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Cape Cod &the Islands
August 16th, 2004 |
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| FishWire Coordinator: | Dave Churbuck |
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The Fishing Car
One of angling’s best but least appreciated writers is Robert Traver, the pen name of John D. Voelker, an attorney better known for his great crime novel and the Oscar-winning movie made from it, Anatomy of a Murder, which starred Jimmy Stewart, Lee Remick, and Frank Sinatra.. Traver was an associate justice on the bench of the Michigan Supreme Court, and wrote great things about fishing that fishy state’s Upper Peninsula. Traver's essay, The Fish Car, is a classic of the sort of fishing writing I love. Not so much the "fierce headshaking" and "tossed diamonds of spray" and "singing reels" genre of angling prose as good ruminations on the prosaic side of the angling lifestyle. You can find The Fish Car in a collection, Traver on Fishing, edited by Nick Lyons. I can’t quote from The Fish Car because I have a hopeless faith in all of my fishing books’ ability to find their way home to me after being loaned in a fit of stupidity to one houseguest after another. They never come back -- the good ones never do (books that is, bad houseguests are like boomerangs or those get-a-life Disney pets that walk 3,500 miles to find their families) -- and much as I curse and swear never to loan another book, I know it won’t be long before I jump up from the dinner table and rush upstairs to the bookshelf to pull down one book or several and press them into the hands of a guest, never to be seen or read again. The Fish Car is about Traver’s fish car "Buckshot." Buckshot’s purpose in life was to transport Traver from river to lake to pond to creek. Along the way it picked up some contents and smells of its own. This is an obituary to my fish car. It had no name. It was just the Fishing Car, or on some days the Fish Mobile. I spied it the other day in a bier of milkweeds behind Mike Medeiros’ garage, red paint dull, the tail of the old-style striped bass decal curling off from the right rear window. My fish car was a red 1986 Volkswagen Fox. I was young and poor when I bought it, reduced to driving an old Dodge Dart I sort of inherited from my brother-in-law. According to the mildewed receipts in the glove box the Dart was first owned by a nun in Brooklyn. It had a bullet hole in the passenger’s door and the word "DIE" scrawled Charles Manson-style under the driver’s side window. My only contribution to it was the addition of a bumper sticker which I rescued from an crying lady in a parking lot who was peeling it off of her mini-van’s bumper because some wise-ass kids had defaced the original sentiment of "I (Heart Symbol) My Dog" by covering the heart with a sticker of a wood screw. Since car buying stories are about as interesting as listening to the elderly talk about their medications, I’ll spare you the details. The car was new. I was so poor I didn’t buy a radio and never, in the 18 years I drove it, did I hear a note of music inside its doors. For the first two years the car was respectable. It did a great job of getting me to and from my job in the Prudential Center. Then I became a telecommuter -- writing in my bathrobe, not bathing, shaving or driving for days at a time -- and the car became unneeded to the point where I considered selling it. My brother was in the service and needed some wheels to drive to his job as a demolitions instructor at Cape Edwards, so I loaned the car to him for a summer in exchange for the chance to blow up an abandoned shipping trailer on the demolition range at Otis. That led to the car getting a very cool set of cryptic Department of Defense stickers on the windshield. Once a single sticker hits a car, it’s like CEOs buying land on Nantucket before they get sent to jail. They don’t stop until every square inch is covered. The Fox officially became The Fishing Car after a trip to Red Top, that venerable temple of Cape Cod Canal fishermen in Buzzard’s Bay. There I found a matching set of striped bass decals, the kind I had seen on the big beach buggies stuck in traffic on Route 6 as a kid, the big battlewagons with quivers of 12-foot surfcasting rods and green Penn Z-spinning reels. They were very salty looking, so I bought a matching set of adhesive stripers and applied them to the rear passenger windows. From then on, if a bait and tackle shop had a free bumper sticker, it went on the Fishing Car. I always wished I hadn’t lost the "I Screw My Dog" sticker. I once, and only once, left a pail of eels in the trunk of my wife’s car, but was never forgiven; indeed was always reminded of the transgression whenever the temperature rose and she was in a menstruous mood (she now believes eels have been left in all cars after I use them), and so I was forced to use the Fox as my fishing car forever more. Once the Fox became the fishing car, it became the Fishing Car. The sun visors were used as pin cushions for old flies and rusty poppers, bucktails drooping down and waving in the wind. The trunk was wired with a special bright light for rigging lines and tying knots in dark parking lots. On the roof was an old luggage rack and a homemade rod holder made out of PVC and spring clips covered with surgical tubing to protect the rods from scratches. The floor of back seat was a mound of fast food wrappers, an inch of sand, and waders in vary degrees of leakage. The back seat held a copy of that year’s Eldridge’s Tide Tables, a Cape Cod road atlas, a map of Canal fishing spots, a National Seashore parking permit, several empty bottles of Jolt cola consumed in narcoleptic desperation to get home to sleep in bed and not behind the wheel, wire leaders, a five-gallon plastic bucket drilled around the rim to hold bait rigs and plugs, an orange Grunden foul-weather top, wader belt, flip flops, and a child’s plastic snow saucer in case I needed to drag a huge fish back along the sand. The smell was prodigious. It wasn’t exactly an eye-watering, ha-ha-someone-put-quahogs-in-the-hub-caps sort of reek. It was more low-tidesque and man-funk mixed with wader rot, mixed with a lost box of squid. I liked that smell. It reminded me of something dim, distant, and good like the way the smell of Coppertone suntan lotion and the sound of the Thompson Clam Bar jingle reminds me of being a kid in the backseat of a car when the Cape was covered with miles and miles of scrub pine and oak and not subdivisions with stupid names like Camelot, Canterbury and Landsdowne. My car was rarely borrowed twice by the same person. Women were allergic to it. Guys liked it. During an artistic phase I smeared down the dash with a bottle of left-over carpenter’s glue and spread a few handfuls of sand from Ballston Beach over the glue to cover up the cracked vinyl and impress my friends who were in awe of the car’s backwards slide into seaside squalor. I glued down a miniature horseshoe crab shell, a piece of driftwood, some pretty seaweed, and a few clam shells. Soon I had a nice little Cape Cod Diorama that was fun to look at until the windshield fogged up on cool mornings during the fall run and the defroster fan threw off a Moroccan sirocco that sandblasted my face. I regretted gluing a beach scene onto the dashboard of my car. The car achieved some degree of fame when National Geographic correspondent and noted fishing author Fen Montaigne wrote about it in 1995 in his account of the First Reel-Time Death March. Poor Fen came to the Cape from Manhattan looking for a story about the Internet and Fly Fishing. Instead he got a ride in my Fish Car.
I have never heard myself snore, therefore I must not. And I like regular Reese’s, not the crunchy nonsense. And Montaigne farts if you want to know the truth. Two grown men sleeping in the confines of a Volkswagen Fox is not the cozy scene you imagine it to be, though after a long night striding the sands of the wild windblown Atlantic coast of the Outer Cape, I often collapsed back into the silent, cocoon of the Fox and sighed, happy to be back inside its protected shell, rocked by the gusts of the onshore breeze. The Fox was not a manly fishing vehicle. It looked pretty lame in the company of the big pickup trucks, International Travel-Alls, and other big capable SUVs that frequented the parking lots of Cape Cod’s fishing holes. It wouldn’t have made it five feet on a beach trail and thus can safely lay claim to having never killed a piping plover. Eventually it died at the hands of another driver who, after borrowing it -- along with a book -- claimed its brakes failed, sending it slowly into the Cotuit Kettleer’s schedule board at the corner of Main and School streets in the center of the village. The frame was bent, probably weakened by two decades of salt and the time the tide at Scorton Creek covered the axles. There was no fixing it. Blue Book value be damned, I was willing to drop some serious money to get it back on the road but there was no hope. The mechanics never could understand why I would bother. They never understood the miniature beach glued on the dashboard either. In other business: No one guessed the author of the Toasted Chickenfish recipe mentioned in the title of last week's FishWire. The late Mike Royko, one of the greatest newspaper columnists, got into a lot of hot water for ridiculing the food editor of his newspaper for printing in her column a reader's prank request for a recipe for "toasted chickenfish." The tip-off that the letter was a prank? It was signed: "Olga F***yercelf" which remains, to this day, my favorite party name-tag name. Here's the deal in Fishville. They're back. Doldrums are officially over according to the expert: Me. I even went fishing, with the legendary Peter Jenkins of The Saltwater Edge, and we caught squat. But we looked good doing it. Bait ought to start doing its thing on this moon, so time spent on the water from now until the gales of November will be time well spent.
Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...
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Cape Cod Regions
| NEWS |
| T-t-t-t-tu-tu-tu-tu-tun-tun-tun-tuna. Now appearing in the Reel-Time Forums, courtesy of Monthy Python's Spam-Spam-and-More-Spam skit, is Tuna! SBFT to be precise, which is short hand for "Fish Which Drives Insane Otherwise Reasonable People." Go read about it. It's everywhere. We're thinking of renaming the site SBFT-Time.com for the balance of the summer. Meanwhile, seems the stripers are coming back, now that the commercial season is giving them a break. Bonito are beginning to, well, not exactly "abound" but show their little green backs in Vineyard Sound. Good luck this weekend. Back to back storms ought to give you lots of time to play Risk and Scrabble with the little ones. |
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Captain Bob Paccia reports: "There are still plenty of schoolie bass available in the Bay waters with a few bigger bass mixed in to keep it interesting. This is a great time of year to get a kid hooked on fishing. Just remember, kids love nothing better than catching fish, any fish as long as they are catching something. So don’t make the mistake of spending too much time trying to get them into big fish. Just ask a kid about how his fishing trip was and nine out of ten times they will respond with how many fish they’ve caught. Very rarely do the even mention the size of their catch. "There are no summer doldrums as far as bluefish are concerned. If you’re looking for some great top-water action or if you have a ton of so-so flies that you want to get rid of in a hurry, the blues are waiting to accommodate you. Buzzards Bay is alive with these toothy battlers so get out your 60# to 80# fluorocarbon bite tippets and give them a go. Some people have forgotten how much fun these fish are to catch, especially on poppers, sliders or gurglers. "It seems much too early to be true, but have you noticed that the days are getting shorter, the tropical storms and hurricanes are upon us and the Patriots are playing football. What does all this mean? "Summer is nearly over! So, listen to the weatherman and don’t take chances, but get yourself on the water weather permitting. "You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned BONITO. That’s because I haven’t seen any in the Bay yet and I haven’t heard any credible reports yet. They are around the Vineyard and some are moving into Falmouth so it could be any day now that they’ll show up in our waters. We never know how the late summer storms will effect their arrival. Right now, before the bonito and false albacore season starts, is a good time for us to all practice our proper "funny-fish manners" so that we aren’t one of those idiots out there who make it miserable and dangerous to be on the water during the bonito and false albacore season. |
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A new Reel-Timer out of Mattapoisett, TBrown, shares this good news: "Was out today in MV sound by Tarpaulin Cove and saw 2 schools of Bonito, they were jumping chasing bait, hooked up once but lost it. Very fast movers, 1 school had birds the other did not, you have to keep your eyes peeled, lots of blues in and around Woods Hole." |
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TonyO (who has turned into as dependable a Ditch Regular as the legendary Bill Downing and BobG), reports, "Fished the end of the West. 2fish on sluggs(1short and 1 just legal). Switched to eels for 1 about 20lbs.NO BLUES" SkunkBuster was also there: "Fished the east end from 3 to 6am this morning. Missed the turn at low slack Some small splashes around but first skunking of the season for me Didn't seem to be anybody eating for the start of the east tide. Big schools of sandeels and tiny peanut bunker outside the flow at the south jetty, but they were unmolested by any bass or blues Slack near dawn next couple days may be better I hope " |
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I took the old Tashmoon for a spin last weekend, Peter Jenkins from the Saltwater Edge aboard to furnish good humor and an unlimited supply of perfectly tied flies (I only needed one and it didn't get much use!) Things were pretty quiet out on the western Sound from Cotuit to Falmouth. Birds weren't hitting anything, but we did see a blitz bust up off of Bourne's Pond and got our hopes up for a few minutes, moving into full bonito mode for a while. Alas, they did not return. Saw a lost bluefish or two hop out of the water infront of the mighty Tashmoo's bow, but alas, they did not return. |
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Capt. Leslie Smith is back from Montana! "The Hooter continues to be the most productive area, with plenty of blues, a smattering of bonito and enough stripers to keep everyone happy. There have been at least two small bluefin caught there this past week while Fast-tracking for their smaller cousins. With back to back storms and heavy seas forecast for the weekend, it will be difficult to fish this area until things settle down again. Closer to shore, bonito are starting to pop up in their usual haunts - look for them around East Chop, the Oak Bluffs steamship dock, Hedge Fence, State Beach and around Cape Poge." |
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Captain Lynne Heyer at Cross Rip Outfitters reports: "Afternoon everyone, sorry for my tardiness in getting my report out this week. My usual Monday report was interrupted by work. Geeze, you think I had customers to wait on or something. Anyway, I have lots of news most good but some not so good. The not so good news is that Great Point has been closed again. The rumor has it that there is some type of terns nesting up somewhere after marker #3. The good news is that there are plenty of fish of the East Side of the beach prior to the Galls. Burt and Michael Bissanti fished up towards the Galls this morning and got a few Blues and a Bass. It was told to me by Michael French that there are fish, Bass, at the Horse Shed, First, Second and Third Points. He was demo-ing some equipment and fished the harbor yesterday and saw a bunch of fish but did not hook any. He also saw a school of Bass working Third Point hard and then quickly disappeared as a shark swam up. I guess if I saw a shark I would run too. Dave Steston our new employee reported someone catching Blues and Bass at Quidnet off the shore. |
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The Outer Beaches, Chatham & Monomoy
Randy Jones reports this week: "Flats: This week has been interesting on those S.E. Cape Cod flats for the wade angler when sight fishing. A number of us have noticed an increase in fish and an increase in the size of the school's. Tuesday, we saw approx. 200 fish for the day. At one point we had over 100 fish hanging out in 1-1/2 feet of water. Saw school's of 20 along with the normal 1, 2, 3's as they travel these shallow water, wadeable, sight fishing flats. Some of them big'ns too! All flats holding fish, but some better than other' and also the fish arriving and leaving at different times. Which is normal for this time of year. "The easy part was seeing them, but getting a quick, fast, accurate cast off with the fly rod (especially when dealing with wind or for a first timer), imitating the bait's fleeing reaction perfectly (plus a number of other variables) and finding fish interested in what you have to offer has been the tuff part. "Surf Day-Time Wade: "C.C. Bay has some nice fishing opportunities for the spin/fly wade angler in certain area's with deep - fast water. Sight fishing flats an optional treat! Best Fish's, Bob Dobilina reported from Chatham: "Fished a couple of hours on Sat 8/7 afternoon with a buddy. Fish are still there, but a little more scattered from the previous weeks winds. Fortunately for us, the winds really whipped up by late afternoon and was blowing exactly opposite of the current. This had the effect of keeping us us directly on top of a nice hole. With winds 15+ mph, the boat barley moved in 2 hours. Had a nice hot streak where we landed 7 fish in about an hour - all between 35-40". Nice to see that not all of the biguns were caught by the commercial guys (when will commercial season be over anyways?). "Sunday AM, fished a couple of hours with Garym and his 7 year old son. Little too windy for fly fishing so we found some nice pods of fish and found some nice drifts. Garym managed a nice fat 40"er - his biggest ever. His 7 year old son was a real champ and he pulled in some blues and dogs, and helped reel in the big bass like a pro! That same day, my buddy hooked into something either really big or really strong. It almost spooled him. 1 big run, he starting gaining on the fish, and then it was off....bummer. Now I'm thinking it must have been a bonito. He used the same setup the day before and landed a 39" 23# bass, and she barely took out any line, and he didn't change the drag settings. Must have been a bonito, but the water is still pretty cold in Chatham. " |
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This is the spot of the week, month and century with all those dang little bluefin tuna dashing around to the north. I'll let Mark Cahill take all the glory this week in the Boston FishWire, but that's the story. Also lots of good reports and fish porn in the forums from guys who chose to target our good, dependable friend, the striper. This is still the place to be. On Wednesday Bob Parsons (without whom this FishWire would have gaping holes every week), reported from Barnstable Harbor: "Despite the wind Barnstable was still fishable. Early morning bluefish were sporadically breaking on the surface in the main channel. Once I saw they were bluefish I switched from a sluggo to a popper. |