Quote:
Originally Posted by doc
glad to hear a fishing report...if saying the canal is spot burning, then what doesnt qualify as spot burning...ridiculous...
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The problem really isn't the Canal--there's 15 miles of spots.
The problem is that there aren't 15 miles worth of places to park.
Some places are close to residential neighborhoods, and the residents who pay Canal-front taxes don't like being awakened by slamming car doors, and guys y#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g it up and carrying on at 4 AM. They complain to their selectman neighbor. The selectman starts calling the police chief, and he tells his boys to go out and ticket cars. Or, if they're parked on Corps of Engineers property, the chief calls Bill Norman, the engineer in charge, and they start locking gates at dusk and not opening them until about 8 AM. I have it on very good authority that, due to fed-up homeowners nearby, a very popular spot is going to be gated after dark very soon.
Right now you can't access the Canal at the RRB in Buzzards Bay--the lot is closed for construction and access to the Canal is totally fenced off--which means that people will park on nearby residential streets and maybe cut through private property.
None of the popular Capeside parking areas along Sandwich Road can hold more than 5-10 cars, and I will bet a good amount of money that this coming weekend, 50 or more cars will be parked by Halfway Gate. Sooner or later some poor fisherman is going to get clipped and killed by a car zooming by at 60 mph, and many of those roadside turn-outs will have No Parking signs posted afterwards.
So no, you can't burn 15 miles of shoreline, but you can sure as hell shut down access. Here's some of what we lost just recently.
Bourne Bridge Capeside, gated after dark. Cars park outside the gate. There's room for maybe 6 cars there at best--so late arrivals park alongside the road, and sometimes encroach on it, causing traffic to slow down.
Aptuxet now has a chain across the road. You have to park outside by the windmill and there's room for maybe 6 cars.
The Canal Crossings property in Buzzards Bay, behind the post office--what used to be called Playland. Boulders placed across the access road. Have to walk in now over soft sand.
Old Bridge Road, posted No Parking from 10 PM to 7 AM.
Same at Savery Avenue by the stone church. The No Parking signs now extend a hundred or so yards up Savery Ave.
Pole 230 on the Cape side. There used to be pull-in parking for 7-8 cars. But they placed a line of boulders there because of the stench of drained livewells. Now 3 cars at most can park alongside the boulders.
Mr. Gallo, who owns the construction company under the Sagamore Bridge has, in the past, threatened to close his gates and only allow selected and trusted fishermen keys to access his land there.
Just bear this in mind--the only Corps lot that doesn't have a gate is at the herring run--all of them can be closed after dark, and almost all of them have abutting homeowners.
If you park by the radar towers and look to the left, you'll see a gate across an overgrown paved road. That gate wasn't there 15-20 years ago--that whole area was called "The Jungle". Many vehicles could park in that area, down that road. In fact, when they started running the campers out of the regular lots at night, back in the late 60s, that's where they all went, the old timers in their converted bread trucks.
I've fished the Canal since the 1960s. I've seen what happens when fishermen get to be pains in the ass. They get run out of public property after dark. And they miss those early morning spring tides because those lots don't open until 8 or 9 in the morning.
Whether the internet, the cell phone trees, the papers, the tackle shops, whether any or all of them are to blame--you can burn the Canal. Take my word for it.
But hey--what do I care--I live within walking distance of it.
