ever caught on eels are over 32 inches.

I had sworn off eels for the last couple of years. I've been fishing for schoolies a lot with soft plastic. When I went for bigger fish I was usually using plugs. I know the eel population is not what it was, so I made a choice to not use them much at all.

Tonight I really wanted to catch a keeper. I went to my secret spot that I have only told a few people about. Its a spot in plain site of the road and easy access. Yet very few people know it is fishy. I bought two eels. Not exactly going to destroy the eel population buying two. I figured if fish were not around, two would be plenty. If there were a  lot of fish around, I could catch them on plugs after  I used the eels.

I ended up catching two stripers. The first was a schoolie about 26 inches the other a keeper 31 inches. I had a couple other taps but no takes. The best part was the time from hit to hook set on the two I caught. Best six seconds of the night!!!

Big Blues at the Ocean Today!!!

We kept two of the blues we caught. The first to smoke, the other because it swallowed the plug to its gills. It will be smoked also

I got out of work by 2 pm today and was not on call afterwards. I called Jeff and asked him if he wanted to go fishing. Low tide was at 4:30. That limited our options. There aren't too many " low tide spots". We opted to fish an outflow into the ocean. The water was rushing out of a salt pond as the tide dropped. Within minutes we each landed a schoolie striper. Honestly we have done so bad fishing saltwater this year, hooking a schoolie within minutes made the trip worth it.

Within a couple more minutes Jeff and I hooked up at the same time. This time we were not into schoolies. We were onto HUGE bluefish. The first two we landed were probably the biggest. They were 12-14 pounds. They were gorillas. We landed a few more the smallest was probably 8 or 9 pounds. All the others were over 10 pounds. It was not a blitz, but there were definitely a few feeding in the surf.  Jeff caught another schoolie, but the big news of the night were the big bluefish.

I will try to get a couple pictures up as soon as I can.

Kind of a weird week

One of the employees at work this week had a medical issue this  week so I didn't get any days off. It was just easier to work everyday than to try to figure out what to do if there was an emergency. Unfortunately, I kind of needed to stay close to home, just in case there was a problem at work. Basically, I was on call all week. Still I got out of work most days about 3:30 so I did do some fishing.

Last week I went fishing with Jeff Henderson, while we were fishing he slipped in the water and ruined his phone. On top of that he got a new job. He only found out late last Friday. Monday was Columbus Day, so he couldn't contact them until Tuesday. With Jeff's phone dying and I didn't know when he was working, I didn't get a chance to fish with him this week.

So because of being on call and not being able to contact one of my fishing buddies, things were not status quo for me. Early in the week, I went to Greenwich Bay and hoped to catch some stripers and blues. I heard they were in the bay pretty thick. I didn't see any, but I did see schools of menhaden way out in the bay. I grabbed my kayak off the car and paddled out. I ended up snagging six. Now that I had the menhaden, I decided to drive to Jamestown to use them for bait. It was pretty late and I assumed no one was gonig to call with a problem at work. I took a calculated risk. Also Jamestown is only about a 50 minute drive so its not like I was in New Hampshire. I tried four spots but couldn't find any fish. I went home with five of my six menhaden.

The next day I stopped at one of my friend Dave's favorite fishing spots to see if he was there.  I had been monitoring the water level and told him the day before it was fishable. He was fishing and walkked over to talk a few minutes. He told me, he had been fishing for an hour and already landed 12 carp. While I was talking to him, he landed four more.  While he was fishing, both rods got hits. I picked up one and landed a  six pounder. It was one of the first times in my life I caught a fish without having a rod and wasn't even fishing. I left and Dave continued to fish. He ended up catching 20. I went back later that night after I picked DJ up from practice. We only fished about an hour and we each caught one. Neither was very big.

After work, I have been doing some trout fishing. One day Laurie got some Wendys and I convinced her to eat it in the fresh air while I fished. We went to Whitings and I caught four rainbows in about 30 minutes. I have gone troutfishing a few times since. Sometimes only for a few minutes between getting out of work and picking DJ up from practice. Since the day I fished while Laurie ate, I haven't had a hit. I've caught a couple small bass on spinners or spoons, but no trout. I know they are there. One night at Falls I watched a school of about 10 swim by within feet of me, but they wanted flies not spinners. By the time I got my fly rod they were gone.

So as ridiculous as this sounds, my best fishing for the week was snagging menhaden and carp fishing without a fishing pole. I should get to the ocean Sunday so hopefully I have better stories than this. Next week I have Friday and Saturday off. I know Saturday morning I am fishing with a few carp buddies. I hope that the weather is good for those days. Here is my plan.

Thurs night after work- ocean ( stripers and blues or more likely nothing)
Friday- Wachusetts in the morning for salmon or at least to see them migrate up river
Friday night if fishing was good in the ocean Thurs, go back
Saturday fishing with carp buddies
Sat night      ???

It was the best of times, It was the worst of times...

It seems like every time I go fishing on my two days off, I will have one day of good fishing and one day of not so good to terrible fishing. Last weeks days off were no exception. I went fishing on both Thursday and Friday. Here is how it went.

The best of times...

Not knowing where I was going fishing until I got up I decided to go trout fishing down in Plymouth, MA. DJ had to stay home from school on Thursday because he was throwing up all day Wednesday. The school has a policy where you can not return to school within 24 hours of vomiting. So for him it was a free day from school. He was still week, but the throwing up was over. So when I got up early, and he was lying in bed, I knew I couldn't abandon him all day.

I went fishing for a couple hours in the am at Whitings Pond. All the ponds that get a fall stocking of trout where stocked this week.  I could see trout in front of me, but they were picky. I ended up catching two. One was a holdover from the spring. It was skinny but made it through the summer.Around noon, I came home and got DJ.

Under the premise that fresh air is good for you, I picked DJ up and headed down the Cape. We stopped at the Cape Cod Canal. I told him we would not fish saltwater unless we saw fish. We checked a few spots but didn't find any. WE drove to Scusset Beach and looked there. After we scouted we went to a sub shop for lunch. We got Italian grinders. Probably not the best choice for DJ since it upset his stomach a little.

After lunch we went to Myles Standish State Park to fish Fearings Pond. DJ's belly hurt so he just grabbed his book and sat at a picnic table soaking up the fresh air and sun. I started fishing next to him. I caught two trout really quickly on a silver Kastmaster. I knew the trout would still be bunched up so I set off looking for the school. I worked the shoreline for a few hundred yards then I hit the jackpot. I casted into a shaded cove and started hooking one trout after another. After my eighth, I walked back to DJ and told him this wasn't fishing it was catching. We was enjoying his book and didn't want to fish. So I made the walk back and caught a bunch more. I started getting bored after my 19th, so I walked to the car to get my fly rod. By the time I got back ( about 15 minutes round trip)  they were just out of casting range. I landed one more. All told I caught 22 trout and easily could have caught more if I didn't walk to tell DJ or got my fly rod. I fished Fearings for about two hours. Ten trout an hour is fun, wish I could have had some of that luck the following day...

The worst of times...

Again, I woke up with ideas of where to fish but no actual game plan. My thoughts were the ocean or Wachusetts. I still want to catch fish out of " the Chu" and its my only real option for lake trout and landlocked salmon. Also smallmouth fishing is supposed to be great, however, I can't seem to find them. I chose to go to the Chu. My logic was, if fishing sucks I could always leave early and go to the ocean later. So I was on the road about 7:30.

As usual, I tried for lakers and smallmouth. I tried shiners on the bottom and lures for both bass and the trout. I only landed to small bass. I fished from 8:30- until 3:30. I hit multiple spots and definitely put in my time. I ran across a biologist and asked a bunch of questions. He said salmon will be running in a couple weeks. I told him the spots I hit and he was surprised no fish were hitting. We both agreed fishing would have been better on a rainy crappy day. It was a beautiful blue sky with 80 degree temps. So I went home empty handed from there again.

Salt on the wound...

The next morning checking my favorite sites online, I checked my friend Dave's blog. On Friday ( my day at Wachusetts) Dave was in Narragansett. Possibly the largest blitz to happen in years took place right along the shoreline. For FIVE miles bass, blues and albies were blitzing bay anchovies along the shore. The bass were all keepers size or bigger. The bluefish were the big ones over ten pounds. If I would have decided to go to the ocean instead of the Reservoir, I could have caught large bass and blues on every cast all day long. Yes I was sick to my stomach after reading that!!!

Personal Best Mirror Carp

On Saturday I went fishing with my friend Dave Pickering. We went to a lake that he had done great at during the week. While we were there, another friend  Jeff Allard showed up with a friend of his ( who I never met ) Keith. So with four of us fishing and eight baits in the water we were bound to catch something. Happily for me I caught my largest mirror carp to date. It was 17 pounds easily besting my next largest by almost four pounds. Between all of us we got a few more carp. Jeff lost a big one that probably was bigger than mine. He handled it very well and continued to fish, I believe without even dropping an F-bomb. It was a fun unscheduled get together. All of us are or were one time members of the Rhode Island chapter of the CAG ( Carp Anglers Group). They are a great bunch of guys. Its fun to plan fishing trips with these guys, but it really makes for a good story when we wind up fishing the same place by accident.

When I can, I will post some pictures of fish caught.

Wanderlust Part 3 " The Aftermath "

    As we left off from Part 2 of what should be called at this point the story of my life, I was returning from a big trip out west last summer. When I got home I went through post vacation blues. I think a lot of people get them. It took me a long time to become my old self. It was at least a month. When I got home, I didn't want to do anything. I did not even want to go fishing, read that again- I did not want to go fishing. I don't know if it was because I felt nothing around here could compare with what I had done, or if it was just depression. I didn't need medicine or anything like that, but I had to battle to get out of the funk I was in.

You always hear people say that a trip like that, a trip to Europe or hiking the Appalachian Trail  will change you. You may not notice at first, but it does. For me it was the exact opposite, going on the trip only strengthened my conviction that I need to be tramping for the rest of my life. If given the choice, I would rather be homeless drifting across the country than have a stable marriage, house and a white picket fence. I know ladies, I am a catch. Unfortunately, cars run on gas and gas runs through gas station pipes only if you pay for it. So where does that leave me.

Well, I do what I am supposed to do. I work and pay bills like everyone else. However, if my life only consisted of coming home from work watch some tv, go to bed and do it again, I'd be absolutely miserable. I NEED to be out and about. I can fish for hours without getting a bite. I can hike endless mile through woods where one tree looks like the next. But at home, I can be bored  within 20 minutes of getting home from work. Hell, sometimes I'm bored within 20 minutes of getting home from five hours of fishing. Even I admit I have an issue.

So even though I can't drive across the country every summer, I have to find reasonable substitutions. Of course if you read my blog you know I fish all the time. I love fishing, it doesn't matter if its for trout, carp, or stripers. Fishing isn't just a way to kill time or relax. It is something I absolutely love.

If you've made it this far, keep going, your almost home. If you get anything out of this blog post it should be this: I saw a lot of America and New Hampshire can hold its own in scenery and outdoor fun with any place in the country.  The fact is the Grand Tetons and some Rocky Mountain ranges ARE more spectacular than the Whites, but that's about it.However the state has it all, it plays second fiddle to no state. You can hike deep in the woods. There is great fishing for both trout and smallmouth bass.  You can hike big mountains. Views are amazing. So whenever I have a free weekend I quench my wanderlust by going to New Hampshire. I actually think I appreciate I New Hampshire more now than before I went out west. Maybe I am just grateful I have such a great getaway spot three hours from home. Needless to say just knowing New Hampshire can be the next weekend away, makes for a much more relaxed Nick.

Did I just refer to myself in the third person in the last sentence? Oh well my blog. Deal with it ( or make fun of me, either way I don't really care). Lastly, I find myself reading more books about other peoples journeys. When I was young, I read a lot of books on sports. I read the history of the Celtics. Autobiographies of my favorite players were always on my want list. Now I rarely read books on sports now. I read books on hitchhiking, autobiographical accounts of hiking the Appalachian trail and of course " Into the Wild." I plan on writing a post about my favorite "drifting, tramping, traveling " books over the winter. My favorite writer is/was Edward Abbey who wrote a lot about the southwest. .

So there you have it. My life in a nutshell about why I would rather be homeless vagabond than a successful bussiness man ( although being a successful man would make it a lot easier to become a vagabond a lot sooner). Like I said earlier, I believe I was born this way ( no I did not just quote Lady Gaga).  My parents especially my mom gave me the love of fishing, nature, and animals. That said, I have taken the art of fishing way past the boundries my mom set. I probably catch more big fish a month than she did in her lifetime. My mom enjoyed fishing as a way to relax. I enjoy catching fish and took learning about them and there habits to levels my mom would have been bored to death with. By the time I was 25, I saw more moose than both of my parents combined. Not because I was luckier, but because I found out where they hang out. As opposed to my parents, who would just drive around hoping to find one.When I am intersted in something, I want to know  everything I can about it.I had an extremely stable two parent home. We never moved. We took a family vacation every year but never had conversations about seeing the world ( or more importantly all 54 U.S. national parks). So I firmly believe, no matter how I was brought up, if put in a different envirement, I'd still be the same. I would always want to know what is over the next hill.

Author's note:
If you read all three parts about Wanderlust, I want to thank you. I wrote this piece really just to put my thoughts in order. If you enjoyed reading about what is inside my head, I am glad. However, if you were bored and could care less, I understand that too. We all have our own problems, most people have problems a hell of a lot worse than whether or not I will ever get to Glacier National Park. I did not write it or expose my inner thoughts to you to whine or complain. I figured if you are a fan of my writing, I thought you might want to understand the rational of some of the decisions I make, or why am willing to fish in the rain or sleep outside below freezing.

The four vacation destinations left out of my ORIGINAL top 10 ( no paticular order)

1. Yosemite/ Giant Sequoias
2. Glacier National Park
3. St John, Virgin Islands
4. Olympic Peninsular, WA  ( OLympic National Park, Whales and Pugent Sound)

Also I'd like to get to Acadia National Park, Canyonlands National Park, the Everglades and Keys, and Kodiak Island

Thanks again for reading
Nick