The Monkeyface News

My Water...

 

Totally forgot about this video I did with the Mavea Water Filter people this past August. They just posted it.  Thought it came out kind of cool so I'm posting it here. Glad I didn't make any ugly throws. Have to admit, despite the good times with herring and perch of late, it's got me pining for summer smelt runs... anyway here it is:

Kind of funny.  The beach was loaded with fishermen that day but it looks like I'm all alone out there. Bunch of guys teased me afterwards.  Kinda funny having a camera crew following me into the surf. These guys were hardcore.  They got swamped a couple of times by waves, but I gotta say, they got some cool shots... anyhoo... have at:

 

 

 

The Spawn Is On!

                                                       Interpret this as you will

Erratum

                                         Herring in McCovey Cove Jan 2013

 

 

Ummm... kind of embarrassed by this one.  But I'm stepping forward to excuse my erratum on the basis of math anxiety.  Or maybe just math ineptitude.

The following is the kind of question that led me to play hooky from school when I should've been learning math:

If the commercial herring fleet is allowed to fish 5 percent of the estimated spawning biomass in SF Bay, or 2,000 tons, what is the estimated spawning biomass?  

Duh.

Somehow in figuring this out I came up with the ridiculous figure of 400,000 tons. And have been posting that everywhere and telling everyone that. Genius.

Added an extra zero, i guess.  In truth the spawning biomass is estimated at somewhere around 50,000-60,000 tons. The highest estimated biomass in recorded time was 99,000 some odd tons.

So I'm really sorry to have to say, I botched this. Not sure where I posted it, but at least at this point if someone writes to tell me how far off the mark I was, I can claim that I caught the mistake first. 

Begging forgiveness.

 

SAND DABS IN THE BAY!

                        C. Sordidus, The easiest fish to clean!  One chop does it all.

 

Not the most appealing picture I know... but then again there's something rather sordid about sordidus. Maybe it's the slime, maybe it's the nasty isopods crawling around in their gills... 

I mean like yuck.  I forgot how disgusting these guys can be.  The parasite looks like  Cymothoa exigua, (or something durned close to it) and it's harmless, I know... but eee gaads. Eating away the host's tongue and then replacing it with its own body.  That's not a very nice thing to do. (Not actually sure what the species is on this isopod, open to help here from the invertebrate crew).  

 

Red Hot Perch Action

 

                                      The Champion (de la Banana) of perch fishing!

Up and down the coast.  Name a beach or a rocky promontory.  Yikes. I haven't experienced perching like this in years. But then again, I haven't gone perching like this in years... the main thing has been my reawakening to the wonders of ghost shrimp.  The picture below is Champion de la Banana's catch from the day before yesterday (1/16).  I was out the day before that (1/17) and nailed some huge calicoes in addition to the biggest pogies I've seen in years.  All the fish bit on the outgo.  At one point I was all jazzed to have caught what I thought was surely the state record E jacksonii--a 2 lb. 4 oz. slug, only to find that the state record for black perch now stands at an impressive 2 lb. 9 oz.  That's one big pogie! Who the hell is this Zachary Mitchell anyway?

 Two stripeds, 10 pogies, two calicoes, and a pile perch--and this was the worst day of the week.

 

 

Okay.  Nothing else to report.  Fishing a lot as Kirk junior approaches, since I figure it'll be 11 years before I'm back on the water again.  Strange as it may seem, I'm starting to get the night smelt itch again.  Last year they ran in late January... you never know.

Back at it tomorrow.

Fish on!

The Book of Herring

 

                     

 

And lo:  the fish came unto the cove for four days and four nights.  And there were many.  And the men from Chinatown threw countless nets upon them.  

And lo:  the fish kept coming. And coming. And coming.

And lo: they came.

And the water turned white with their coming.

And the white men in the big boats pulled their long nets and filled their holds.

And back onshore, the Samoans were well represented.

And so too the Greeks and Filipinos.

And so too the residents of the fancy new Mission Bay housing complex {who knew nothing of these, their local waters, where once Mission Bay teemed with life.  And the herring sought not rocks, pier pilings and old rusted knots of discarded rebar but eel grass and sea lettice and what other sea weeds grew there} stood agape and agog before the awesomeness of the great spawn.

 

 

And the rocks and the rock weed and the turkish washcloth were frosted grey with eggs. And still the people (the Greeks, the Filipinos, the Russians, the Samoans, the Honkies, ("White man gotta represent!" screams the one known as Pissed-Off Pete as he elbows his way to the rail and hurls the net with perfect form), the Afro-Americans, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Mexicans, the Cambodians (yes, several of these), and everyone else, threw nets upon them.  And the gillnetters chug-chug-chugged and their beaters rolled.

And lo they kept coming. For there is no such thing as coitus interuptus for Clupea pallassii {they come while their dying in your hands}.

 

                    Agua Vista Pier after 4.5 consectutive days of carnage. 

 

I close my eyes.  Images flash like a silvery fish in the murk.  I still hear the chug of the gillnet beaters. The wild Asiatic shrieks of the shore flingers.  Somewhere, someone imitating Champion de la Banana's infamous "A-yaaah." The babel of languages on the pier:  Greek and Chinese. French for a moment (a tourist snapping photos).  Then Spanish.  Russian.  Tagalog. (Was that Tagalog?). And several tonal languages that sound to my unkowing caucasoid ears like the strident, wailing of wet, miserable cats.

And still they came.  As they have always come.  Since there was a coast to come to (err... on).

And in the end I left them.  Still coming.  Hoping for the love of Gawd that we, the people slaughtering them, truly appreciate how awesome they are.  

And don't

for one moment

just assume

that they will always be here. 

 

                     A familiar sight to a herring fisherman.  Scales on boots.