fishing

A Reel Hairy Tale

Sunday, I crossed off a bucket list event: deep-sea fishing. My good friend Kim and I went out on a charter with Yankee Fleet in Gloucester; the boat set sail at 3:30 p.m. and returned at 8 p.m. Kim had gone on a couple trips 20 years ago, but I had never been.

We Malcolms had a relaxing Sunday at home, so around 2 p.m. I thought I should get showered and dressed. I skipped washing my hair, thinking it would just get blown to shreds on the boat. I skipped most of my make-up too. I found a cap and tossed it into my backpack; I found an extra one and tossed it in for Kim, along with an extra long-sleeved thermal shirt for her.

When I picked Kim up, I was shocked at her appearance. She had done her hair, put on make-up -- and she even smelled good! I said something like, "We're going fishing -- you know that, right?"

The boat was bigger than I expected: at least 50 ft. We staked out two PVC pipes at the very front of the bow to hold our fishing poles. Out of around 35 people, Kim, me, and six Japanese tourists were the only ones who stayed out on deck at the bow as we left the harbor. Most were huddled quietly in the cabin, looking like they were going into a coal mine: no laughter, no chatting.

We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day: sunny and only 2-foot waves. The boat glided out of the harbor toward the open Atlantic. At the mouth of the harbor, another fishing charter that was coming in tooted and waved. We waved back and seconds later we plowed into that boat's wake. And our bow created a spectacular 10-foot spray that showered us and our Japanese counterparts.

Kim's curls were washed away. I turned to look at the crow's nest, and as I suspected, this was a highlight of the Captain's day. Through my sea-water drenched hair, I saw the Captain chortling behind the window of his control tower. I told Kim I had an extra cap and shirt, but she opted for the extra layer of warmth over the cap.

An hour out and in 200 ft. of water, the Captain dropped anchor. We watched one of the ship's mates as he showed a woman across the bow from us how to get set up. Our bait was sea clams that we weaved onto the hooks with three pokes. The reels were open-fly (that's what I call them): with a flick of a lever the line comes whizzing out as the 1-gram weight pulls the baited hook to the bottom of the ocean. Back on our side of the bow, I watched Kim go through the steps of dropping the line; then I followed suit.

The Captain descended from his splash tower. "That made your day didn't it?" we ribbed him. "You bet it did!" he replied. We bantered with the Captain, the two mates, and the loveliest fisherman named Paddy, who shared the bow with us. Paddy, probably in his 70's, had his own gear, bait, and a big confident cooler to store his catch. A bit shy at first, Paddy was one of those guys who would be a great neighbor. Kind, polite, and good-hearted. Paddy gave us a couple pointers along the way, but he had the corner on big fish at the end of the day with a 2-foot codfish.

Kim and I waited for a nibble. I told the Captain that without a bobber I wasn't sure what to watch for. He reached out to the end of my pole and gave the line a couple little tugs to show we what it felt like when something went after the bait. With the line locked in placed on the reel, I held the line above the reel with my fingers so I could feel the line move as well as the pole when something bit.

Three feet apart on the bow, Kim and I chatted and laughed. Me with my cap and she with her now non-curled hair blowing in the wind. All rods were quiet, not much happening. We saw a small codfish come in -- only 15 inches and they need to be 19 inches to keep. Then, tug, tug. OK! Fish on my line! I started to reel it in as the Captain came in our direction.

"Where's your camera?" shouted Kim as she reached for my coat pocket. I was so focused on pull, reel, pull, reel that I could hardly talk. "Pocket!" I replied. "Which one?" Kim asked as she reached across me to the far coat pocket. You know, in my frenzy to get dinner onboard, I could not say "jean pocket." And I couldn't let go of my pole to get the camera out.

"Don't worry about the camera, Linda, just keep reeling and get that fish onboard!" directed the Captain. Then, came Kim's direction: "NO! NO! DON'T REEL! MY HAIR IS CAUGHT IN YOUR REEL!!"

Thankfully, Kim wasn't it pain. Because I would have felt horrible busting a gut if she was suffering. I was losing strength from laughter that made my whole body shake. My cheeks were so scrunched up in the fit that I didn't see how the Captain released Kim's hair. I only heard his voice saying, "OK, Linda, reel it in!" Still in a fit of laughter, I reeled and reeled and reeled and finally Kim yelled, "It's a shark!"

Yes, I had nabbed myself a dogfish. An inedible, 2 ft-long slender, shark-like fish. After a brief photo, the ship's mate, who had taken it off my line, released it. No good to eat. Paddy told us they release urine throughout their body if they aren't cleaned right, so the meat tastes like ammonia. But, he said, in England they were used in fish and chips. Unsure if there is any truth to that. Unsure of many fish stories we heard that day. But absolutely sure of the hair-in-reel one.

After the hair-in-reel & dogfish episode settled, the Captain declared, "I've been doing this for 30 years and have never seen that before." Pretty sure he was referring to the hair-in-reel part.

Paddy summed it up best, "You two girls are having the most fun out of everyone on this boat!"

Yes. We didn't catch dinner, and we came home smelling like we had been clamming not fishing. But we had a wicked good time. Three days later, we're still stretching the laugh muscles and wondering how the Captain and his mates are telling the story!

(Another adventure, this time snow-shoeing down a mountain, in the dark... Fierce Mountain Gnomes.)

Simple Squid Dinner

For dinner Monday night, I had leftover ingredients from the weekend to work with: a bowl of very ripe tomatoes, an onion, some garlic, two lemons, a handful of linguine, a bottle of Chardonnay, and one-and-a-half pounds of squid.  The squid was leftover from the paella Bill made Saturday night. I rustled through my on-line recipe box looking for an easy tomato-white wine sauce that I had made a few weeks ago. With a quick search for "squid," a stuffed squid popped up. Upon opening the bag of porcelain sleek & glossy white squid tubes, I decided stuffing them would be a ridiculous endeavor. I would just quickly chop them up. A deconstructed squid dish. (Think Indiana Jones, in battle with a whip when a quick shot just seemed to make more sense.)

Thankfully, all the skin, ink, and cartilage was gone before said squid entered our house. I was left with long white tubes and long purple tentacles. I chopped the squid tubes into calamari rings and threw them into a strainer to rinse. I picked up the tentacles, some 4 - 6 inches long, and put them into the strainer as well. It was right about then that I thought, "I'm a heck of a long way from Iowa."

I didn't have time to soak the pieces in milk to tenderize them. I didn't get the meat tenderizing hammer out because I didn't want squid juice squirting all over my clean counter and floor. Rather, I decided they would just need to tenderize as they simmered away in tomatoes, onions, garlic and wine for a half hour.

As the ingredients came to a happy simmer in the pan, I took one last peek before putting the cover on. Puzzled by the bizarreness of these little creatures, prepared by my Iowa-born hands, smothered in a Creole-infused sauce. Would my granddad have eaten these? He loved fish, but this was a far-cry from beer-battered bullheads. Would my dad knowingly eat these? (Dad had unknowingly eaten them as we ordered fried calamari once while he was visiting. We didn't tell him the source of the nice rubbery, crunchy appetizer.)

The end result was delicious served over rice.  So, do you eat chewy purple legs covered with little suction cups? Please do tell.

(This "recipe" is a little more complicated: Corn's On!)

Liquid Farming: Fishing & Problem-solving

We’ve been throwing lines into the Annisquam River to fish.    From the beach or the 12x15 dock, there is a lot of ducking, casting, and reeling.  Plus mid-air swinging of lead hooks.  And plunked down rods when “I’ve-got-to-jump-in-now!” hits.  Leaving baited hooks and bare feet and a griping mother on the dock.  And giggles and swimmers in the water. For the perfectionists in our house, fishing is a test of patience.  Like golf, it’s not a matter of simply swinging a club or casting a line and getting the ball in the hole or a fish on the hook.  Both are games of variables.  Of problem-solving.  Of remaining calm when the perfect cast doesn’t land 10 yards in front of you in the middle of the river channel, but 20 yards to the right of you.  Over three people and a walkway to the dock next to you.   And anchors on the seaweed-covered lines holding that dock in place.  The look of horror brought to the face of a perfectionist in this event… predictable.

Then the diagnosis of the problem.  First, good job not hooking any of the three people.  Now, gently reel in the line following it as you go.  Yank, yank, yank at the scene of the stuck bobber, weight, and hook.  And… we yanked in the direction that pulled that tooth even deeper into the line.  Looks like we need to cut the fishing line.  But it’s the hand-chosen neon yellow bobber!

What next?  I could jump in and get it.  But I don’t have trunks and the water is pretty cold.  Hey, I could cut the line and wait for the tide to go out… then get my bobber!  Yes!  And, in the meantime you get to learn how to string your own fishing line.

And we haven’t even gotten to bait  type or to depth of bait in the water, never mind the true want of catching a fish.  Every seasoned fisherman and woman creates one solely designed path for a particular spot or fish species.  The trick is weaving the path through trial and err, not as the crow flies.  Not as the perfectionists will it.

(Our first fishing expedition was on the 4th of July.  This way of life, Liquid Farming, takes some getting used to.)

Liquid Farming

Six years ago when Will and I made the 16-hour drive from Chicago to Boston to join Bill, who had already started his new job, I wondered how or if people in Mass. made a living off the land. There were acres and acres of trees in western Mass. Forestry? As the trees dispersed, cities built up. Commerce on paper. After finding our house and trying to dig a new flower garden, I was soon convinced there was no money coming from the dirt. The land is full of ledge that I have so often bemoaned. Moving from the Midwest to Northeast, I fought hard trying to think what I glued to the map in 4th grade when we were studying states and main resources.  I’m sure I found corn for Iowa, and I remember using cotton for the South.  However, I have no recollection of the Northeast.

But now, I’m sitting on the north-eastern edge of the U.S. -- on a liquid farm called the Atlantic.

 

4th of July. Fireworks. Reading. Fishing.

Last night in Gloucester, we took in the traditional fireworks display.  Driving around the loud and crazy festivities at Gloucester Harbor, we found a small, quiet park on the opposite of the harbor.  Space for the boys to run around while we waited for the first bang.   Far enough away that the bangs, swizzles, whistles, and chasers didn’t force the guys to watch with hands over their ears.  We named the fireworks: gold waterfalls, pyrite rocks, spiders, and whistlers. This morning, giving ourselves permission to simply sit and read.  (OK, there is one Leapster whispering beside me…)  Only fidgeting enough to scratch the combined 50 no-see-um bites we have from early evenings outside.  No-see-ums are flying teeth.  Tiny, tiny bugs that you can’t see or feel until they bite.  The choice is go inside or spray on a thick coating of Off at 6 p.m.  I prefer nightly baths to feeding flying teeth.

With threatening clouds overhead, the river is quiet and the tide is in.  After meeting a retired commercial fisherman earlier this week on the beach, Liam was ready to throw in a hook.  Liam didn’t flinch as he watched Ed work the hook through the eyes of an 8-inch herring he was using as bait.  Ed missed a couple good bites while chatting with us, so we didn’t actually see a fish from the river.

The next day, we had a lesson from a very knowledgeable and patient Dick’s Sporting Goods manager on rigging up a fishing pole and what bait to use.  The Malcolms now own four fishing rods.  The boys cast their first lines later that same day.

Apparently, there are 28-inch striped bass – “stripers” – and blue fish in the Annisquam River.  I fear catching a fish, particularly since I can only identify Caribbean reef fish and Iowa bull-heads.  According to Ed, blue fish are swimming teeth – they should be easy to ID.  Ed showed me the needle-nosed pliers he uses to remove hooks from the mouths of blue fish.  Consequently, we bought a multi-purpose tool at Dick’s: needle-nose pliers/line cutters.

On the first visit to the dock, it was soon apparent that nothing would be hauled in: it was a casting, reeling, and untangling session.  I was relieved.  While this practice was going on, a small boat pulled up to the dock and we met the neighbors across the street.  Rich information was gathered during this brief introduction:  the woman who has lived here 50+ years knows how to clean and fillet fish.  So…

On the second visit, Bill and I lugged a big blue bucket with us.  I also took a heavy beach towel to use as a lid, should we catch a big fish.  With a cast on one hand and a pick-line-low-weight-lifting restriction on the other, Bill was not going to be the one to haul it in or take it off the hook.  (Actually even if he had two fully-operating hands, there’s a good chance I would still be the one to fight the fish.)  On the walk to the dock, I checked out the shade tree where I could leave the bucket of fish as I dashed up to the neighbor’s house to plead for help.  All for naught.  Yet again, a practice session with a lot of boat traffic.

Today, with a quiet river and high tide, I’ll take the bucket again.  And hope there is movement across the street at our neighbor’s house.

Fireworks.  Reading.  Fishing.

A quiet 4th of July.

Unless we catch a fish…

(More about Liquid Farming: Fishing & Problem-solving.)

Fireworks. Reading. Fishing.

Last night in Gloucester, we took-in the traditional fireworks display.  Driving around the loud and crazy festivities at Gloucester Harbor, we found a small, quiet park on the opposite of the harbor.  Space for the boys to run around while we waited for the first bang.   Far enough away that the bangs, swizzles, whistles, and chasers didn’t force the guys to watch with hands over their ears.  We named the fireworks: gold waterfalls, pyrite rocks, spiders, and whistlers. This morning, giving ourselves permission to simply sit and read.  (OK, there is one Leapster whispering beside me…)  Only fidgeting enough to scratch the combined 50 no-see-um bites we have from early evenings outside.  No-see-ums are flying teeth.  Tiny, tiny bugs that you can’t see or feel until they bite.  The choice is go inside or spray on a thick coating of Off at 6 p.m.  I prefer nightly baths to feeding flying teeth.

This morning, with threatening clouds overhead, the river is quiet and the tide is in.  After meeting a retired commercial fisherman earlier this week on the beach, Liam was ready to throw in a hook.  Liam didn’t flinch as he watched Ed work the hook through the eyes of an 8-inch herring he was using as bait.  Ed missed a couple good bites while chatting with us, so we didn’t actually see a fish from the river.

The next day, we had a lesson from a very knowledgeable and patient Dick’s Sporting Goods manager on rigging up a fishing pole and what bait to use.  The Malcolms now own four fishing rods.  The boys cast their first lines later that same day.

Apparently, there are 28-inch striped bass – “stripers” – and blue fish in the Annisquam River.  I fear catching a fish, particularly since I can only identify Caribbean reef fish and Iowa bull-heads.  According to Ed, blue fish are swimming teeth – they should be easy to ID.  Ed showed me the needle-nosed pliers he uses to remove hooks from the mouths of blue fish.  Consequently, we bought a multi-purpose tool at Dick’s: needle-nose pliers/line cutters.

On the first visit to the dock, it was soon apparent that nothing would be hauled in: it was a casting, reeling, and untangling session.  I was relieved.  While this practice was going on, a small boat pulled up to the dock and we met the neighbors across the street.  Rich information was gathered during this brief introduction:  the woman who has lived here 50+ years knows how to clean and fillet fish.  So…

On the second visit, Bill and I lugged a big blue bucket with us.  I also took a heavy beach towel to use as a lid, should we catch a big fish.  With a cast on one hand and a pick-line-low-weight-lifting restriction on the other, Bill was not going to be the one to haul it in or take it off the hook.  (Actually even if he had two fully-operating hands, there’s a good chance I would still be the one to fight the fish.)  On the walk to the dock, I checked out the shade tree where I could leave the bucket of fish as I dashed up to the neighbor’s house to plead for help.  All for naught.  Yet again, a practice session with a lot of boat traffic.

Today, with a quiet river and high tide, I’ll take the bucket again.  And hope there is movement across the street at our neighbor’s house.

Fireworks.  Reading.  Fishing.

A quiet 4th of July.

Unless we catch a fish…