Crazy Good Day Fishing

 I have started my winter projects after work since it gets dark so early. However, any day that I got out of work early enough to make a trip to the ocean worth it, I've gone. I went fishing Wednesday after work. Fishing has been so good that catching ten schoolies and a few hickory shad is just an okay day. It seems like every time I go down I run into fantastic fishing somewhere. I may not catch fish at my first or second spot, but finding large concentrations of feeding fish  has been easy. Yes, I have been spoiled by the easy fishing.

Well yesterday, I was like the rich kid in a toy store. I walked into the largest blitz I have ever witnessed. For five hours straight I watched stripers of all sizes bust up huge schools of peanut bunker. The bunker was in schools the size of football fields.  Some of the stripers were as small as stocked trout, but there were some keepers in the mix. Among the thousands of stripers there were a few blues mixed in. I saw a guy reel in a half a schoolie that a big blue cut in half. Also my buddy Dave got a large blue, which was the only one I saw caught.

  I caught so many fish that the "bass thumb" we all hope for actually started bleeding from lipping so many fish. Dave was smart, he has caught so many fish this week and his hands so raw from it, he wore gloves.

The stripers were feasting on peanut bunker that ranged from an inch and a half to four inches. My goto lure was a three inch Cocahoe on a 1/2 ounce jighead. Others were using four inch Cocahoes and Storm Wildeyes. I saw others using metal and fly fishing, but they did not catch many fish. The white Cocahoe and the perfectly shaped Wildeyes were a deadly combination.

Since the weather is going to be stable the next few days, I suspect the terrific November fishing will continue. This has been by far the best November I have ever had. Usually I'm happy to catch a few fish on a trip to the ocean. Not this year, twenty fish days have come easy and days with four times that amount have become the norm. I hope it continues!

Winter Projects

   Every fall I put a list together of projects I want to do over the winter. Many of the projects are
replacing gear that I have lost throughout the year. Usually these projects are to make new leaders, flies, and poppers.

   First I do an inventory of everything I regularly have to replace. I start with my carp gear and see how many leaders I have left followed by baiting needles. Then I move to the more complicated striper and surf equipment.  I make my own leaders, poppers, bucktail jigs, casting eggs and albie deceivers. I also go through the lures I use regularly and put a list together of what I need to replace at the store. Things on the list include Zoom Flukes, Cocahoes, and jigheads,

   Next I go through my trout gear. I see what flies need replacing along with any lures that I may have lost. Lastly, I check on important odds and ends such as pliers, bug spray, camping fuel, and sunscreen. I put a list together of exactly what I need to buy during the upcoming winter.

   I enjoy the projects. I get great satisfaction out of catching fish on a popper or bucktail jig I made. I get no more satisfaction than catching an albie on a fly I made attached to a wooden egg that I wired and painted with a leader I made.

   Sometimes I get a little ahead of myself and start the projects in the fall. So I set November 1 as the earliest day I can start making the stuff. Since these are winter projects designed to keep me busy throughout the winter, it does me no good to have them finished by October.

   Here is a list of things I plan on doing over the winter. Of course, you  have your own style of fishing. I'm just putting it out there to maybe give some ideas of things to keep busy.

1. Put a list of all the equipment I need to replace. Inventory bucktail jigs, homemade poppers, leaders, albie deceivers, first aid and camping gear. (This is done)

2. Make 10 bucktail jigs in sizes 3/8 and 1/2 ounce.

3. I barely watch tv. Sometimes I'll go weeks without turning on a baseball game in the summer. During the winter I sign up for Netflix DVD and put a queue together of movies I want to watch. I will watch a couple DVDs a week. I cancel Netflix every March.

4. Make albie deceivers.

5. Make leaders for surf rod, carp hair rigs, and fly/casting bubble.

6. Make a couple poppers. I wouldn't have had to do this, but the huge blues last week took off with a couple of my poppers.

7. I broke a rod this year. I take the guides off my broken rods and saved them.

8. Make a half dozen wooden eggs.

9. Put together a photo album from 2016. I get my pictures printed from Shutterfly. I used to get them from Snapfish. The quality is just as good and Snapfish is cheaper, but the website is impossible to use since it was "upgraded."

10. I save all my issues of On the Water Magazine. At the end of the year I write in a notebook my favorite articles in each issue. This way if I want to reread an article about Cape Cod Trout, I just look in the notebook and find it in my Table of Contents instead of opening up fifty back issues. I only write down the articles I'm interested in. I'll never care about swordfishing the Canyons, but want to read everything I can about Narragansett. This whole project sounds long, but only takes an hour.

11.   Plan daytrips I want to do the following year. Yes I get that ahead. I don't need to know what I'm doing every week, but I do put together a "bucket list" for the year.

12. Study a bird ID book. I'll force myself to pick a group of birds (like shorebirds) and try to remember key marks. Who knows how much of this I retain, but I try.

   I'll probably think of a few more ideas. I enjoy doing these things. When I get bored making my eighteenth bucktail jig in a row, I'll stop and finish another day.  There is no pressure to do these things. I think the reward is worth it though.

If you want to make your own bucktail jigs I did a post about it. You can follow the link below. It is as cheap to buy premade jigheads as it is to mold lead (and buy the mold) so I buy them prepainted.

http://southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2012/11/httpwww.html

Huge Blues

Before today, I have only caught five blues that were real gators that I was sure were over 10-11 pounds in my life. Two of them were this year. One in August and another last week that was probably the biggest of my life (until today).

Today I walked into some hot bluefish action. In the first place I went, I caught ten blues and I'd say the average size was fifteen pounds! I got a couple "small" ones that were about ten pounds, but the rest were true giants. I'm sure two of the biggest were closer to twenty pounds than to fifteen! The blues were on adult menhaden. I was using lures and the old stand by popper was quite effective. After I lost my two poppers, I switched to the Rebel Jumping minnow. The hits kept coming.

While I was catching these fish, so were a  lot of other guys. For a couple hours, at any one point at least one of the guys behind me would have a fish on. There were actively feeding fish slamming the menhaden, but I got most of my fish when they were not showing. ALWAYS MAKE SOME CASTS!

At high tide (11am) the fish stopped hitting. I went to another spot. I had to work for it, but hooked into another gator on a Jointed Redfin.  Later on I hit the avenues in 'gansett. Again, I had to work for them but I found fish. I hooked three more huge blues. At this point I was looking for bass and hooked the fish on a wooden egg/ jig combo.

Later in the day, I went back to my original spot. No one was fishing this stretch of shoreline when I got there. I walked out to a point where I could see nervous water. Within five casts I hooked into another huge blue. While I was fighting it my friend Dave showed up. He landed a very nice keeper bass. I had the lucky spot, I ended up getting seven more.

Once I started catching fish all the guys that were standing around started casting. They started landing fish. Who knows how many they would have caught if they would have been fishing the whole time?

After the fishing slowed Dave and I went to another spot. We landed about ten schoolies a piece on Cocahoes. Finally well after dark we went to a backwater spot. I caught five or six stripers and five hickory shad. Dave put on a clinic on how to catch fish on every cast. He easily caught twenty five (or more) combined shad and stripers. It was a great way to end an absolutely fabulous day fishing

Saw this Beauty Today

Laurie and I went for a walk at Rocky Narrows in Sherborn, MA. While driving there we passed this guy while driving through Millis. Only the second pheasant I've seen this year. Before 2016, I hadn't seen one in a decade.

Getting my fish fix One way AND another (Mystic Aquarium and some Fishing)

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I haven't done much lately. With it getting dark so early, I really can't go fishing after work during the daylight hours. For the last few weeks, most of my days off have come on miserable weather days and the ocean has been dirty. This week my boss asked me to start working six days some weeks (which I'll gladly take the overtime since Christmas is coming). All I have really been doing is running and lifting weights. This may be healthy, but has not exactly been a barrel of fun.

So I really didn't want to waste my one day off this week. The problem was, the weather was going to be crappy again. It poured all day Thursday with high winds. I was pretty sure the water was going to be dirty. Friday the wind was going to be blowing stronger. Using my day off to go fishing was a gamble. So I decided to do something I wanted to for a long time first. I went to the aquarium.

Nemo?

I have wanted to go to Mystic Aquarium for a couple of years now. The last time I went DJ was a little kid. We had gone in February and it was freezing cold. The temperature may have been nice for the Arctic living Beluga Whales, but not so for humans. 

So I made my way down to Mystic which is just over an hour from my house. I pulled into the lot at 10 am. I actually thought ahead of time what time of year to go to avoid crowds. It made sense to go on a weekday to avoid crowds. It also made sense to go during the beginning of the school year. I'm sure the place is packed in the summer, school vacations and weekends. However, I assume it is also loaded with kids on school field trips in the spring. So to avoid those field trips, I thought it prudent to go early in the school year. This worked out to a T. There was barely anyone there during my three hour stay. 

If you are interested in going, all the info is on this link http://www.mysticaquarium.org/

The price for an adult is $35. For a kid the range is $25-29 depending on age. I think the admission is outrageous for a family of four. I told myself, since I went alone, it was worth the money since a trip to New Hampshire would cost more.

In the front  a trainer and vet are working with a Beluga. In
the back (standing in water) is a whale encounter which cost
$179 a person

As stated above, I spent three hours at the aquarium. There are outdoor exhibits of marine mammals. There are harbor seals, stellar sea lions (the male is 900 pounds), and white Beluga Whales. While I was there, a trainer came out and did a short talk with the Belugas. She had the female do a few behaviors. While that was going on, in the background was a whale encounter. This is where a person puts on a pair of waders and gets waste deep in the water with a Beluga and a trainer. You get to interact with the whale. The interaction lasts about an hour. I thought this would be very cool... until I
found out it costs $179. Then I no longer was jealous that I didn't touch a beluga whale. The whales seemed to be enjoying the patrons. They can be viewed underwater. The whales were coming right up to the glass and interacting with the people looking at them.

One thing I did get to touch were sting rays. There is a ray touch tank. For an additional three dollars, you can feed the rays out of your hand. The three dollars will buy you a total of three smelt. Needless to say, feeding the rays was fun, but paying three dollars extra for only three fish wasn't worth it especially since you can touch them for free.

Yes, I took pictures of angelfish

There is a main building that has fish exhibits. There is a central tank that has tropical fish. There are also smaller specimen tanks. There is a tank with a few sharks and African Rift Lake tank among others. The building is kind of small, you can see everything in less than a half hour.

Since I was alone and paid thirty five dollars, I took my time. I looked at all the exhibits multiple times. I am a fisherman and like fish so I didn't get bored. I suspect the average customer spends half the amount of time there. I do think that prices are very high for what you see. If I were a family of four, I would never spend $140 to go there. I could spend a week in New Hampshire on that. As a single person that likes fish, I thought it was worth it.

900 pound Stellar Sea Lion pouting because
the female barked at him

...Later that Day

After I left the aquarium, I went fishing. I tried Weekapaug Breachway. The wind was howling and
the waves were huge. The water was sandy. I did give the spot a solid half hour. I tried fishing in the current and casting parallel to the beach. Nothing.

I knew fishing anywhere "out front" would be an exercise in frustration. So my next spot was in current where the water enters the ocean. The rushing water neutralized the big waves. I didn't exactly kill them. I caught one schoolie and one blue. The bluefish was huge. Maybe my biggest of the year. I am awful at guessing the size of blues ( I always underestimate) but  I'm sure it was at least twelve pounds!

After I caught the blue, the current slowed as the tide rose and I never got another hit.

All in all, I had a fun day. I was glad to do a fun daytrip. I wanted to go to Mystic Aquarium for some time. I was equally happy to catch my biggest blue of the year. The conditions were so bad, any fish was a bonus.

Spending a Rainy Day in Concord, MA

At the parking lot of the North Bridge

The weather this week has been beautiful. We tied the record high temperature for one day last week. Most everyday has not seen a single cloud, that was until my days off. Friday and Saturday forecast was for showers on and off both days. After the rain cleared, the temperature was supposed to drop into the forties and the wind gust over thirty miles/hour. I can verify the weatherman got this one right. It rained on and off the last two days. I just got back from a run and the air temperature was 43 degrees according to a gas station thermometer. The wind was blowing big time. We need the rain, so I'm not really complaining. It just made finding something fun to do difficult.

Friday I went to a movie, visited my brother and caught up on writing in my journal. I was bound and determined not to waste my day despite the weather. The surfcasting was out because the wind has dirtied the water for a week. I decided to visit my favorite town in Massachusetts; Concord

I've done almost everything in Concord. I've been to the old houses that once upon a time authors lived in. I've been to their graves in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. I love the Minuteman National Historical Park and been to the North Bridge many times. So today was not going to be a day full of surprises. I was just looking for something to do that was more fun than sitting in my house.

I started my day at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. The goal was to see a Northern Pintail duck. Although there were some Great Blue Herons and mallards around, I struck out with the Pintail. The water was drained and most everything as brown. I was hoping for nice fall foliage so I only stayed thirty minutes.

Downtown Concord was
busier than expected

From there I drove to Concord center. I realized of all the times I've been there, I never moseyed around town. I walked down the main streets for a while. I'm not into artisian cheeses and wine, but there were a number of places selling them along with antiques and books. I spent a total of a dollar fifty in a candy store on some Boston Baked Beans. The town does have a Visitor Center I walked over to it. There was a sign for a guided walk at 1pm. It was 12:40 when I saw it. I read the sign a little closer, I noticed the price of $20/ticket. To which, I snubbed my nose to, and kept walking.

After I ran out of streets to walk down I got in my car. I was heading back towards the highway when I noticed some cars parked at a little town forest. On a whim I pulled in. The name of the forest was the Hapgood Wright Town Forest. There was a kiosk in the parking lot with some maps. I decided to go for a walk. Within the boundaries of the forest were a few things worth walking to. Within a three minute walk there is a small lake named Fairyland Pond. The pond is a shallow lily pad type pond. It was at the bottom of a small hill. Then I walked to an old growth pine forest where I saw an immense White Pine. From there I walked on the blue trail back towards the pond.

Brister's Spring. Both Henry David Thoreau and
myself have watched the birds there

 I came upon a spring. The spring's name is Brister's Spring. It was named for a freed slave that lived nearby. Here is the best part; Thoreau used to sit by the spring for hours. Apparently he wrote a paragraph about it in his book Walden. While I was at the spring I saw a number of songbirds. I did not bring my binoculars. I pished to the birds to get them closer. There wasn't anything rare. Mostly they were chickadees and Titmice. I did see two Red Bellied Woodpeckers. As I was walking on, I realized that Thoreau, who was a naturalist, probably did the same thing in that spot a hundred and seventy years ago. It was surreal. From the spring I walked back to my car passing a stone marking the spot of Brister's house.

Lastly I went to the Visitor Center. It was still early and although I wasn't having a jolly good time,

being in Concord was better than being home. On my way to the VC, I got pulled over by a very friendly Park Ranger who informed me I had a brake light out (which I fixed when I got home). There was an actor dressed as a British soldier at the VC. He was explaining a lot about the British army during the Revolutionary War. I watched him communicate with kids. He was very good explaining things to kids of all ages. He let them touch the ostrich feather on his officers hat.  This guy was unbelievably knowledgeable. I really enjoyed talking and listening to him.

I hung out at the Visitor Center for thirty minutes. There was no point of staying for the movie, I've seen it at least five times.

Fairyland Pond on this gloomy day

An update on the Clubs I joined this Year

Ron Arra demonstrating
casting and fishing at the October
meeting

Earlier in the year I did a post about a couple of new clubs I planned to join. http://southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2016/04/new-clubs-to-try.html


I have been in both the Ocean State Bird Club and the Narragansett Surfcasters for most of the warm weather months now, and couldn't be happier about my decision to join them.

Ocean State Bird Club

Ocean State Bird Club is exactly what the name implies. It is a bird club in Rhode Island. The bird club has many walks throughout the spring and fall seasons. I have gotten to go on a couple. The one I wrote about was at Great Swamp in April. There were quite a few people on the walk including some real experts. I have to say everyone was really nice. I think birders can have a reputation ( not necessarily unwarranted) of being a bit snooty. I met a lot of birders that day from half my age to double my age, and everyone was extremely friendly.

The club also has banding demonstrations and the occasional talk. I missed one last week about feeding birds nutritional foods in your feeder because I fell asleep after work. I was really looking forward to going.

Members of the OSBC at Great Swamp

I appreciate the fact that not all of their walks are on weekends. Since I have every Friday and some Saturdays off from work, I should be able to go on some of the winter walks. Being addicted to my New Hampshire camping trips has made it difficult to go on some of the field trips, but I am still grateful they are offered.

Narragansett Surfcasters

I joined the Surfcasters in May. Just like the OSBC I am very happy I joined.  The surfcasters meet the third Tuesday of each month. The meetings are really fun and I look forward to them. Usually their is a guest speaker that puts on a seminar. Every speaker that they have had since I joined is someone I had heard of. Dave Anderson, Joe Lyons and Ron Arra have been speakers.

During the summer months instead of meetings they have a cookout. I got to the June cookout, but was busy in July and August (that damn NH addiction again). The cookout is at Snug Harbor. The food is delicious.

Many of the guys in the club are hardcore fishermen that fish almost every day. I have gotten to know a few of them. From my first meeting some of the guys made me feel at home right away. They would make a point to come and talk with me a few minutes usually about fishing.

Once September came about and the albies came in, I was in 'gansett a lot. I was fishing the same places as these guys. One of them ( who reads this blog, and has made me feel comfortable since the first meeting) even asked how I got down there so often. This did two things. It gave me credibility with the guys that fish. Since they saw me fishing, I became more of an equal. More importantly, because I was fishing with them, I got to know more members. By the September meeting, I felt like "one of the guys."

In Conclusion

I am not the most social person in the world. I'm not the hermit I pretend to be either. Joining these two clubs has put me in contact with people that share my hobbies. I've picked up a few pointers. I saw some birds because someone else recognized a song. I've been frustrated by albies side by side with another member while one other guy caught them on almost every cast. All in all being a member of both clubs has been a positive experience

I'm not going to sit here and tell you to join the clubs I've joined. They work for me. However, if you have outdoor hobbies, and I would guess you do if you've read this far, you might want to check out the local chapter of a club in your area. You might make a friend or two. You will certainly pick up a pointer. If nothing else, the snacks might be worth it!