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Cape Cod &the Islands
August 27th, 2004 |
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| FishWire Coordinator: | Dave Churbuck |
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A Dirty Boat is a Happy Boat
It is becoming harder these days to accept invitations to go fishing on other people’s boats. It isn’t because I don’t like other people, and it isn’t because I don’t trust their boating skills. I just can’t stand cleaning their boats for them at the end of the day. I don’t mind paying for my share of the gas, nor do I mind bringing lunch and a cooler full of beer and bait, but I draw the line at turning into janitor-man and scrubbing down an acre of white plastic with a mop and a bottle of special boat soap. Spending ten minutes applying elbow grease to a speck of dirt is not the way to end a joyous day on the water.
I actually listened to three guys who discussed the relative merits of assorted cleaning products while engaged in the act of fishing. This is like listening to women discuss flatulence while sewing. It’s wrong. It’s a disruption in the Force. "Well, I clipped some coupons for SoftScrub but I like to get my Simple Green in bulk at CostCo."
"I use the new motorized brush system from Dyson. It’s so fantastic! Do you want to get your nails done tomorrow?"
I don’t have any issue with breaking out a hose and squirting everything down at the end of the day -- sort of a post-boating reverse christening -- but there I do object to the apres-fishing dockside ritual known as "pitching in" that tends to take boat cleaning to a competitive extreme. Grown men fighting over the hose, the brush, the soap. Each trying to outdo the other, to show the owner they are worthy of another invite. Fighting over the chance to lick the bilge, polish the gauges, and fold the bait rags. Holystoning the decks was something illiterate sailors had to do on British warships, but taking a toothbrush to the deck of a big fishing boat is going too far.
The dirtiest part of my boat is behind the battery in the transom where the scupper plugs are. This is where the sand accumulates in a big wet grey heap. Mixed with the sand is a archaeological dig’s worth of bad fishing flies, bottle tops, cigarette filters, and corroded beer cans. The second dirtiest place is under the bow, where the anchor lives along with a family of really irritable hornets who hate it when I go fast and leave them homeless five miles from shore. Passengers this season will attest to my putting the throttle to the pegs in an attempt to outrun a ticked-off hornet. The bow is where all caught fish are flung to die. They flap themselves silly and have coated the entire inside of the hull under the deck with slime and scales. This is what probably attracted the hornets. There is dried blood everywhere. Most of the boat looks like an axe fight that went ugly early. On one side of the console is a neat little teak rod holder that is not neat. Stuck in the rod holder is a rusty hand-gaff, a dehooker, and the world’s dullest filet knife. The compass works despite never having been polished. On the other side of the console is another rod holder. This rod holder is where used flies go to die, dry off, and blow back into the transom if they don’t get found by a barefoot first. In front of the console is a big cooler that serves as the main seating arrangement and botulism breeding device. The lifejackets are stowed in there. Sinister things that make young children panic when told they must wear them for their "own good." At the bottom of the cooler lives a malignant slime of spilled sodas, dead fish gone by, and of course, more sand. I could donate the cooler to medical science. Seagulls consider my boat to be both their dining room table and toilet. Because I am a townie I am proud to be one of the first boats in the water in the early spring and the last to haul out in December. This makes my boat the first, last, and most familiar platform in the harbor for seagulls to hang out on. Until other boats are launched to spread their wealth on, my boat is the primary seagull bidet. The deck was once green. Now it is white, brown, olive, and encrusted with chewed-up spider crab legs. I will not fly rainbow streamers, hang plastic supermarket bags, or waste my money on one of those seagull propeller things to keep the birds away. And I need to know what brain surgeon thought of the plastic owl? My cousin Peter, an artist of sarcasm, never misses the opportunity to complement me on my boatkeeping skills whenever I give the ingrate a ride in from his mooring. "Dave, you sure know how to keep a clean boat," he will say. I usually ask him to perform the impossible. He never offers to clean up at the end of the trip. No one does. News of the week: Mark Cahill, moderator of all things good, has created a special commemorative t-shirt for the fish of 2004 (no silly, it is not a t-shirt for fish to wear, but you), the bluefin tuna. Check it out if you get a chance and part with your hard earned money to keep your moderators in beer. Time to say goodbye to fair August and hello to the best season in New England. The streets and beaches are emptying, but this moon is the one that that should light everything up, from bait to thems that eats bait, and start the fall feeding frenzy in earnest. False albacore have arrived! Big tuna are cooking south of the Vineyard, so that's the spot of the week. Choppers up and down the Canal. These are the days that we'll remember in front of the woodstove in five months, so tell your boss you have Demeaning Plebney or some other horrible disease, blow off work, and drive to the Cape. Now. Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...
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Why can’t people give into the inevitability of entropy and let their boats pig out and become one with the fish blood, scales, and dried bait? The smell disguises the boat and makes its stealthy. Consider Captain Quint in Jaws. The guy kept a really dirty boat. But whowas the go-to guy when the locals needed to catch a big shark?. The geeky Richard Dreyfuss-scientist? Clean boat. Not half the fisherman as Quint. Spenr too much time worrying about keeping the dew off his cushions and not enough time fishing.
These are men talking. And before the weekly indignant mail starts flying ("I thought these were fishing reports! Not self-indulgent ravings by a sexist pig!") Let me assure you that my wife has taught me The Way of the Broom. And it wasn’t kinky either.
Why can’t people follow my example and keep a dirty boat? The first summer I owned my boat I would dutifully take it to the town dock and run a hose over it, scream at the kids if they came aboard with sand on their feet, and in general behaved like I suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder. I do the same thing with cars for the first couple months. Then I realize that it’s just ashes to ashes, grime to grime, and give in.Cape Cod Regions
| NEWS |
| Time to say goodbye to fair August and hello to the best season in New England. The streets and beaches are emptying, but this moon is the one that that should light everything up, from bait to thems that eats bait, and start the fall feeding frenzy in earnest. False albacore have arrived! Big tuna are cooking south of the Vineyard, so that's the spot of the week. Choppers up and down the Canal. These are the days that we'll remember in front of the woodstove in five months, so tell your boss you have Demeaning Plebney or some other horrible disease, blow off work, and drive to the Cape. Now. |
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Bob Parsons reports: "Started at Waquoit where there was a done of bait and a few bass cruising the shoreline but most not willing to hit a fly. Ray reports from Woods Hole: "Launched the kayak in Woods Hole at 5:15 this morning. I was hoping to find the crazy schools of Bonito and Albies we had Sunday. I picked today because I can fish the same tide as Sunday. Turned out the predicted tide was off by an hour or so. I was in front of the stone wall / docks at 5:30 to find the tide only an hour or so from dead low. Should have been primetime!! There is a ton of bait and lots of 2# blues. I saw one very quick blitz of large splashes, but that was it for this morning. On the bright side. Today's sunrise and early morning was awesome. One of the best in a while." |
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Captain Joe LeClair reports: |
"Fly and light tackle fishing inshore and offshore has been improving as the week went on. I was fortunate enough to get some key intel from other excellent guides in the area who were out chasing the tuna while I was fishing inshore for bluefish, fluke, black bass, scup, and stripers earlier this week. I had a great time by the way...|
Scottne delivers an eye-witness report from the Canal: Bass blues and false albacore near the Sagamore Bridge at dark. Saw the first two caught. saw the speedsters jumping and several guys said they'd caught them at different times. Blues and albies were in the 4-8 pound range, some big bass but many twinks" |
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Not a lot of noise from my homewaters, a sure indication that I am failing in my duties and not fishing enough. Which was certainly the case last Sunday when I missed the Moderator Conclave due to family committments. (Insert sad smiley here.) I have seen bluefish off of Cotuit and suspect that now is the time, with the advent of fall (funny how dandelions and shad bush blooms indicate the start of the season in the spring, yellow school buses do it for me in the fall). Send me some reports! |
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Captain Leslie Smith reports: "Seems like there's something for everyone as we near the end of the summer season. Bluefin offshore have been outrageous for those that can get out the thirty miles needed and when the weather cooperates. And "inshore" bluefin have been a welcome surprise to those of us fishing closer to home in pursuit of bonito. My anglers went 2 for 5 on small bluefin on Thursday, fishing 10 lb spin rods at the Grey Lady's most famous bonito spot. Some fun catching these offshore pelagics in ten feet of water on such light gear. More tunas came from the Hooter this week, though pretty sporadic, surprising the trollers out for bonito. Bonito are still around that area, as well as doing their splash and crash routine around the Edgartown Harbor area. Lots of smallish blues are wrecking havoc with the live bait bass fisherman but there seem to be more stripers the last couple of days. I fished two days off the airport in Nantucket and was rewarded by the usual large piranha-like choppers that seem to be there all season long. Great sport when you're tired of chasing bonito but still want surface action. On Thursday there were navigational hazards all along the southside... ocean sunfish breaching, several huge leatherback turtles and even a lone pilot whale." |
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Captain Lynne Heyer at Crossrip Outfitters reports, "What a gorgeous weather we are having. It certainly feels like fall. The fishing is starting to feel like fall too.I am getting some good reports from my Captains and folks fishing the West End of the Island. Capt. Jeff and client, Rich Furman landed the Slam yesterday and almost landed the Grand Slam. I guess a few Albies were working in Madaket last night. Jeff also reported of seeing and fishing schools of Bass on the flats with success. Capt. Tom Mleczko called yesterday and reported catching a small Bluefin Tuna on the Bonito Bar a few days ago. How awesome, don’t have to burn much fuel to have a shot at the Bluefins on the Bonito Bar. Lou Ungarelli, called in that he had pretty good luck on the Bar with Bonito Tuesday. John Moy stopped in yesterday and reported getting a 39" Striper in Madaket in his secret spot on Tuesday also. Looks like the fish really like the cooler weather we are having right now. I don’t have much news from Great Point. I am still hearing that they are day to day with opening the point all the way up. Burt did tell me it was open yesterday or the day before but I don’t think he told me how the fishing was. Sorry I didn’t get the whole story on that front. Capt. Shawn is still fishing Offshore and having great luck with Bluefin Tuna. Wish I were out there today. Hope some of you can take advantage of this week's glorious weather. Great Point was closed again. But the Gate House says, it’s day to day, possibly a week. The Least Terns have hatched but are not quite ready to fly. So that means if they settle in the tracks the Point closes. I was also told that the access to the Point is closed at 7pm. I am not sure what the scoop is there but I imagine, they, like all of us have lost their employees to help patrol the beach. I did find out about the first and second False Albacore and a few Bonito have been caught out along the East Side of Great Point. Frank Bender caught the first one on the 16th. His cousin also caught one the next day and a Bonito. Tim Griffin stopped in today and told me that he caught an Albie at the Bonito Bar on Friday. He was using a Purple Deep Diving Yozuri and had a couple bumps and then hooked up. He was quite surprised when he finally landed the fish and it wasn’t a Bonito, it was a nice fresh Albie. He said it circled his little boat three times. He also said he should not have been out there. It was pretty rough. With the weather nice and cool it should really spark up the fishing. Jeff has had some good flats days when the sun is shining. He on Friday landed 4 Stripers on the flats with Rich Furman. Capt. Shawn has been offshore much as possible this past week. He and his clients Carlos Ferrer and Dave Freeman have been successful with small and medium Bluefin Tunas. Their last trip out they caught Tuna on trolling gear, spin and fly. Dave’s son, Paul even got into the action landing a few. With cool dry weather look for things to pick up around the Island and good luck fishing. Cross Rip Outfitters |
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Bob Parsons reports from Barnstable Harbor: "Looks like I'm paying my dues for having a great day last week. I've gone two days without catching a striper in the harbor. The main action is coming from small bluefish that have been enjoying cutting me off. The Flying Scotsman reports: "Launched out of Sandwich @ 6.30AM this morning. There was a good stiff NE wind blowing @ 15 - 20 knots, the weather forecast called for 1-2ft seas, in reality they were 3-4ft , but I guess we all know what to make of the forecast by now So we decided to stay withing 1 mile of shore. Within 20 minutes, we were into steady hungry bluefish action. They were real aggressive, puking whole squid and juvi mackerel all over the boat. Within an hour we had our first bass on and from there out it was 1 bass to 6 blues. Tally for the morning was 15-20 blues and 3 keeper bass to 20lb. It was tough keeping track trolling thru the lobster traps and getting beaten around by the swells, but worth it. (and I got off the boat on the trailer to cross to the washdown) Good luck to all! Keep those reports coming, |