Lurker Incentive Program - Calling All You %#$@& Lurkers - Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating

rsk538 · 01-04-2007, 11:03 AM

I am not a lurker but I have just started to post after a long absence.

I live in the SF Bay area but I hail from New York. I am an ardent fisherman and fish, on the average, about once a week. All my fishing is either in the ocean or in SF Bay. My favorite fishing is for salmon but I also go for halibut, tuna, sturgeon, rockfish (we call them rock cod but they are not the same as your cod), sandabs (when nothing else is open), and dungenness crabs (which are open now).

For my first 20 years living here the only fishing I did was when I went back east to visit family, which was twice a year. These visits were always the highlight of my year. I would fish with my brothers in law Rob and Sal. Most of what I knew about ocean fishing I learned from them. Bluefish, stripers, cod, fluke, and tuna in the summer and big stripers in October. About 6 years ago my wife reminded me that there is an ocean where we live and I should try to get out fishing here.

Out here there a fishing bulletin boards like this one. I posted that I was interested in going out and I got some replies; and so my career as a recreational fisherman in California began.

Out here we have a program that is called hitch hikers. A hitch hiker is a person that either does not own a boat or has a boat out of commission and wants to get out on the briny. The program works very well seeing that the costs of fishing are great and only getting greater. Hitch hikers share the cost of the trip (splitting gas, bait, ice and any other fees ,like launch fees) with other members of the crew. They also assist, when called upon, to run the boat and of course help with the boat cleaning when the trip is finished. The relatiionship between the hitch hiker and the captain can be ongoing or just for that trip, you know how that goes. I am a hitch hiker and have been one all the time I have fished out here.

Well that is about it except to say that if you are in the area let me know. If you have any questions about fishing on the west coast PM me.

Thanks for listening.

EricM · 01-04-2007, 12:36 PM

I'm in!

Starting out as a kid with a snapper pole on the Great South Bay, moved up to a zebco...until I was 6 was living for fishing...then got into other sports and didn't get called back to the water until 1999- at that time I was stuck in an office, hating it, and dreamt about escaping from the computer and the meetings and fishing until I finally did it- quit and swore I would do nothing but fish until I got sick of it, and work just enough to keep the ball rolling until that point....that had a momentum all its own, the hypnosis of day after day night after night on the water, building rods, trying to learn the craft, trying to put in time on the water...the spell didn't break until the end of 2002 on the rocks of Rhode Island- just felt like I was free to go on and do other things...not so much as a breakthrough but a realization...these days, don't get on the water as much as I would like, so I am trying to focus on the more analytical side of fishing- analyzing my logbooks, doing more research on fish behavior, patters, etc... nerdy stuff, but I'm into it.

I saw the link to this board a few weeks ago when I was looking at Mike Laptew's blog and signed on...happy to be aboard!