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

Wanderlust Part 2 "The trip"

If you have read part one, you can see that from as long as I can remember I have wanted to see it all.  I don't know where it came from. Mom had no interest in geography or history. By the time I was 10 I knew more about both of those subjects than my dad. I bring up geography and history only because they are big influences on places I want to see. I feel humbled going to a Civil War battlefield. I remember thinking that if I don't see the Rockies before I die, no matter what else I do, my life would be incomplete. We went on vacation once a year to a cabin in Maine for two weeks. It was awesome, but nothing different than millions of other families. Needless to say I am a big believer in  nature in the argument Nature vs. Nurture. I firmly believe I was born not to sit still.

As we left the end of Part ,1, I was reading books about hiking, fishing, and driving the American west. Fast forward to the summer of 2010. My job had been " downsized". Also I had a little money in the bank. I decided that DJ and I would take a summer long vacation out west. For years I had been planning this trip. I never knew when. So when I finally decided to take it, planning was fairly easy.  I already knew the places I most wanted to go. My number one destination my entire life has been Yellowstone. The trip was going to revolve around Yellowstone. I had one of my famous lists, with the ten places I most want to visit. I figured a route that included six of them. You just can't combine a trip with the Grand Canyon and the Virgin Islands.  I had to figure out where we would be almost every day of the trip. I am a believer in having a plan for vacation., but also to know in advance things will change. Sometimes you have to fly by the seat of your pants. I did have to figure out when I would be at places like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. There was no way I was driving 3000 miles to find out the campgrounds were full.  I had to make reservations for crowded tourist areas.  So around early April, I made reservations for Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Custer State Park in South Dakota and Zion National Park.  Once I made the reservations the die was cast. There was no turning back or backing out.

So on June 27 we set off to find America. Our first real stop was the Badlands in South Dakota. We stayed there 3 days. We then went to Mt Rushmore, Custer State Park ( wild buffalo and hundreds of pronghorn) and Wind Cave. We then stopped at Little Bighorn on our way to the Beartooth Mountains. There was snow on Beartooth Pass. We had to adjust to the altitude. DJ was light headed and dizzy for a night. I could not quench my thirst for a couple days. I was drinking a liter of water an hour and I was still thirsty. Both light headed and thirst are symptoms from high altitude.  He did a three day hike into the Beartooth Mountains. We caught a bunch of trout.  Then when we got out we were off to ...

Yellowstone! We spent 7 days in Yellowstone. I bought a guide book that detailed every road mile, trailhead, and attraction.  I am not a highlight person. I want to see everything. I would never take one of those 6 hour tours to see the highlights. I'd rather see everything in one park then the highlights of five parks. It is just my make up. I divided the park up into sections to cover each day. We stayed at two different campgrounds. One on the east side, one on the west. I saw Old Faithful go off four times in one day. The first was at 6:30 am, no one else around but DJ and I. The boardwalk had frost on it, this was July 15. We saw buffalo, grizzlies, black bears, eagles, elk and everything else you can imagine.

We left Yellowstone to find Grand Teton has the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen. Also the park has as much wildlife as Yellowstone. It is an amazing place. After we left the Tetons, we planned a trip into the Wind River mountain range. This is where being able to change plans mattered. The mosquitoes were so thick bug spray did not help. While hiking DJ started counting how many he killed to pass the time. He was over 100 in five minutes before I told him to keep it to himself.  We spent one night in the mountains, so we had to plan four days.

After coming out of the Wind Rivers, we found a gorgeous campsite in the prairie. Then the following day we drove to Seedskadee NWR. There were trout in the river. Lots of wildlife and more free camping. We headed to Flaming Gorge and took a tour of the dam.  After that my car had trouble. Luckily there was a Hyundai dealership 30 miles outside Provo,UT. We were stuck there two day. When my car was fixed we went to Cedar Breaks National Monument. Of all the unexpected surprises on the trip this was far and away the best. There was an indescribable red rock canyon, 700 year old bristlecone pine trees and loads of mule deer. It was also at 10000 feet so sleeping was comfortable. The next night we slept in the desert on the Arizona/Utah line. It was a big change. It was still over 90 degrees at 11 pm. We did see the Milky Way since the sky was clear and dark.

After our night in the desert we picked up my friend Laurie in Vegas. I hate cities so spent about 20 minutes there. I never saw the strip. I got in and got out. We drove to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It was all they say. We stayed at the Grand Canyon two nights. We then went to Zion National Park. We hiked through the Virgin River through a canyon with walls 2000 feet high and sometimes only 6 feet apart.  It was one of the best hikes ever. From Zion we drove most of the night to get to Arches National Park. Arches is a fairly small park. You can see most of the unusual features in a two day period. Unfortunately for us, we only had one day there. The good thing is I think we saw about 85% of everything. I can live with that percentage.

From Arches we drove to Rocky Mountain National Park. Rocky Mountain was awesome. We saw huge bull elk, moose and pikas. We stayed four days. The goal was to get Laurie used to the high altitude the first couple days. Then go on a big hike over a mountain pass the last day. We didn't do as long a hike as we would have liked, but it was due to time restraint. After our four days in Rocky Mountain, I dropped DJ and Laurie at Denver Airport. I stayed out west a couple more days then made the drive home alone. I planned on stopping in Arkansas and Virginia but I had more car trouble and got a lonely.  So after being gone about 50 days I came home.

I never got homesick once. Every day was its own amazing experience. I only slept on a bed once. Other than that I slept on the ground every night. I never got sick of it. I never got sick of setting up the tent or taking it down. I know without a doubt, I could have stayed out there living that lifestyle, for a couple years.

Although this is fairly long post, I could have wrote just as much about each individual day. There were just so many memories that I will never forget. One day we hiked up the back side of the Grand Tetons after a two hour ride around them through Idaho.  It was an eight mile hike with 5000 feet of elevation gain. It was an overnight hike so we had all of our gear ( tent, sleeping bags, food etc...) It was the most exhausting hike I have ever done. My body hurt bad, my knees hurt and my back and shoulders killed from the backpack. Once we got over the last ridge the entire crest of the Tetons opened up right in front of us. I forgot about my knees and back. You couldn't get this view from any road.  You had to earn this one. But there it was Grand Teton so close it was like you could reach out and touch it. We had chocolate bars with us that we saved for a snack. They were warm from the sun, so we stuck them in a snow bank to cool them off. While they were cooling we stepped onto Schoolhouse Glacier. That was really cool. Then we sat down and enjoyed one of the most magnificiant views imaginable.

Every day had a story equally as amazing ( but a lot less painful). Whether it was sitting under Landscape Arch or coming across a bighorn sheep herd on the trail.  One day I was swimming in a chilly mountain lake, while I was in the water a cow moose and her calf came down for a swim also. I can't put a price on memories like that.