Posts Tagged → fishing
The tonic of wilderness
Reading just about any wilderness outdoors report by hikers or wilderness advocates, you’ll have a tough time not meeting up with the well-worn phrase “the tonic of wilderness.”
All my life I’ve been a wilderness hound, and I don’t know what that phrase means. Whether day hiking, fishing, or camping with a rifle next to me many miles from the nearest road, my feelings about wilderness have zero association with the word tonic.
Euphoria, and drug-induced narcotic stupor are more accurate for my take-aways. That Cloud Nine feeling can stay with me for weeks after returning to human settlement. Getting older only makes it better, because so many layers are filtering the experience now. Water, stands of old conifers, some far off hill that sees one or two people a year, or a decade, these now are the templates upon which each new excursion is planned. Studying a topographic map now yields concrete images of what to expect in my mind, accurate or not.
Since last year I’ve taken to marching about with a heavy pack loaded with 50-65 pounds of steel as a means of getting back into some sort of decent condition. Sometimes I am fortunate enough to hike a local park for 30-60 minutes. Usually, it’s just my neighborhood that I’m tromping through in my rugged hunting boots. Concrete isn’t pretty to see, and my mind once again helps out. As the minutes tick by, a quiet euphoria overtakes the senses, and my eyes see trees, distant horizons, and unbroken scenery. My hand instinctively grips an imaginary rifle, and oblivious to cars whipping past, I wander unnamed marshes somewhere else.
If someone wants to call this the tonic of wilderness, OK. It makes no sense. But if that’s now the by-word, I’ll accept it. Just so long as I can get more, soon
Breezy Point, NY, Hit Hard by Sandy
Some places are just off the radar, and sometimes the closer they are to large metropolitan areas, the easier they hide in plain view.
Breezy Point is such a place. A slice of Heaven in an otherwise old, somewhat decrepit New York metro area, Breezy Point is a small seaside village nestled in the dunes between Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
About 99% Irish Catholic, it’s utterly safe, pleasant, and home to several welcoming real Irish pubs. For years, Breezy has been my main fishing destination. Its proximity to public land, private beaches, normal people, excellent fishing, and many friends makes it a natural venue to introduce my kids to surf fishing, beach bonfires, and rare friendly exchanges with urban strangers.
Sadly, Breezy took a big hit from Hurricane Sandy. Between unprecedented flooding and a huge fire that has eaten at least fifty homes now [UPDATE: 100 HOMES, developing], the place is really hurting. If nothing else, Breezy’s residents are hearty, able, and unwilling to move into “The City.” So it’ll be rebuilt. This coming Easter I may finally be able to organize the first seaside service with bagpipes that also kicks off the start of the striped bass run. I’ve raised the subject and been met with warm welcome by some locals. Given the state of things there now, it might be a good start.
To my many Breezy friends:
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.
The Bluefish, Ocean Challenge
The ubiquitous east coast bluefish is a monster, a predator, a giant piranha. Growing to twenty pounds and foraging in huge packs, bluefish with friendly-fire bite marks are often caught by saltwater fishermen.
Bait fish are so terrorized by bluefish that they will throw themselves up on a beach to escape them.
Bluefish are tough, and aggressive. They bite lures and bait readily, usually bringing a smile at the tug and then a grimace to the face of the fisherman. Pulling a hook on a bluefish that you intend to release unharmed is a bit of a delicate maneuver, because bluefish will just as readily bite off your nearest finger as they will stare at you with their devilish yellow eyes.
While they do put up a fun fight, bluefish are notoriously fishy tasting and difficult to make into a meal that will satisfy most fish eaters.
Having eaten bluefish since I was a kid, I have seen them baked, fried, broiled, and pickled in a variety of recipes that have to one degree or another addressed that fishy taste.
Last week I returned home from a successful fishing outing with about fifty pounds of bluefish filets (and 30 pounds of whiter meat from another more desirable game fish).
Having so much material to work with, I was able to experiment widely.
Some of the bluefish filets were baked, some broiled, some were smoked.
For baking, any way with any ingredients, I learned that bathing the filet in lemon juice for at least 45 minutes before baking got rid of 95% of the fishy smell and taste. A good cup of lemon juice poured over a filet, which is then laid face down in the juice to marinate. Some Rosemary and salt, and then after 45 minutes or longer, it’s ready to bake with butter or sauce. The lemon juice can be used with it.
Speaking of sauce, I made a sauce of spicy brown mustard and worcestshire sauce mixed together. About two ounces of each. Then pour it over the filet and broil at 500 for fifteen minutes or until it’s turning dark brown.
It was delicious.
For smoking, I found that again, brining with not just salt and sugar, as usual for fish, but also with lemon juice added, for at least 24 hours, got rid of 95% of the fishy taste.
Probably the best post-brining addition was adding lots of Old Bay over the more or less pickled fish; it also added a lot of flavor.
I’ve done a bunch of batches of smoked bluefish and I think I’ve finally discovered how to get the best tasting result, consistently. Never before did I have so much meat to experiment with and I can’t imagine too many other people willing to spend the amount of time trying to overcome the bluefish challenge.
By the way, I did remove the brown meat from the lateral line in one batch, and it made a small but noticeable improvement.
So there you have it, new recipes and processing procedures for bluefish from Central Pennsylvania. Probably the last time that bluefish were eaten so heartily along the banks of the Susquehanna River would have been three hundred years ago, when up-river striped bass migrations would have brought the Susquehannocks and other local Indian tribes into direct contact with saltwater fish and trade for smoked fish from the northern Chesapeake Bay. I am pleased to continue in that tradition.
Fall weather has its benefits
Cool fall weather has benefits: We sleep more comfortably at night, fewer bugs pester us, the lawn grows more slowly and requires less frequent visits with the mower.
Another benefit is that food left for several days inside a vehicle doesn’t go bad. For example, the half-gnawed apple that my son left in the back seat of the truck during a recent fishing trip wasn’t in too bad shape. After slicing off the gnarly chewed sides, I was able to have a healthy midnight snack of about 0.65% of a whole apple.
Thanks, Mother Nature!
Josh
Fish, Shmish, You Call That Fishing?
February 14, 2011
Dr. Louis Daniel, Director
North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries
3441 Arendell Street
Morehead City, NC 28557
Dear Dr. Daniel,
By now you know well that many people are justifiably upset by the wasteful netting practices of the North Carolina commercial bass fishermen, and you can count me among them. The videos and photos are proof that North Carolina is not managing its share of our commonly held striped bass stocks in a professional way. This is bad fishing and bad species management. It is not sustainable, and it damages the sustainable tourism and recreational fisheries up and down the entire coast. Those coastal tourism and recreational fisheries are worth far more annually than the short-term catches by the commercial industry.
To make the situation worse, many people are disturbed by the image of a NC MFC board member (Mikey Daniels) voting to extend his own commercial season. This is bad government, plain and simple. It is hard to understand how in this day and age we have an industry regulating itself, as your commercial fishing industry does. Your current arrangement creates an obvious conflict of interest between the regulators and the beneficiaries of regulation, and it should end.
Additionally, striped bass depend to a great extent on bunker (menhaden), and after viewing the recent ASMFC graph on that species, it is clear that Omega Protein is unsustainably harvesting more than that species can withstand, as well. That too impacts the striped bass population.
I respectfully request that:
a) North Carolina change the way its striped bass are commercially harvested, going from net to hand-held hook and line and requiring gentle catch and release practices for fish under 28 inches, with a set number of fish over 28 inches and no culling allowed;
b) North Carolina reduce the commercial harvest amounts for both striped bass and bunker;
c) North Carolina change its fisheries management, and put self-interested parties like Mikey Daniels on an advisory board, with only impartial scientists making the final decision about seasons and limits, based on what is scientifically sustainable.
Thank you for considering my comments. I can be reached at (717) 232-8335, if someone from your staff would like to speak to me further.
Sincerely,
Josh First
cc: John Arway; Curt Schroder; ASMFC;
Gene Kray; CCA
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February 24, 2011
Hon. Joe Martens, Acting Commissioner
New York State DEC
625 Broadway
Albany, NY 12233-1011
Dear Commissioner Martens,
This letter’s purpose is to express my strong opposition to recent proposals that would allow any trawl fishery at all for striped bass in New York, and also to express my concern about the declining populations of striped bass and menhaden, upon which so many other fish depend, including striped bass.
Several reasons account for my opposition to netting striped bass: 1) The size of the bass population is declining, 2) the menhaden (bunker) population is staggeringly low due to Omega Protein’s rapacious over-fishing, 3) recent striped bass breeding success has been low, meaning that fewer young fish are “in the pipeline” for both recreational and commercial fishing, and 4) commercial netting results in culling and a tremendous waste of striped bass and “bycatch.” These are all conditions similar to the 1980s, when the striped bass population crashed. Additionally, by all appearances striped bass are not being managed sustainably by any state, and North Carolina’s enormous bass-kills in early 2011 support concerns that present commercial quotas are impacting far more fish than previously believed.
Given these conditions, this should be a time when responsible resource managers take a step back, and consider ways to increase the bass population. Ways to stabilize or increase the population include increasing recreational and commercial size limits (presently 28 inches) even just an inch or two, eliminating or dramatically decreasing commercial harvest amounts and seasons, and switching commercial harvesting to a hand-held hook and line operation only, with no culling allowed. Implementing all or some of these methods will benefit a species that generates much more economic development as a recreational fish than it does as an over-harvested commercial fish.
Treated responsibly, striped bass generate sustainable, renewable economic development year after year. Treated irresponsibly, with only short-term commercial quotas getting serious consideration, the bass will be exterminated, and many coastal communities will see their otherwise-stable tourist revenues diminish substantially. And the commercial fishermen, who have behaved in egregiously greedy and wasteful ways, will also be out of luck. They, too, need your help; they need to be saved from themselves.
Please stop the unsustainable commercial race for the last dregs of a dwindling migratory species, and help keep it as a recreational and economic mainstay along our coast. Incidentally, I fish extensively around New York City as well as New Jersey, and I have similarly urged Pennsylvania’s representatives to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to eliminate or greatly reduce commercial harvests of striped bass, or at the very least eliminate all netting and try different ways of allowing a hand-held hook and line commercial fishery, which when combined with lower daily limits could then convert recreational fishermen into a more sustainable commercial function. Thank you for considering my comments.
Yours Truly,
Josh First