The Monkeyface News

The Prickleback Diaries 2012

 

 

 

Psalm 15:11:  "Death and destruction are before the Lord..."

 

I dunno.  I mean I kinda want to live a public life here with my minor commercial fishing ambitions but at the same time there are other considerations...

Like for instance... am I going to Hell in a hand basket?  

Uh huh.  No doubt.  I am the Tamurlane of eeldom.  The Attila.  (You know this would not be such a bad thing in Hungary where Attila is thought of as a generally agreeable sort of conqueror--but we're not in Hungary).

 

 

In their primitive mucoidal animism monkeyface eels now liken me to Shiva, the destroyer.  As I've said before:  on the day of my passing they will celebrate in great writhing masses.  They will rise up out of the turkish towel beds and slap their tails in unison.  They will slime me in effigy, slander my name, step on my blue swede waders... but until then...

 

                         {Photograph removed at Fishwife's suggestion}

 

Demptser

 

I am slowly becoming the Bryan Dempster of eeldom.  Madness creeping in. Absurd risks.  Oneness with the rocks.  Oneness with the seagull shit.  Oneness with the eel.  

 

                                        

 

The book Crocodile Fever, though out of print.  Is very much worth the effort of seeking out.  Crazy South African guy, after losing his farm, gets into commercial crocodile hunting and slowly loses his grasp on reality....  

... I'm feeling his pain.  Kind of. Albeit pricklebacks are not quite as threatening as crocodiles.  This I can accept.  But still.  For cuts, scrapes, twisted ankles and bruises on my back... poke poling three times a week is the perfect thing.

Anyway... i promised a blog post everyday for 14 days--as my pennance for disappearing from the blogosphere.  And so far I'm 3 for 4.  

Heading to the rocks.

Kirk-out

Osmerid Diaries 2012

Due to this picture, I figure there's probably some lost soul wandering a beach in Tahiti looking for surf smelt.  Background image provided by The Monkeyface News editorial machine. 

 

Well... they ran finally.  And though I got there late I did in fact walk off the beach with what amounted to a limit of day fish.  Yes day fish.  April is winding down and I have yet to catch a single nightie.  Go figya.  A little further north than I anticipated.

 

                                                                22 pounds.

 

Listen people.  I don't want to see any more pictures of your Marilyn, okay?  There's nothing I can do about it.  I'm otherwise occupied all week and Mikey's boat is dead in the water.  Gone all next week to Ireland.  So leave me alone... please.  I'm begging.

 

Haiku #3,345

No more salmon pix...

Please, don't you realize I'm...

... dying of envy. 

 

Kirk-out 

 

Trophic Cascades And Whatnot

 

Let's see.  In a continuing effort to prove my re-commitment to this blog, I will try to post once a day for the next 14 days.

 

This just in:  

 

Whole Foods Sets New Sustainability Standards 

 

Truth is, I was a tad uncomfortable with my erstwhile employer's stance on sustainability.  Seemed a bit odd for me to be talking sustainability on one hand and doing a show for Whole Foods on the other. But what can I say?  They are now officially making an effort.  No question.  Unfortunately there is no way to make an effort and simultaneously keep everybody happy.  The fishermen have a point: what's the use of all these rules and regs. if at the end of the day the fish aren't sustainable?  But at the same time.  Drag fishing for Atlantic cod?  Really?  I don't care if the species is on an upswing or not.  Just compare the current projected abundance to what it was in the not-so-distant-past.  There are stretches of the Atlantic seaboard bottom that look like the Sahara desert.  Feel me?  It's not like they said they won't by cod.  Just not dragged cod.

 

                          Bottom trawling as seen from outer space: click here

 

Seems to me we're at a point where people might be willing to pay more for a sustainably harvested fish. I mean we readily do this with organic produce, right?  Does it or does it not make more sense to catch a tenth of the number of fish, at ten times the price?  As a fisherman, if you're getting 20 cents per pound for dover sole you necessarily have to catch 20,000 pounds to make any money.  But if you're getting $2.00 a pound... it changes the game completely... pisses off a lot of wholesalers, and gets deemed "bad for the industry." Go figya.

Anyway, the Wikipedia article on Atlantic cod is not a bad place to start if you're interested.

 

And if you're not, here's the key sentences:

"The northwest Atlantic cod has been regarded as heavily overfished throughout its range, resulting in a crash in the fishery in the United States and canada during the early 1990s."

"The population has yet to recover... with large predatory fish removed, their prey have had population explosions and have become the top predators, affecting the survival rates of cod eggs and fry."

Here's what we're talking about in ecological terms... trophic cascade:

                                      A stunningly clear representation of the issue.

 

My Own Travails

 

Went down to Princeton yesterday and watched the salmon coming in from the party boats.  My gawd. Poseidon have mercy on my soul.  Big friggin' slugs.  And this is April!  I am burning with jealousy.  Niko von Sharkenheimer is out on the water even as I write this.  Have had three offers to go salmon fishing in the last three days and haven't been able to go on any of 'em.  

Just to let everybody know. I'm now officially available.

Okee dokie.  Time to run.  More tomorrow.

All these salmon coming in and I'm throwing hair raisers at Fleishhacker in the face of 15 knot winds. Idiocy.  

Okay.  Time to stop whining and scare up a ride.

--Kirk-out

 

 

Fleishhacker

To those MFN fans who have no idea what I'm talking about with all this Marilyn and Lana stuff, go here:

The Code Explained

 

                                        A big year for Marilyn



And so the errant blogger returns.  Hmmmm.  Where to go, what to do?  Looks like the Marilyn numbers ain't bad (for April). Monterey had an epic week, and there were some decent numbers off Deep Reef (12 mi south of Princeton Harbor) for a minute.   This just in:  a pair of local commercial guys went out on a scouting mission two days ago, trolled popsicles 30 some odd miles out of the gate and caught -- if our sources are correct -- 20 salmon, catch and release style. Yikes.  

 

                                           Bette ain't biting.

 

But Bette Davis is still dead.  In fact, I have bad feelings about Bette.  I would imagine there will be another precipitous drop off this year.  As if last year wasn't bad enough. Maybe all the brown water out there is keeping her off the bite.  Or maybe there just ain't that many Bette Davises out there.   Remember three years ago when party boats were limiting-out off the Alameda Rock Wall in an hour? Seems like an alternate reality at this point.  But who knows, maybe she'll come back?  Maybe the projected Marilyn abundance will take some pressure off of Bette... and then... maybe it won't.

 

                                   Surf smelting back in the day.

 

What is of equal concern to me is the osmerid population.  Where the hell are they?  I mean I'm talking locally here.  Lots of night fish coming down from Usal and points north, but what about our local smelts?  Know this:  I have gone out 5 times and have yet to produce a single fish.  Wondering what's up. Yes, all that rain and ugly water in March didn't help matters (for smelt), and it's still a tad early for day fish... but damn.  I mean, not one single fish?  

 

                                    Any day now on Lana!

 

Dusting off the ol' Lana Turner rod today. Maybe multi-tasking is the way to go. Hit the beach for Lana and hope the osmerids show up.

 

Heading Down To Fleishhacker

 

Strangely, although Ocean Beach is a mere five minute drive from my front door, I never fish it.  This is because I spent five years of my life hopelessly casting hair raisers out there--with paltry results.  I've actually done far better at Baker Beach.  But I think this year it's time I manned up and started hitting Taraval or heading down to Fleishacker at night, as that seems to be the most productive way to fish OB.

 

 

 

Fleishhacker.  Everyone knows about Fleishhacker right?  I recently had an argument with a local striper fisherman about the exact location of this famous surf/fishing spot on Ocean Beach.  I was wrong.  As it turns out the original Fleishacker was a local politician who donated money for the construction of the largest heated saltwater pool in the world (hence: Fleishacker Pool).  This pool was located where the current parking lot for the SF Zoo now stands.  Unbelievable photos of this online. The pool employed 11 life guards and was so huge they used row boats to get across the thing.  

As it turns out the city simply couldn't afford to maintain the pool.  And after the original buzz wore off, people started to realize what a cold and blustery (read: stupid) location this was for a swimming pool. After the 1940s the pool fell into disuse and became a sort of ruin.  Evidently, they filled it in back in the 70s. Turned it into a parking lot--you know the Joni Mitchell song.  But the beach house still stands, just south of Sloat Ave. Seems the city might be able to do something other than letting our wayward youth run rampant there.

 

                    Bath house of the former Fleeshacker Pool

 

Really?  The lockers are still standing? Man, strip those puppies down, shine 'em up and put 'em on Craigslist!

 

The thing that breaks my heart on this isn't the fact that the city let the pool go to seed, or that such an inspired contribution to the public weal fell flat on its face.  It's the missed opportunity to turn the damned thing into an aqua-culture facility!  Can you imagine the revenue the city (or some forward thinking individual) could have generated by raising oysters or clams or salmon or... I dunno... pompano there?  Too late now. The pipes under Great Hwy are all gone, the pool is filled in, Fleishhacker's dream is but a crumbled ruin... 

Oh well.  At least the fishermen keep the name alive...

Heading down to Fleishhacker to see if the stripers are running... 

More tomorrow.

Kirk-out

 

Life Sometimes Interferes

 

And that's the trooth, people.

I've been getting quite a few e-mails lately asking if I've died and gone to fish heaven or something.  Rest assured, when three weeks goes by without a Monkeyface blog post, I am one (or two) of two things:

1. travelling

2. catching nothing (or not interested in sharing details about what I am catching)

In this case I'm in New York, dealing with some family issues, and will return in mid April full of fish tales and blog posts... that's the hope anyway!  

Kirk-out