whatever it takes
I finally caved into the cabin fever and went out on a party boat with Nick yesterday to catch Red Hake, or (as they're referred to around here) Ling. They are not to be confused with Ling Cod that are caught in the Northwest. The Ling is an ugly ass fish to say the least. You know how beautiful a Dolphin or a Sailfish looks when you first bring it to the boat, flashing shades of green, yellow, blue, and purple? well a Ling looks like a slimy turd when it comes over the rail and it quickly turns the color of a slimy turd covered in puke snot after two minutes in the box. Looks aside, they are very tasty when cooked. The crowd on a NJ party boat in January is worth the price of the fare alone though. I'm not saying that Nick and I are aristocrats in any sense of the word, but we don't even blip the riff-raff radar when it comes to party boat Lingin'.
All told we landed about 30 fish, not including 5 massive Conger Eels that were swimming through the wreck we were fishing. We were fishing about 17 miles offshore using heavy conventional rods and using Bergall strips and clams as bait. I used my Shimano Tallus rod with Shimano Torium 16 reel and it performed beautifully, I was able to work the eels out of the wreck without losing a single rig or breaking my rod.
The eels were strong as shit and it was nice to get be catching fish again, even if it was 25 degrees out on the water. Some old guy on board insisted on keeping all of the eels we caught, I think the mate wanted to kill him for making him clean them.
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The Shack
Since there's not a lot to report on the fishing front right now I thought I'd give you a behind the scenes tour of the BTFS facility, or as it's referred to by me and all of my friends, "The Shack." I pay 200 dollars a month rent for the shack, this includes cable tv, heat, air conditioning, and high speed internet. It is exactly as big as it sounds, about 6 feet by 14 feet. This is where all of my fishing gear lives and where we edit the Brownie Troop Fishing Show. Every man needs his own shack, if there was a toilet at the shack I might never leave.
There are piles of miscellaneous fishing gear everywhere, bags of jigs, spoons, plugs, terminal tackle, and about 40 rod and reel combos from ultra-light outfits to heavy duty Tuna sticks. Somehow, I know where everything is located in all of the mess.
There is nothing like being in the shack during a snowstorm or a major thunderstorm. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I love my shack.
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garbagefish.com
Just when I thought that there weren't any like-minded people out there garbagefish.com is launched right in my backyard. I found a link to this new website from a popular fishing blog I follow and wrote Brian (the webmaster) a letter telling him about Brownie Troop, our shit fish derby, Ween, etc. and it turns out that we did some gigs together back in the day. small world. This more than doubles our power coming into season II for the Troop. This pretty much forces us into a Saltwater Shit Fish tournament in 2009 as he is located in Forked River, right across the water from my trailer at the shore. I'd like to formally challenge him right here and now to a 48 hour shit fishing derby, brownietroopfs.com vs. garbagefish.com in a shit fish battle royale. check out his site, it's right up our alley.
http://www.garbagefish.com
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Cabin Fever
The picture kind of tells the story. I'm losing my mind from fishing withdrawal. I have a Florida trip coming up in a few weeks but until then I'll just be watching fishing videos on youtube and servicing my reels for next Spring. The Delaware River is not an option right now obviously. I need like, a job or something. Someone give me a job.
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2009 Begins
Happy New Year everyone, let's hope that the fishing is as good in 2009 as it was last year. My last few trips have been cancelled due to weather, actually the weather has kept me off the water a lot lately. Most recently Nick and I had our cod trip cancelled but he got out a few days later and landed the fish pictured above plus a shitload more.
I'll be headed to Stuart, FL to do do some Sailfishing coming up in a few weeks, Marc may come with me to shoot a new episode but we're trying to find cheap airfare for him. I really made out this x-mas, almost every gift was a fishing related item that I asked for. Some of the more notable items were an Aquaskinz dry top and some awesome Shimano Butterfly Jigging combos. Keep those invites and photos coming.
-Mickey
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