End of the Year Review 2023

   

Sleepy Hollow, NY

   It is safe to say I will never have another year like this year. I spent a whole year playing while recovering from the health problems that I've talked about enough. While I still have trouble lying down, I am certainly grateful that most of the last nine months have been relatively pain free. Because I feel so much better and had some money in the bank, I had a year full of memories.

    Throughout my adult life, most years always end up having a theme. As I've said in other reviews, one year DJ and I went to New Hampshire every weekend during the summer. The following year I was introduced to Striped Bass and became obsessed. I'd drive to Narragansett or Jamestown four nights a week after getting done baking donuts at 1 am. Twice I've done Rhode Island Big Years chasing birds. I spent all of 2011 fishing for trout and keeping perfect records of how many, where I caught them, each species, and what I caught them on.

   It would be tough to pinpoint what this year's theme would be. I did such a variety of things that I'd say "enjoying nature" would make sense. As an outdoorsman and a wannabe naturalist, this is such a broad statement that it really doesn't describe anything. The more I thought about it, the theme for this year was about chasing adventures. For much of the year I was out looking for something different and new. When I wasn't looking for new and different I was still looking to make everyday as full as possible.

   If you are a reader of the blog, you could make a strong argument that I chased herps A LOT. This I did. I saw far more herp species in New England than I ever had. I saw species I'd never heard of (Italian Wall Lizard). My favorite day of my Midwest vacation was walking a road looking for snakes. Many days during the spring, I'd go birding only to find my eyes facing towards the ground looking for snakes as the morning wore on. Every day is an adventure when herping. Every rock that I lift is a possible winning lottery ticket. Even the most common Garter Snake is fun to hold and sometimes its a challenge to catch them.  But even though so many days spent looking for snakes, I still spent triple the amount of days doing other things. 

  I didn't fish too much this year. I did get out a few times. I had many good days trout fishing down the Cape and in Rhode Island. I did catch all the species of trout except Lakers. I only caught a few Stripers. I caught one lifer, Mackerel.  I fished my ass off in  New Hampshire fishing just about everyone of my nineteen days there.

   Many adventures involved fish but not a fishing pole. I went seining three times in saltwater and twice in freshwater. I got multiple lifers (more on lifers below). I went snorkeling and saw a Beau Gregory which is a tropical fish that should not be here. 

   Laurie and I went on multiple getaways. 

• April Cape trip looking for Right Whales and Herring Runs
• Philadelphia and Delaware Water Gap
• Sleepy Hollow, NY in the footsteps of Washington Irving
• Two trips to NH in the spring. I spent 19 days camping. Laurie came up for about five of those days
• Midwest Trip for ten days Gateway Arch, Hannibal, Kankakee Sands, Snake Road, Cuyahoga NP, PA wilds elk
• A "bag night" is a night spent in the sleeping bag (so its a term used for camping). I had roughly thirty bag nights. I camped twenty five nights and slept under the stars on Laurie's deck about five to ten other nights. I'd have done it a lot more but there was always so much dew on my bag in the morning. 

For nature on those trips I saw-

•   New Hampshire- one moose, one bear, otter, two beavers, heard multiple species of birds at my campsite, breeding toads, two Northern Watersnakes, Smallmouth Bass, Rock Bass, Pickerel, Pike, Rainbow Trout, Brook Trout, Common Shiner, Largemouth Bass
• Cape Cod- two far off Right Whales, herring runs 
• Midwest Trip- Bison, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, 16 Cottonmouths, 1 Plain Bellied Watersnake, 1 Rough Green Snake, Grey Tree Frog, Green Tree Frog, Cave Salamanders, Newt, Armadillo, Racoons, Elk, Indiana Bat

By the numbers- 

   I only kept a year list for herp species I saw. I saw 31 species of herps. This breaks down to 7 turtles species, 12 snakes, 8 frogs, 4 salamanders/newt, 1 Lizard, plus one subspecies (Midland's Painted Turtle)

I caught (with a fishing pole) one new fish species, Mackerel

Lifers-

• I got one lifer mammal, Indiana Bat
• For herps of my 31 species  ten were lifers
• Birds- Four lifers (Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Western Grebe, Western Flycatcher, Ross's Goose) Two state birds Sedge Wren, Townsend's Warbler
• Fish- I saw fourteen lifer fish species. eleven while seining, one seen at the Cape Cod Canal, Blind Cave Fish on a cave tour, and one by snorkeling

Photo upgrades-

• Including the lifer photos I got twenty bird upgrades to add to my photo album. I'm starting an album to document mammals, herps, and fish I've caught. This year I got photos of twenty five herp species that were either lifers or upgrades from what I had. 
•  I have photos of 47/50 fish I've caught. Missing are Sheepshead, Mahi Mahi, and somehow American Eel.
• There are eight bird species I have seen that I did not photograph out of 401
• There are eight mammal species I've seen without a photo out of 61

Armchair Ticks- 

   Though seeing an animal five years ago obviously does not count as a lifer this year I spent hours going through old photos to add to my Species Album. I found photos of 8 birds, 2 mammals, 12 lizards, plus some other photo upgrades of other snakes and turtles.

Personal-  

   I went to a surprising nine concerts. Many of them were free. I only read three real books, but spent countless hours buried in field guides. I watched dozens of documentaries. I went to the movies four times. Laurie and I did binge a bunch of series on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Plus. 

   Only went to fireworks once. Four Museums. Swimming at Onset Beach three times. Three fishing and outdoor expos. Visited Concord, MA twice. Four Holiday/Church Fairs. One figure skating event with Laurie. Saw a flower that smells like rotting flesh called a Corpse Flower at Wheaton College.

   Other than the above trips, all of my other adventures were fishing, birding, chasing state birds, herping, snorkeling (once), quahogging (once), camping in New Hampshire,  or vacation days

For my "Photos with Friends Project" I took photos of myself with twenty of my friends. This leaves me with many more to get. Since I started this project in May, I'm going to continue it for another few months until May. I really want to document memories with people

Happy New Year and may your days be filled with adventures!

Holy Mackerel

 Of all my posts, this one easily has the cheesiest and laziest title but low hanging fruit is the easiest to reach. So no apology from me at this time.

   Today I went to the Cape Cod Canal and caught my first ever mackerel. While it would be considered "spot burning" to say that I caught them at the canal, there are like four people that I know that have the surf rods heavy enough to actually fish there or they wouldn't drive there anyway.. They all live in Rhode Island or western Mass so it is safe to say that I will not be adding to the crowds at the Sandwich Marina. The fishing reports from tackle shops have already reported where the mackerel are. If you are randomly reading this on the internet and your goal in life has always been to catch a mackerel, you are welcome!

   Actually, catching a mackerel was one of my goals. I had never caught any. I'd seen them swim by and be chased by stripers in the summer but never targeted them. Yesterday I went but I failed. I had hoped to catch them on light tackle so I brought my trout rod and some small Kastmaters.  Unfortunately, the macs were way out of range of my small rod.  I did bring an eight food surf rod but I did not think things through. I brought my rod with my bairunner and twenty pound mono. This had half the casting distance of braid. Add to that that I only brought some egg sinkers and tied a small Kastmaster to my line, I must have looked like a googan (idiot)

   When I got done fishing yesterday, I went home and got more appropriate equipment. I got my Mojo rod with a reel full of braided line. I picked up my one Sabiki rig and some bank sinkers. The weather forecast said I had a few hours in the morning before a huge rainstorm. I planned on going fishing at 7-8 am but I didn't fall asleep until 5 am so I got up at 9 am.

   

It's a shame mackerel are just considered 
baitfish because the colors are incredible

   I caught three mackerel today. Since I had never caught any, I would have been very happy with one. I  caught two on one of my casts and an hour later caught the third. However, if I would have been in a competition or a tournament, I would have gotten my ass kicked. I saw so many mackerel caught. One guy reeled in five at a time so often I lost count. Many other guys caught a dozen or more. 

  I tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. My casts were about as far as those guys and I was letting my rig sink like they were. I think they had better Sabiki rigs than me. While I had a rig with five tubes that were grey and red the other people were using a different Sabiki. It seems like they were nailing fish on white teasers or shiny silver teasers. The white fly and the flashy stuff far outfished my rig. 

I learned a lot today by not catching. It made me pay attention to those that were. I probably won't spend a lot of time chasing mackerel anyway. The crowded conditions really aren't my style. On a personal note, the mackerel were my fiftieth species I've caught fishing AND I saw a guy catch a fish called a Longhorn Sculpin. I had no chance of catching one of those, they only eat bait off of the bottom and I was fishing with lures. Still, I saw a lifer. 

Longhorn Sculpin