BassyiusMaximus
07-25-2006, 10:01 AM
Let me tell you all the story of my outing this past Friday night. The wind was up but the water was runnable and not too rough for the 22.2' Center Console with an 06 OptiMax on the transom. The new engine has been absolutely fantastic compared to the 1987 model I've had since new. The new engine starts like a car and runs like one too, no fiddling with the throttle, no choke, just turn the key and go, quiet and powerful, and with the recent addition of a 4-blade prop she snaps right up on plane and giddy-ups and goes. I keep the 3 blade-er as the spare since all the rock crawling I do at night, it is only a matter of time before I crush a prop. As it stands, I've gone through no less than 3 props in the past 10 years. All I can see is dinging up the prop to the point that I can't even make any forward motion, no towboat is open at midnight or later, and being stuck either adrift or on the hook, so a spare is crucial. 1/2 tank of gas, lights all work, 2 VHF's, 2 anchors, spare fuel/water filter, spare everything on board, at night, and with the real possiblity of fog rolling in at any time during the night, redundancy is my middle name. 5 rods, rigged and ready to go, and all the lures I need for a night of fishing.
In a good sea, that is, one with almost no wind and no chop on the water, the run to my virgin-like shoreline is roughly 12-14 miles. I have the run and many runs stored on my trusty GPS for which I keep the new Lithium batteries in because they last so darned long and it is worth it to me to have longer life in something like the GPS. I do know that even without the GPS, I could get back at night and in the fog as I have my route etched into my memory bank and the lights on the shoreline on the way in or out are just enough to give me my bearings. As was a topic on another post, I don't have any sort of fishfinder or depthfinder, all I have is a handheld GPS which I have on a mount on my console rail, can you say old-school?, I don't think I'll ever get one either, just haven't needed one since all the reading I've done and listening and observing and trying, I've been able to just go fishing and not watching a screen for fish marks and such, so no fishfinder/sonar on this rig.
This night, from 8pm-almost sundown, the water is up and I have to jog, tack, zig-zag 6-7 times to make my way to the calmer water that is my destination. I'm wet since my rig, with its low gunwales, hard chine and relative lack of bow-flare, coupled with the wind off my port quarter for much of the ride, provides me with plenty of saltwater-mouthwash for the trip, it is the reason why I'm clad in foul weather gear for the majority of both night and day fishing trips I'm on. Smarter to start off dry and to stay dry than to put on the "wets" once already wet. And despite any daytime temps in the 80's or even 90's, it is always cooler on the water and once the big, bright ball goes down, it always chills me out so staying dry is my #1 priority.
Once on my first spot, after about 3 casts I got a ferocious take and was promptly onto a nice fish. I'm at the point in the season and time where the inches and lbs are starting to matter less and less to me since keepers are now 28" and we can even keep 2 now. I still have the 30" stripe on my rods in case I do care to keep one or two to eat or give away since I'm not into eating striped bass anyway, although when my brother in law fried some large nuggets up, and when that stuff comes fresh out of the deep frying pan, it is pretty good, then again, anything fried is good is it not? So the fish was a good one, felt big right from the get-go and pulled hard right to the boat. There is nothing more exciting than seeing that Army/Tank Green, broad top of the fish in the water about 10-20 feet off the boat with just the 2-LED headlamp shining in the water and leading the fish to the side. That was the first fish of the night, then it was dark, no stars however the lights on the distant shores were still in clear view. Next comes the explanation of the title of this post, the "Lights."
I fired the motor up and thrust around to reset drift and looked into the propwash and saw the brightest glow from the water I had ever seen, it was so bright that the water glowed like a river of Kryptonite!!! I have been seeing the phosphorescence or the bioluminescence and many times I've seen the jellyfish which glow and when motoring one can see the many globs of life getting what looks like, shot out the back of the boat in the wake, but the water was absolutely glowning like I've never seen before. But that is not all. Once I had stopped to begin to cast, the water was filled with not just dull glows, but positively electric green sparkles and shines and blobs, the kind of green that used to be on the little football video game that came out when I was a kid, the little green LED's one had to make run up and down against the other LED's, the little green dashes that would try and "get you." Remember that game, remember that green?, electric greens, all in the water. I cast out my big swimmer and I could see it hit the water as the water would flash green in the distance and I could see the lure in the water because of the green as well, when I got a hit and I set the hook, the water looked like there was an underwater explosion because of the way the chemical reaction shook against the fishes body causing the water around the fish to glow, it was incredible, like the glowing hockey puck that FOX had tried to help viewers see/follow the hockey puck for games in the early 2000's. This fish was on top and slashed its tail on the top of the water before getting down into the water and trying to swim away with my lure. I could track the fish because the water would light up where ever the line made friction in the water, I could see the fish under the water because it glowed with any movements it made, my heart rate was so high this night because I could see the glows so well, it was eerie and exciting all at the same time.
Getting lazy with my drifts, I let myself get onto the rockpiles/shorline once this night. I had to actually get out of the boat and stand on the boulders that were exposed and had to push the rig out to safer water, at one time I was walking on the bowling ball/watermelon sized rocks to get the boat to safety, however once I had done so and was in 2-5 feet of water, what I could see under the boat and all around the boat just blew my mind. I could see the fish, lit up like they had electric-green jackets on. I could see the size and outline of the fish in the water. When they would spook from the boat drifting along, I was not fishing and was motionless, in awe of what I was seeing, and the sheer number and sizes of the fish all around the boat in the water, all I could do was keep still, quiet, and just observe what I was seeing. When a fish or the fish would decide to peel off in whatever direction, their tailwash was again, an electric green and they would leave a long string-like trail of green liquid, all zooming off in all directions. I finally got clear enough of the shallows where I could cast and was into fish immediately, they were just all around the shorline as it was 11pm-12am by now. These same shorelines are where the bonito, false albacore and bluefish run up and down looking for food in the daytime. When I've gotten tight in the daylight of summer, I can see right down to the fish and get a look at those big eyes looking up at me and can see the others in their school zooming around, eating and picking off little fish as they go by.
In the summer of 2000, August 4th to be exact, my father hooked and brought in a 15lb Jack Creavalle, a fish I had never seen before and might not see again, however, with the very warm weather we've been having, and with this weeks stretch being warm/hot again, the water is doing nothing but warming up so hopefully the warmer water species will come up again and give us some good action.
Now the green water this past Friday night was the brightest and most brilliant I've ever seen it in the 10+ years I've been fishing the particular area I've been in. My question is, what is causing this brightness?, and, has anyone else been seeing what I've been seeing?
In a good sea, that is, one with almost no wind and no chop on the water, the run to my virgin-like shoreline is roughly 12-14 miles. I have the run and many runs stored on my trusty GPS for which I keep the new Lithium batteries in because they last so darned long and it is worth it to me to have longer life in something like the GPS. I do know that even without the GPS, I could get back at night and in the fog as I have my route etched into my memory bank and the lights on the shoreline on the way in or out are just enough to give me my bearings. As was a topic on another post, I don't have any sort of fishfinder or depthfinder, all I have is a handheld GPS which I have on a mount on my console rail, can you say old-school?, I don't think I'll ever get one either, just haven't needed one since all the reading I've done and listening and observing and trying, I've been able to just go fishing and not watching a screen for fish marks and such, so no fishfinder/sonar on this rig.
This night, from 8pm-almost sundown, the water is up and I have to jog, tack, zig-zag 6-7 times to make my way to the calmer water that is my destination. I'm wet since my rig, with its low gunwales, hard chine and relative lack of bow-flare, coupled with the wind off my port quarter for much of the ride, provides me with plenty of saltwater-mouthwash for the trip, it is the reason why I'm clad in foul weather gear for the majority of both night and day fishing trips I'm on. Smarter to start off dry and to stay dry than to put on the "wets" once already wet. And despite any daytime temps in the 80's or even 90's, it is always cooler on the water and once the big, bright ball goes down, it always chills me out so staying dry is my #1 priority.
Once on my first spot, after about 3 casts I got a ferocious take and was promptly onto a nice fish. I'm at the point in the season and time where the inches and lbs are starting to matter less and less to me since keepers are now 28" and we can even keep 2 now. I still have the 30" stripe on my rods in case I do care to keep one or two to eat or give away since I'm not into eating striped bass anyway, although when my brother in law fried some large nuggets up, and when that stuff comes fresh out of the deep frying pan, it is pretty good, then again, anything fried is good is it not? So the fish was a good one, felt big right from the get-go and pulled hard right to the boat. There is nothing more exciting than seeing that Army/Tank Green, broad top of the fish in the water about 10-20 feet off the boat with just the 2-LED headlamp shining in the water and leading the fish to the side. That was the first fish of the night, then it was dark, no stars however the lights on the distant shores were still in clear view. Next comes the explanation of the title of this post, the "Lights."
I fired the motor up and thrust around to reset drift and looked into the propwash and saw the brightest glow from the water I had ever seen, it was so bright that the water glowed like a river of Kryptonite!!! I have been seeing the phosphorescence or the bioluminescence and many times I've seen the jellyfish which glow and when motoring one can see the many globs of life getting what looks like, shot out the back of the boat in the wake, but the water was absolutely glowning like I've never seen before. But that is not all. Once I had stopped to begin to cast, the water was filled with not just dull glows, but positively electric green sparkles and shines and blobs, the kind of green that used to be on the little football video game that came out when I was a kid, the little green LED's one had to make run up and down against the other LED's, the little green dashes that would try and "get you." Remember that game, remember that green?, electric greens, all in the water. I cast out my big swimmer and I could see it hit the water as the water would flash green in the distance and I could see the lure in the water because of the green as well, when I got a hit and I set the hook, the water looked like there was an underwater explosion because of the way the chemical reaction shook against the fishes body causing the water around the fish to glow, it was incredible, like the glowing hockey puck that FOX had tried to help viewers see/follow the hockey puck for games in the early 2000's. This fish was on top and slashed its tail on the top of the water before getting down into the water and trying to swim away with my lure. I could track the fish because the water would light up where ever the line made friction in the water, I could see the fish under the water because it glowed with any movements it made, my heart rate was so high this night because I could see the glows so well, it was eerie and exciting all at the same time.
Getting lazy with my drifts, I let myself get onto the rockpiles/shorline once this night. I had to actually get out of the boat and stand on the boulders that were exposed and had to push the rig out to safer water, at one time I was walking on the bowling ball/watermelon sized rocks to get the boat to safety, however once I had done so and was in 2-5 feet of water, what I could see under the boat and all around the boat just blew my mind. I could see the fish, lit up like they had electric-green jackets on. I could see the size and outline of the fish in the water. When they would spook from the boat drifting along, I was not fishing and was motionless, in awe of what I was seeing, and the sheer number and sizes of the fish all around the boat in the water, all I could do was keep still, quiet, and just observe what I was seeing. When a fish or the fish would decide to peel off in whatever direction, their tailwash was again, an electric green and they would leave a long string-like trail of green liquid, all zooming off in all directions. I finally got clear enough of the shallows where I could cast and was into fish immediately, they were just all around the shorline as it was 11pm-12am by now. These same shorelines are where the bonito, false albacore and bluefish run up and down looking for food in the daytime. When I've gotten tight in the daylight of summer, I can see right down to the fish and get a look at those big eyes looking up at me and can see the others in their school zooming around, eating and picking off little fish as they go by.
In the summer of 2000, August 4th to be exact, my father hooked and brought in a 15lb Jack Creavalle, a fish I had never seen before and might not see again, however, with the very warm weather we've been having, and with this weeks stretch being warm/hot again, the water is doing nothing but warming up so hopefully the warmer water species will come up again and give us some good action.
Now the green water this past Friday night was the brightest and most brilliant I've ever seen it in the 10+ years I've been fishing the particular area I've been in. My question is, what is causing this brightness?, and, has anyone else been seeing what I've been seeing?