NJ Cracking the Fishing Whip

New Jersey Fish and Game officials are cracking down on anglers flouting saltwater fishing regs.

A report in the Press of Atlantic City has this eyebrow-raising quote:

“We sit and watch at the Point Pleasant Canal (in Ocean County) and find an 80 percent violation rate with (tautog),” Chicketano said.

80 percent violation rate with blackfish? Wow.

An, no, it’s not the economy, stupid. The conservation officer in the story said many of the violators have nice boats and cars, and many are in it just for the money fish like sea bass get from Asian restaurants in Manhattan.

A bunch of party boats are in trouble and could lose their filleting priviledges for filleting undersized fish, the Press reports.

With the regs getting tougher and tougher, it’s only natural that enforcement steps up. But we here from captains and anglers every week that the laws have gone too far, especially for fluke, and the tickets being handed out have gone overboard as well.

(Image via photobucket)

Good Idea That Wasn’t Yours

The only thing better than kayaking is fishing, but put the two together and you’ve got you’re hands full and a potentially disatrous proposition if you have the gifts of multitasking that we were given.

So, when we saw this ingenious little invention called the rod oar paddle, we were struck by the inevitible “why didn’t I think of that” feeling in our gut that seems to happen too often.

As the EastCoastAngler blog enlightens us: “It solves that endless kayak fisherman’s problem of the switcheroo between the rod and paddle. This is the best melding of two great things since breakfast and lunch became brunch.”

1,700 Fish in 24 Hours

Jeff Kolodzinski, VP of marketing at fishing tackle company Frabill, will try to break his own Guinness World Record for most fish caught in one day on July 31.

The marketing stunt has Kolodzinksi attempting to beat 1,680 fish caught in 24 hours on Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota. While it certainly is a public relations boon to Frabill, the event also aims to raise awareness for the Armed Forces Family Fishing Celebration.

The man known as “Kolo” will make his first cast at 7:30 a.m. on the 31st he’ll keep hucking until 6:29 a.m. the following morning in search of sunfish and the odd bass, carp or even catfish.

Here’s an interview with Kolo before his ‘07 attempt.

Kolo said he is “honored” to donate his time “and rather whacky talent” for the kids of military families.

kids to have a day that celebrates fishing and honors their parents and the huge sacrifices they make on a daily basis.”

Indoor Fishing for ‘Seon maht’

We did a double-take after shuffling through the New York Times sports section on Tuesday morning on the morning commute to Manhattan. The Times has a very Orvisy take on fishing journalism, but a piece on a new angling development in Korea had a decidely different feel.

It seems South Koreans have developed a substitute for stopping at the pub on the way on home. Instead of happy hour at the bar, some folks are stopping by an indoor fishing establishment to wet a line and chase carp for an hour or two.

For about $8 an hour, you get a pole, some dogfood-like bait with a float, and a chance at an indoor “pond” stocked with carp and a few catfish.

As the paper’s James Card put it: “If ‘Blade Runner’ were turned into a fishing program, this would be the filming location.”

The Koreans call the allure of a fish on the line “seon maht,” or “hand taste” in a rough translation.

The story triggered uneasy memories of the blue plastic pool stocked with “trout” at the annual fishing expo in Suffern, which, thankfully, was done away with a few years back (in favor of a tank of bass that are “caught” as part of demonstrations for … well, something.

I’ve been wondering if there were one of these in Midtown somewhere, whether I’d fork over $8 on my way home from work. “Probably,” is all I’ve come up with. But that’s a hypothetical situation, and as Kenneth on “30 Rock” sees it, “That’s like lying to your brain.”

A Grunt in the Salt

from an ecstatic friend with a small fly rod on vacation in Florida…

——– Original Message ——–

Subject:	My first saltwater fish
Date:	Thu, 2 Apr 2009 09:09:29 -0700 (PDT)
From:	Mike
To:	me

A grunt?

Muskie-on-the-Fly Madness in the Badger State

Wisconsin may not have Brett Favre anymore, but they certainly seem to be growing some big muskies in those chilly lakes and rivers, and fly-rodders are snapping up some monsters.

A few years ago, Yellowstone Lake  gave up a 57-inch monster, along with a Field & Stream story that gave us this great quote: “Lou’s knees were shaking too, so bad he would have easily broken Suzanne Somer’s ThighMaster.”

This week came word that fly-rodder Brad Bohen’s 51.25-inch gator was certified as a world record for a released fish on 36-pound tippet. He took the fish on the Chippewa River near Lake Holcombe, according to the Associated Press. That’s the third world record for muskies on a fly-rod in Wisconsin in 2008.

Quite a performance from the Badger State and something to think about when you go for that mid-summer dip in the lake.

That pic of Bohen, who’s clearly on to something, comes from the Pierce County Herald. The other fish was 45 minutes and caught almost simultaneously with the lunker. The Herald has some nice details on Bohen and the other record-setters for ‘08.

Watch out baby ducks!

Life on Trout

Life magazine recently uploaded its storied history of photographs into Google’s image database. There are some amazing shots, although if you search for “trout” the years before catch-and-release was the norm are well- documented and a bit disturbing.

Still, there are some beautiful and interesting shots. Here are a few examples:

Barbie Pole

“Wait until you see what I’ve got on the other end of this rod,” he said.

David Hayes of North Carolina says he fought the new state-record catfish for 25 minutes on his daughter’s Barbie pole after she asked him to hold it for a sec. Way to go, Barbie rod.

Maybe you don’t need that $800 Helios, after all.

(Photo: Winston-Salem Journal)

Freak: Sinker Kills Fisherman

Fly-fishers don’t have to worry about getting beaned by split-shot too often. Even if we do get pegged every now and then, the shot we normally use is so small it barely registers. But I’ve used some pretty heavy saltwater flies and have been known to pinch on a good-sized weight or two on larger rivers in high water.

Last fall, I watched a good friend of mine try to un-snag a fly from a rocky river bottom. On the fourth or fifth tug, the heavily weighted fly broke free and headed straight for his head. It missed, barely, but he endured the humiliation of the entire leader and about five feet of fly line wrapping around him, mummy-style. The pool got a good laugh at that.

News from Long Island is much more sobering as a Long Island kid met his untimely demise from a sinker. This is definitely not for the squeamish:

Jaime Chicas, 21, of Roosevelt, was fishing off a jetty at the west end of Jones Beach on Friday when his 3-ounce lead sinker came out of the water and hit him in the face and then lodged in his brain.

“Suddenly, we saw him laying on the rocks,” said Jose Gonzalez, 30, Chicas’ brother-in-law. Gonzalez and his cousin, who both had been fishing with Chicas, ran over to find Chicas bleeding from his head.

… While the sun set, Chicas kept fishing, as the others began packing their belongings. As Gonzalez and his cousin walked toward the beach, they heard Chicas make a whimpering noise behind them.

After looking at X-rays, doctors at Nassau University Medical Center, where Chicas was taken, saw that the sinker of Chicas’ fishing pole had just missed his right eye and entered his head at the bridge in his nose. The momentum of the lead weight continued across the middle of his brain into the back left side of his head, where it stopped, neurologist Imran Wahedna said.

So easy a monkey can do it…

Next time you find yourself spending an hour trying to coax an eight-inch brown trout up to a dry, remind yourself that fishing is so easy a monkey can do it. Scientists in Thailand found that, ahem, long-tailed macaque monkeys turn to fishing for food for reasons unknown. The species apparently was only known to be into insects and berries and things like that.

Among the lingering questions are what prompted the monkeys to go fishing and how common it is among the species.

The monkeys are clearly evolving toward the spiritual enlightenment and existential belief we all see in fishing. Good for them.

No word from the Ph.D.’s on how long it may teach them to catch and release. I mean, who has the patience for evolution?

(Photo: Independent)