The Monkeyface News

Getting Back

The unhappiest five days of my week are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  This is because I have taken a vow of temperance on these five miserable days... (so miserable they feel like five days).  

There's a great Joseph Mitchell story about the miseries of sobriety.  Joseph Mitchell... 

 

All these hip young "foodies" with blogs and TV shows and production teams and publishing contracts... Joseph Mitchell makes them (shouyld I say us?) look like a confederacy of dunces (actually not very hard to do). Why? Because he's a writer first and a gourmand second.  Anyone who has not read Bottom Of The Harbor has no business talking about seafood.  Plain and simple.

Here's the link:

The Bottom Of The Harbor

If you do not at least look at it, fie on you!  Joseph Mitchell.  Oh man, what a writer!  
 
 

Boney M. And The End Of Western Civilization
 
I can't quite believe the music I'm listening to right now.  Neptune, what's wrong with me?  I can't shake this Boney M. fixation.  Like a half step removed from Milli Vanilli.  Brown Girl In The Ring (?) What the fuck is this song about?

  

Boney M.  In all their glory.  Actually, I don't think any of these people were musicians. The band was the brainchild of this man:

... Frank Farian.  Following the same phony game plan, Farian brought us these guys:  
 
 

Winds At 35
 

And that may have been the strangest diversion yet, on this strange blog of mine.

What other fishing blog is so willing to test the boundaries of taste and sensibility?  To bring you Joseph Mitchell, Boney M., and Milli Vanilli in one paragraph?

 

Winds blowing at 35 knots.  Not going anywhere.  Sat on the beach watching the birds diving 75 feet too far to the West.  How fierce was the wind today?  The wind was so fierce, when I threw my net, it came back and landed on me.  In other words: I caught myself.  The ultimate squack.  

Uh oh.  I just took a Youtube diversion.  Watched Tyson's last fight.  Against the Irish version of Primo Carnera.

                                                             McBride and Carnera
 

Mike Tyson who burst onto the scene with such vehemence... and went out with so little of it. Would never have happened if he had been eating oysters all these years (ask Old Mr. Flood).

When Tyson sits down and fails to get up against the unexemplary McBride, in the sixth round of his final fight, it's possibly the greatest moment that ennui has ever inspired. Not with a bang but a whimper.  I mean... is that a guy who no longer likes his job or what?  

One thing in defense of McBride.  He can sure take a head butt!  I mean damn!

 

            "Not with a bang but a whimper."

NPR

Got interviewed by NPR two days ago.  It was weird.  Sitting in the KQED studio being asked questions by a dude whose voice I recognized.  I think I heard him interview Mit Romney. The longjaw mudsucker of politicians.  Woops.  Sorry if I insulted the 14 Mit Romney fans out there. Where was I?

That was totally awful.  That I would ever in any way injure or degrade so noble a creature as the miraculous G. mirabilis.

 

                                                    Will the real mudsucker please stand up?

Speaking of politics... went to the Fish And Game Commission Meeting in Monterey two days ago in an attempt to put forth my casting-net-herring idea... and was well received.  Even if one of the higher ups took 96.3 percent of the wind out of my sails. Hey, I still got 3.7 percent.  Exactly what Tyson had against the long-boned McBride.

The dude who shot the mountain lion was there.  I forget his name.  He's the commission prez.  Someone from an animal rights group in Oakland got up and complained.  But other than that the hoopla surrounding the killing of mountain lions in Idaho--and whether a F&G Commission prez should be involved in such activities--has died down.

 

Though it does seem both ecologically problematic (trophic cascade anyone?) and unethical to shoot tree-bound apex predators, I'm not sure how you can justify firing the dude for engaging in a legally sanctioned hunt.   On the other hand... I think he said he ate the thing... but come on.  Nobody hunts mountain lions for food. You shoot a mountain lion you're doing it for ego... and that's what makes pictures of a dude holding a mountain lion a tad disturbing. 

{At the same time there's probably someone out there who has the same feelings about me posing with herring or MF Eels or clams...}

Also the American lion on a historical level has been persecuted, trapped, poisoned, had a bounty on its head for most of the 20th century, and in much of its former range was actually exterminated.  Can't we find something else, something more common, something lower on the food chain, something less problematic, to hunt?  I guess Commission Prez Richards can't.

 

              Q:  Quien es mas Macho?  Senor Richards o Sasha Siemel?   A: Senor Siemel

You know how they always say trophy hunters are suffering from Napoleon complex?  It really is weird how tall that dude looks while holding the mountain lion. I was expecting a Sasha Siemel type, but when I saw him in person... well, frankly... it was more of a Paul Williams association.

          Fish and Game Commission president Dan Richards and songwriter Paul Williams... Evidently separated at birth... or maybe just the same hair stylist?

That's funny.  I just googled Sasha.  He actually looks about the same height as the F&G Commission president (wirier though--remember he was the middleweight bare-knuckle champ of the Brazillian mining camps).  Which may in fact go a long way towards confirming the whole Napoleon complex thing. Nevertheless and despite the horrifying impact Sasha no doubt had on the apex predators of the Mato Grasso, there's one detail that can not be overlooked...

 

Sasha Siemel killed his jaguars with a spear!

Let's do this:  Let's change the Idaho regs on mountain lion:

241.23a Mountain Lion

Mountain lions may be taken only by use of an implement known as a "Guato Indian stabbing spear," measuring no more than 7.5 feet in length. In addition, only one dog is allowed in the pursuit of mountain lions.  

 

Now, if a guy wants to go kill his 200 pound mountain lion in hand to hand combat using the same implements Sasha Siemel used... then by all means, go crazy with the happy, self satisfied photos. 

Speaking of which...

 

Lombard of the Intertidal, happy and self satisfied, poses with record shattering basket cockle. He evidently killed this puppy with a Guato indian stabbing rake. "I think anyone who wants to kill apex clams like this one should have to wrestle them from in the mudflats with hands and rake, anyway, it's legal in California." Lombard said.


 

One other thing... To that handful of people out there who have actually read Tigrero... how bad-ass was that little dog?  One tough terrier.  Like a mini version of "Lion" in Faulkner's, The Bear. (FYI: As great a story as has ever been penned on the problematic destruction of apex predators--and what the ultimate costs are when we kill them).

Where the hell was I?

 

The Great One.  Much more inspiring, I think, to kill the beast with a pen.

 
 

Staring at the waves across Tomales Bay today.  Man.  Had to be blowing 40 there.  Seriously.  Looked like the Potato Patch on a bad day.  Got to the beach 3 hours after a -0.6 minus tide.  Hoping against hope that I might score a few littlenecks before the tide got too high.  Was supposed to go with semi famous hunter gatherer chef blogger.  He bailed.  I bailed too.  Then suddenly got a wild hair and drove 2 hours north, way after bottom of tide.  

AND STILL GOT MY FIFTY LITTLENECKS!

HA!  My littleneck gathering skills are extreme, yo.

 

Just sayin. 50 clams and I didn't start raking till 3.2 hrs after the bottom of the tide.  Chowder will happen two nights from now. That's how long I likes to soak 'em.  Maybe add the horseneck I will doubtless catch on tomorrow's tour...


 

                                                    Garibaldi

Hmmmm.  I need to get back to Oregon for those cockles.  I'm still dreaming about 'em.  Big fat juicy cockles.  Lovely cockles.  Everywhere you looked.  Oh man... Tilamook bay.

 

WAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I'm gonna admit something.  I was ruined forever by Tillamook Bay.  Here I am scratching the gravel for two hours at Tomales for a few skimpy ass barely 1.5 inch littlenecks and manillas, while in Tillamook bay it takes 12 minutes to gather 50 baseball-sized basket cockles.

Such is the price of sharing the resources with 38 million some-odd Californians.  Oh well. Honestly I don't think there's been any kind of cockles to speak of in Tomales since the 70s.  Though I do occasionally (very occasionally) find them in Princeton Harbor.

 

The Smelt Diaries

 

Eulachon, from Lewis and Clark journals.

The wind right now is something to be reckoned with. Strangely, the smelt ran again right in the middle of it. Got another 14 pounds blind tossing.  Very strange that everyone thinks smelt don't like rough
water.  If you were a smelt would you spawn only when pelicans, seals, cormorants and guys with nets could see you? Or would you spawn under cover of turbid water?  Kind of a no brainer.  But then maybe there's things I don't know. Like maybe turbidity effects egg survival.  

All the fish I saw today were oozing milt and eggs so the spawn was definitely happening.  But the fish were moving fast up and down the beach and I made a total fool of myself chasing them. Or I should say, chasing the birds that were chasing them.  All sea gulls  No terns today.  Terns don't like windiness, it interferes with their higher aesthetics of flight.  No self respecting tern is going to hit the coast on a day when the gusts are reaching 40.  Seagulls sure.  Terns have too much dignity for that business.

                                                            Happy 75


 

Okay... I've been working on this durned blog post all day and it is time to go to the 75th anniversary of the GG Bridge celebration.  The fishwife calls.  More on the Fish and Game Commission Meeting, my forth coming salmon trip (tomorrow), and other wide ranging subjects from Milli Vanilli, to mountain lion hunting, to herring regulations, to paul Williams, to smelt, to Faulkner, to Primo Carnera and Joseph Mitchell.  

Just in case you needed to be reminded:  You have definitely been reading The Monkeyface News...
 

Kirk-out

 

Fish And Game Commission

                                        Herring spawning grounds south bay.

   

Went down to the F&G Commission meeting in Monterey yesterday (May 23).  First one of these I've ever attended. I was there in hopes of pushing my "cast net herring agenda" forward.  Ran into a little problem though: the glacial time frames of the bureaucracy.  Even if the higher ups agree to look into my suggestions, they evidently would not be able to do anything until 2014.  Bummer.  

Nevertheless... here's the letter I submitted to the commission:

My name is Kirk Lombard.  I am a former fisheries observer for the DFG/PSMFC currently working as a commercial fisherman in San Francisco.  On behalf of other small scale fishermen working in that area, I'd like to propose a change in the gear restrictions for Pacific herring that would allow for the use of small, hand held casting nets to be used in conjunction with the Herring For Fresh Fish Market License that was re-vamped and made available to fishermen last year. 

I have spoken with all three of the current herring biologists: _______, ________ and ______, and they agreed that this change I propose would have a negligible impact on the fishery. 

Last year I purchased the Fresh Fish Market Lic., (of which only ten are issued each year) with the idea of using a Hawaiian casting net to catch a very small number of high quality herring for local consumption in the Bay Area.  Only to be told after purchasing it, that I could not use a Hawaiian casting net.  

To be clear: Hawaiian casting nets have a diameter of 6 feet.  I am talking about catching no more than 200 pounds per week.  By contrast a gill net boat often catches 5-20 tons per day.

I am hoping that by mentioning this topic during the public comment period today, (May 23) it will start a serious discussion on the issue, so that it can be addressed more fully when the commission meets to discuss herring this coming October.  

Thank you for your time.

 

 

 

 

 

It was all going so well!  I was the third speaker (out of like 30). They discussed my point.  There was considerable back and forth.  They seemed to get what I was driving at.  I presented Exhibit A -- my herring net: tattered and dinky looking.  I got a few smiles.  When it was suggested that it might be too late to get this on the agenda for 2012-13, Mike Sutton (I think it was him) said: "Maybe we can dog ear this one."

It all seemed to be going my way!

But later, during break, I spoke with M.Y. of DFG and was quickly disabused of thinking this would be an easily attainable goal.  First off she pointed out (correctly I may add), that the main issue was not whether throw nets should be allowed, but whether the Herring for Fresh Fish Market License is in fact an open access license.  Herring has long been a closed/limited access fishery.  Everyone knows this. It was done this way for specific reasons (what were those I wonder?)  She seemed to intimate that what I was trying to do was to gain access to a closed access fishery.  True enough.  That is what I'm doing.

But would someone please tell me why this license is listed on the "Nonrestrictive Permit" page of the license descriptions, right there next to coonstriped shrimp and rock crab and general trap permits?! 

I guess the key here is the word: required.  Right I get it.  Required for the owner of a gill net permit to catch herring for the fresh fish market, is I think what they meant to write.  Right?  But they didn't. They wrote... (see below).

 

Nonrestrictive Permits	Fee	Description
Anchovy Take	$40.94	Required for the owner or operator of a vessel to take anchovies for reduction purposes.
Bay Shrimp	$40.94	Required for the operator of a vessel to use trawl nets and Chinese shrimp nets to take bay shrimp, Oriental goby, yellowfin goby.
Coonstripe Shrimp Trap Vessel	$102.49	Required for the owner of any vessel using traps to take, possess aboard a boat, or land coonstripe shrimp for commercial purposes.
Crayfish	$40.49	Required in addition to a commercial fishing license when taking crayfish for human consumption. Required in addition to a live fresh water bait fish license for each person taking crayfish for bait.
Ghost Shrimp	$40.94	Required for each commercial fisherman operating or assisting in operating hand or engine powered equipment to take ghost shrimp. Commercial fishermen operating under the authority of a ghost shrimp permit must also possess a tidal invertebrate permit.
Golden and Ridgeback Prawn	$40.94	Required for the operator of a vessel to use or possess trawl nets to take golden or ridgeback prawns in ocean waters.
Herring Fresh Fish Market	$40.94	Required for the owner, lessee, or operator of a vessel in San Francisco or Tomales Bay to take herring for the fresh fish market.
Herring Ocean Waters	$40.94	Required for the owner, lessee, or operator of a vessel to take herring in ocean waters.
Inland/Freshwater Fish	$40.94	Required for each person to take inland or freshwater fish for commercial purposes. The following species can be taken under the authority of this permit: Carp or Minnow Family Cichlid Family Freshwater Mollusks Goby Family Mullet Family Killifish Family Lamprey Family Livebearer Family Sculpin Family Silverside Family Smelt Family Stickleback Family Sucker Family Threadfin Shad
Land CA Fish Outside CA	$20.34	Required to take fish in California and land to ports outside of California.
Lobster Crewmember	$170.98	Required for any person who accompanies and assists any lobster operator permit holder in the commercial take of spiny lobster and who does not qualify for a lobster operator permit. The lobster operator permit holder must be present whenever a lobster crewmember is taking, possessing, or transporting spiny lobster for commercial purposes.
Marine Aquaria Collector	$445.25	Required for any person taking, possessing aboard a boat, or landing any live native marine species specified in FGC 8597 from California waters for marine aquaria pet trade purposes. At least one person aboard each commercial fishing vessel shall have a valid marine aquaria collector permit.
Northern Rock Crab Trap	$334.50	Required for any person using traps to take, possess aboard a vessel, use as bait, or land rock crab, including brown, yellow and red rock crab for commercial purposes between 42°00’N. lat. (the Oregon/California border) and 36°00’N lat. (at Lopez Point, Monterey County).
Sea Urchin Crewmember	$40.94	Required for each person who assists in taking sea urchins and who does not qualify for a sea urchin diving permit. A sea urchin crewmember cannot dive for sea urchins.
Southern Pink Shrimp Trawl	$40.94	Required for any commercial fisherman using a trawl net to take, possess aboard a boat, or land pink shrimp for commercial purposes in ocean waters south of a line drawn due west of Point Conception.
Swordfish	$445.25	Required for the owner or operator of a vessel using harpoon or hook-and-line to take swordfish for profit. A swordfish permit will be issued free of charge to individuals with a valid drift gill net permit. At least one person aboard each commercial fishing vessel must have a valid swordfish permit.
Tanner Crab	$12,450.00	Required for the owner of a registered commercial fishing vessel using traps to take, possess aboard a vessel, or land Tanner Crab for commercial purposes.
Tidal Invertebrate	$40.94	Required for any person who takes mollusks, crustaceans, or other invertebrates for commercial purposes in any tidepool or tidal area, including tide flats or other areas between the high tidemark and 1,000 feet beyond the low tidemark. Commercial fisherman using powered equipment to take ghost shrimp must also possess a valid tidal invertebrate permit.
Trap	$47.90	Required for any person who uses traps to take finfish, mollusks, or crustaceans for profit except shiny lobster and Dungeness crab, as defined in FGC 9001. Dungeness crab can only be taken on vessels with a valid Dungeness crab vessel permit. Commercial fishermen can only take lobster under the authority of a lobster operator permit. Spot prawn can only be taken on vessels with a valid Spot Prawn Trap Vessel Permit.

 

 

 

I mean, would someone read this and get back to me here?  Am I insane or does the language for this seem awfully similar to all the other "open access" licenses listed next to it?  Licenses that you buy with the expectation that you can immediately start fishing for rock crabs, coonstriped shrimp etc.  

Of course the problem here is that it would be far easier for fisheries managers to simply change the wording of the permit description to match the Bay Shrimp lic. below.  Which is no doubt what will happen.  By bringing this up at the meeting (and no doubt by writing this blog post) I am in effect sealing my own fate.  

Still, the fresh fish market license is rather silly when you consider that none of the current boats even needs it.  Herring is available on request from all the seafood buyers during herring season, whether or not they bought it from someone who has the license. It's been like this for years.  

The thing is, with all this talk of sustainability, supporting artisinal fisheries, eating local... it seems like a no brainer to promote a small throw net herring for fresh fish market fishery.  I mean for gawd's sakes they only offer ten licenses!  How many fish could possibly be caught by 10 guys with throw nets? (More like 5 actually, when you consider that not very many people will even want it). Take into account that throw nets do not even work in water deeper than ten feet, that means fishing only when the fish come into shore.  How many times does that happen per season? 10 times? So maybe 15 days for the whole winter?   Also:  even the most optimistic buyer probably couldn't move more than 200 pounds per week... put all this together and your talking about a fishery that would maybe take between 5-6 tons of fish over four months. In other words 20 percent of one day's catch for an average gillnet boat.

 

                    Herring gill netters back in the day. (By Winslow Homer)

 

 

Anyway, these are my thoughts on the thing.

Kirk-out

This added 12/12:  With the backing of Kenny Belov of Fish Restaurant, I was able to get Assemblyman Jared Huffman to write a letter to the commission on my behalf.  And word has it that they are now considering my proposal for 2014.  I should also like to add that I have received encouragement from the herring team, and from Audubon and even from DFG enforcement. And that they have all bent over backwards to help my cause.

 

Home Sweet Home

 

First off.  Apologies to everyone who expected a coastal update on my Seaforager site.  Traveling this month took me off the bite.  I'll be back on the updates in June.

 

 

Wow.  Ireland.  Not really sure what to say.  Good to get away from the states if for no other reason than to see how other peoples/cultures are getting along in the year of our Poseidon 2012.  

 

                                           The Fishwife poses with Molly Malone.

 

 

Reflections On The Ancestral Homeland:

The nicest, most helpful, most emotionally self expressed citizenry on the face of the earth. Three bands in every bar on a Tuesday night. Kind of funny when you ask the guys what key they're playing in (so you might join in) and nobody knows.  Which means there's a very large percentage of self-learned musicians.  The best kind.  Very strange how often, in the midst of a "trad" music jam, right after Whisky your the Devil, or Whisky in the Jar, (anyone ever tabulate the percentage of Irish songs that contain some reference to Whisky?) someone breaks into Creedence.

 

Rolling across the rugged peninsulas of the SW catching up on my Pogues.  "And the boys in the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay... and bells were ringing out for Christmas day..." Fly fished in the surf for a couple of hours in Waterville... a coastal stop along the Beara Loop.  Tantalized by these massive mullet that wallow in the shallows and refuse to take a fly.  I even went so far as to dig up some sand fleas and throw that at them.  No dice.  (Nothing great about this video. Just put it here for the background).

 

 

Spoke to a fisherman in Dingle, who informed me they commonly get 15-30 pound conger eels, off the jetties. Looked into this further and discovered that congers get up to 100 pounds. Typically caught by means of 6/0 hook, mackerel head and wire leader.  Crazy.  One guy told me he attaches the line to a crab buoy and leaves it overnight.  I was quickly disabused of thinking that poke poling for congers was the way to go.  My informant laughed and said, you could definitely get them to bite, but pulling a five foot, 30 pound eel out of a hole in the rocks "would not be possible unless you were Hercules."
 

 

I close my eyes and vistas of lush meadows and rocky, windswept coastline dance through the interior vaults of my eel obsessed brain.  I felt kind of like Alex Haley must've felt when he went to Africa.  A good portion of my (and probably about 40 percent of everyone else in America's) DNA derives from the land of Eire.  Was thinking a "Barak O'bama" tee shirt would sell very well over there. 

 

                    Alex Haley
 

Anyhow, I've made two more night smelt trips since my return but the little guys are nowhere to be found. That's 6 trips this year for a whopping total of 2 pounds of nighties.  What does it mean?  Is the universe crumbling?  Is the end at hand?  Good news on the "dayfish" though, here's a pic from yesterday:

 

                        Just when I'd forgotten what 25 pounds of smelt looked like.

Anyway.  This is just a "hello I'm back" post.  Hopefully I'll have some more stuff to report on as the durned Chinooks move closer to Duxbury.  Also having a bit of an inkling to shed my saltwater ways and head upstream for shad.  Could use some insight from anyone willing to give it.

Smelt ran yesterday at high tide so I'm out of here.  

Much as I miss the emerald isle, it's good to be back.

Kirk-out

 

The Big Time(s)

Looks like I've hit the big time!  Of course, I had to get the fishwife involved in order to do this... but in any event... here's my latest sortee in the realm of fishy fame.

Monkeyface Kirk In The NY Times!!!!!

 

                                            sniggling for eels

 

Snigglers Unite

Nikko Von Sharkenheimer writes in to let me know that the term "poke-poling" which has always struck me as a rather unfortunate and cumbersome term, has a much more pleasing and antiquated progenitor:  "Sniggling."

snig·gle

[snig-uhl]  snig·gled, snig·gling.

verb (used without object)

1.

to fish for eels by thrusting a baited hook into their lurking places.

verb (used with object)

2.

to catch by sniggling.

On the road again... back here in NY.  Might try to sneak out to sniggle in the Hudson, as I did in days of yore...

Otherwise I'll be posting a few updates from Ireland when I get there.

Until then.

Kirk-out