GonnaCatchABig1
06-23-2008, 09:48 AM
(warning this story is pretty boring... but i'm bored and felt like sharing.)
well this year a buddy of ours decided to join us.. he previously would be considered one of the weekend warriors. but a few weeks back he landed his first striper. now he's pretty damned hooked. unfortunately it was on some one else rod. because no matter how often they yelled to the guy, he refused to acknowledge their calls. so my buddy being right next to it decided to take action. now he's determined to catch his own fish. as he feels it being on some one else rod cheapened it.
so he got some new gear. we set him up with a nice 10' tica and an okuma baitrunner. nice inexpensive starter rig. but not wally word crap. he's lovin it.
soooo we set out around 11am saturday.. and then a long stretch of frustration. nothing much on the fish front. how ever he really showed he's gonna have what it takes. not an ounce of complaining about being bored etc. that kills so many attempts at turning a buddy into a fishing buddy. heck he even talked about how he had been online studying. and one of the first thing he read was an article on fishing etiquette. don't you wish every new fishermen would take the time to do that? (he's eager to learn everything he can... some one should tell him he's fishing with the wrong guys.. lol. )
any way.. finally getting ready to pack it up around 6am sunday morning. wecant even think straight at this point. the last few hours we spent babbling and laughing at things that normally wouldn't be funny. just having a good time hangin out away from (their) girls and the normal weekend drunkfests.. ya know, enjoying the peace that is the ocean at 6am. then i glance over to my right and the frustration of the slow night was immediately replaced with excitement when, before i could even register it in my head, i yelled "blitz!".
and there it was.. the first blitz my buddy and i had seen that was close enough to produce something. we had only seen one other one before. and it was far far to far away to get all that excited about from a catching perspective. this one how ever, about 200 yards away. just slightly beyond our bests casts. but close enough to be exciting. a shot at some decent fish. finally! it wasn't a massive assault. only about 20-30 birds working an area of 50 feet across. and the occasional fish flopping out. but again the best thing to come our way.. pretty much ever.
but then.. it started going the other way. so we watch it with the binoculars for a while. long enough to determine where it was heading. which just happened to be towards a spot where it would be forced into casting distance, should it continue that way. so with a bit of time before it arrived there we hit the B&T grabbed two snags and some bunker. spend a few minutes there chatting (definitely not about what stumbled into us. we were out all night. those fish were ours!! lol) and head out to where we thought they were going.
we arrive to an empty spot just in time for a tanker to go cruising by.. figures. but the fish were still a bit off. so it wouldn't impact them to much. then we check on them with the binoculars again.. and all hopes were destroyed. as we watched a boat go motoring right into the middle of the attack. just motored right on over them. and sat in the middle. two minutes later. birds gone. fish hugging the bottom and out of site. couldn't be more ticked off. how ever we knew that the fish didn't just disappear. just got spooked down to the bottom. and eventually would be here. unless they managed to spook them in a different direction. (which we were hoping wasn't the case)
so we start getting our gear ready. and then bang.. the weekend warriors start arriving. and since we are slow and sluggish at this point, they beat us to the water. now just seeing how they select their spots made us not wanna fish. about 150 yards of shoreline and these guys decided alllll to set up with in 10 ft of each other. so to save our selves some aggravation and factoring in how tired we are. we decide to sit in the car and wait and watch for something to happen. and oh boy did it happen. lots of laughs that is.
first we had no bait guy.. took an hour or so to figure out that clams were not gonna hold in an extremely fast strong current. and every 5 minutes was reeling in and re-baiting. then there was can't cast guy. (not that any of the other could.) this guys casting mechanics were beyond googan. it resembled a 5 yr old swinging a baseball bat at a high fast ball. weight all the up to the tip and 4 feet of leader. he would do a 180 twirl and launch that bait 5-10ft. and then decided it was not good enough so would repeat 2-5 times, in no way changing his approach. couldn't stop cracking up. the next guy was weed guy. once about every 5-10 minutes he would set the hook. and every time pull in a clump of weeds. which grew larger with each landing. finally we had cross up guy. who despite being on the end of the current which would carry him away from everyone else, would end up reeling in all the other guys lines. and these events repeated themselves over and over for about an hour till we decided to leave and find another spot.
after that.. sat around watching fish swim by our feet and ignore everything we put in front of them. had one close call on an eel. but even the squirmy little bugger couldn't entice a bite. he did get a nice long glare and the thought of a bite. but ultimately nothing. then the outing ended around 3-4pm with the aforementioned new fishing buddy hooking up. pulled in a respectable 24 incher. how ever he again felt cheapened. as he foul hooked it. but this was no ordinary foul hook. he damn near gave this fish a lobotomy. (circle hook btw) the hook went in the eye socket above the eye.. and came out the top of the fishes head. and i mean dead center of the head. i hadn't seen anything like it before. for fear of causing some sort of brain damage, the fish kept the hook. and in our tired haste to get him back in the water. failed to notice the tiny piece of clam till attached to the hook. so we had a decent laugh as we watched this fish swimming off with a chunk of clam hanging off it head and thinking about other fish trying to catch him to get at the clam.
all and all from a fishing perspective the trip was a complete bust. but i will be damned if all the laughs didn't make it all worth it. plus it just gives us even more of a reason to be determined on our next trips. especially our new fishing buddy who is determined to hook a fish in the mouth next time..... wish i could help him out with that one, but we all know i can't. :hihi:
well this year a buddy of ours decided to join us.. he previously would be considered one of the weekend warriors. but a few weeks back he landed his first striper. now he's pretty damned hooked. unfortunately it was on some one else rod. because no matter how often they yelled to the guy, he refused to acknowledge their calls. so my buddy being right next to it decided to take action. now he's determined to catch his own fish. as he feels it being on some one else rod cheapened it.
so he got some new gear. we set him up with a nice 10' tica and an okuma baitrunner. nice inexpensive starter rig. but not wally word crap. he's lovin it.
soooo we set out around 11am saturday.. and then a long stretch of frustration. nothing much on the fish front. how ever he really showed he's gonna have what it takes. not an ounce of complaining about being bored etc. that kills so many attempts at turning a buddy into a fishing buddy. heck he even talked about how he had been online studying. and one of the first thing he read was an article on fishing etiquette. don't you wish every new fishermen would take the time to do that? (he's eager to learn everything he can... some one should tell him he's fishing with the wrong guys.. lol. )
any way.. finally getting ready to pack it up around 6am sunday morning. wecant even think straight at this point. the last few hours we spent babbling and laughing at things that normally wouldn't be funny. just having a good time hangin out away from (their) girls and the normal weekend drunkfests.. ya know, enjoying the peace that is the ocean at 6am. then i glance over to my right and the frustration of the slow night was immediately replaced with excitement when, before i could even register it in my head, i yelled "blitz!".
and there it was.. the first blitz my buddy and i had seen that was close enough to produce something. we had only seen one other one before. and it was far far to far away to get all that excited about from a catching perspective. this one how ever, about 200 yards away. just slightly beyond our bests casts. but close enough to be exciting. a shot at some decent fish. finally! it wasn't a massive assault. only about 20-30 birds working an area of 50 feet across. and the occasional fish flopping out. but again the best thing to come our way.. pretty much ever.
but then.. it started going the other way. so we watch it with the binoculars for a while. long enough to determine where it was heading. which just happened to be towards a spot where it would be forced into casting distance, should it continue that way. so with a bit of time before it arrived there we hit the B&T grabbed two snags and some bunker. spend a few minutes there chatting (definitely not about what stumbled into us. we were out all night. those fish were ours!! lol) and head out to where we thought they were going.
we arrive to an empty spot just in time for a tanker to go cruising by.. figures. but the fish were still a bit off. so it wouldn't impact them to much. then we check on them with the binoculars again.. and all hopes were destroyed. as we watched a boat go motoring right into the middle of the attack. just motored right on over them. and sat in the middle. two minutes later. birds gone. fish hugging the bottom and out of site. couldn't be more ticked off. how ever we knew that the fish didn't just disappear. just got spooked down to the bottom. and eventually would be here. unless they managed to spook them in a different direction. (which we were hoping wasn't the case)
so we start getting our gear ready. and then bang.. the weekend warriors start arriving. and since we are slow and sluggish at this point, they beat us to the water. now just seeing how they select their spots made us not wanna fish. about 150 yards of shoreline and these guys decided alllll to set up with in 10 ft of each other. so to save our selves some aggravation and factoring in how tired we are. we decide to sit in the car and wait and watch for something to happen. and oh boy did it happen. lots of laughs that is.
first we had no bait guy.. took an hour or so to figure out that clams were not gonna hold in an extremely fast strong current. and every 5 minutes was reeling in and re-baiting. then there was can't cast guy. (not that any of the other could.) this guys casting mechanics were beyond googan. it resembled a 5 yr old swinging a baseball bat at a high fast ball. weight all the up to the tip and 4 feet of leader. he would do a 180 twirl and launch that bait 5-10ft. and then decided it was not good enough so would repeat 2-5 times, in no way changing his approach. couldn't stop cracking up. the next guy was weed guy. once about every 5-10 minutes he would set the hook. and every time pull in a clump of weeds. which grew larger with each landing. finally we had cross up guy. who despite being on the end of the current which would carry him away from everyone else, would end up reeling in all the other guys lines. and these events repeated themselves over and over for about an hour till we decided to leave and find another spot.
after that.. sat around watching fish swim by our feet and ignore everything we put in front of them. had one close call on an eel. but even the squirmy little bugger couldn't entice a bite. he did get a nice long glare and the thought of a bite. but ultimately nothing. then the outing ended around 3-4pm with the aforementioned new fishing buddy hooking up. pulled in a respectable 24 incher. how ever he again felt cheapened. as he foul hooked it. but this was no ordinary foul hook. he damn near gave this fish a lobotomy. (circle hook btw) the hook went in the eye socket above the eye.. and came out the top of the fishes head. and i mean dead center of the head. i hadn't seen anything like it before. for fear of causing some sort of brain damage, the fish kept the hook. and in our tired haste to get him back in the water. failed to notice the tiny piece of clam till attached to the hook. so we had a decent laugh as we watched this fish swimming off with a chunk of clam hanging off it head and thinking about other fish trying to catch him to get at the clam.
all and all from a fishing perspective the trip was a complete bust. but i will be damned if all the laughs didn't make it all worth it. plus it just gives us even more of a reason to be determined on our next trips. especially our new fishing buddy who is determined to hook a fish in the mouth next time..... wish i could help him out with that one, but we all know i can't. :hihi: