Rite of Passage

Yesterday, I got rainbow trout.

Did I catch them?  No.  But I got some nonetheless.

Actually, I've been fishing the trout pond every morning for a couple of hours, then using the park's trail to get some exercise.  It's been cold and terrific.  I miss being outdoors this much, and the exercise and time with nature help me deal with so many of the hectic things assaulting me this month.  My pet died.  My dog isn't getting enough funds for her surgery (see her site if you can help by any chance).  My fiance is states away for the rest of the month.  School, the ER, and the physicians group (remember the catfish spine?) aren't returning my freakin' calls.  I'm running out of food and money quicker than I can obtain it.

All that, everything, disappears when I'm sitting outside in the chilly morning breeze with a line in the water.

Is it frustrating to skunk out so much on trout?  Totally.  But it bugs me when I can't get something right, so I'm persistently attempting it every morning instead of switching back to cats.  Don't get me wrong, I wanna try out Veronica pretty bad, but these trout are driving me bonkers.  Anyhoo.


I'd just given up for the morning and packed up my things, when a fellow came out and threw two lines in the water.  Immediately, he had a bite, snatched up his rod and started reeling it in.  I watched in disbelief as the man pulled a rainbow trout out of the water, unhooked it, and let it flop around on the cement.

I raced over and asked him how the heck he did that.  He showed me his rig and told me how he used to be a guide.  I'm pretty sure guides have magical powers.  In fact, from now on, I shall capitalize them - Guides - out of immense respect for their godlike powers.

I looked down at the trout that was still flopping around on the sidewalk, and had been for at least 30 seconds.  "You gonna kill that?"  I asked him.

"No, I was gonna let 'er go, unless you want her."

I thought for a second, not really wanting to take another man's fish, but the thing had been out of the water for so long concussing itself against the ground that I thought it would be really, really stupid to throw it back (especially since the water isn't really cold enough anyways).  So I said sure!

He showed me how to tie his rig and even did one for me.  He wound up giving me his next trout, too, a much larger one.  They measured 11 and 13 inches, but the difference in girth was kinda impressive.  Anyways, I fished for a bit longer before giving up and going home (I work nights, after all!).

I took my slowly dying fishies in their pond water home.  This is where it gets messy.  Literally.


I have NEVER killed and cleaned my own fish before.  In fact, I like fish.  I like them a lot.  I use barbless hooks, circle hooks, I keep them out of the water as little as possible, and I only kill the ones I NEED to eat or that were so injured I was sure they'd die if released.  I like C&R, even if it isn't always practical.  So this was really sort of a test for me.

I mean, you can stand bya pond with a pole as long as you want and you're still not a fisherman until you're tough enough to do the dirty parts, too.   With my guy outta town, I pretty much didn't have a choice.  Had to do it myself.

I'd read in several places that trout can be knocked out or even killed by a good knock or two to the head.  Unless you're bashing the brain completely in, let me just say right now, that is NOT TRUE.  I smashed the poor things on their heads with a wrench and still, they swam and breathed.  It tore me apart.  Other sources said to put them on ice, but I'm not dumb enough to think that isn't just suffocating them, which is horrible and bad for the meat.  Ice in the water wouldn't work (coldwater fish!), ethanol seemed cruel (you ever breathed in everclear? I wouldn't want to drown in it!), and I didn't have the heart to snap their necks or gut them alive, though those two are the obvious best choices.  I thought about spiking them in the brain but was too terrified of messing it up, and I wouldn't have been able to saw the head off quickly (all my sharp knives are missing).  Yeah...it turns out I'm a wuss.

So what did I wind up doing?  In the future - never again, but what I wound up doing was sucking in a deep breath, going back with the wrench, and giving them each one last, good, HARD bash on the back of the head/neck.  The hope was that I would either dislocate their necks or finally knock them unconscious.  It was horrible, I do NOT recommend it, and I feel like a terrible person for resorting to naive, primitive, careless methods of euthanasia.  I feel like the sort of person who insists it's okay to kill a mouse by putting it in a bag and throwing it on the floor and stomping on it.  I feel disgusting.

But I did it.

Picture time:

Then came the cleaning.  I've never cleaned a fish before, either.  This part's actually kinda funny, looking back on it.  And honestly, it felt a lot like my 9th grade bio class.  I kept thinking it'd be easier if I had a scalpel or pins.  XD

It took me four knives to find one sharp enough to do more than anally rape the first dead trout.  When I finally found one, I sawed upward toward the neck, doing my best to avoid puncturing the organs.  Then I turned the fish over and cut down through the back of the neck, praying I was far enough behind the skull not to go zombie on it, but keeping forward enough that I didn't waste meat.  I hacked down throught he spinal cord, trying not to sever the throat, and bravely stuck my finger in its neck and yanked the head downward.  Then I realized I hadn't cut deeply enough in the belly.  I sied, let the head and organs hang out, and cut the rest of the flesh to pull out the remaining innards.

Ew.  It was like a slasher scene in my kitchen.

Then there was the matter of the dark gunk along the spine.  I've seen other people scrape it out with their thumbs, but they must have talons because that stuff wasn't going anywhere for me.  I got most of it out, rinsed well, and gave up.

Next fish, much larger, much harder to hold while cutting.  I need monster hands to handle this.  this one went much the same as the last, but I accidentally cut through the throat and consequently only about half the guts came out when I yanked down the head.  I may possibly have screamed.

Both fish went into bags in the freezer instead of filleting first.  I felt I'd had enough experimentation and I kind of needed to get out of the kitchen for awhile.  I'll eat them either today or tomorrow so they're still fresh, but I'm not sure how or what recipe to use.  I'll letcha know and share it if it rocks.

So there it is.  I passed the test.  I killed two fish and cleaned them ALL BY MYSELF.

Hopefully my learning curve will be steep and I'll get better at this by the time I'm catching my very own trout.  :p


OH!  Also, the winning rig, and my previous one for comparison:

Mine:

Dude's:

I should mention that on mine, at least, he attached the hook leaders by looping the line and threading that through a hook.  Doubled visibility, but he was working with what I had.

Yes, I drew those.


Okay.

Now I'm a fisherman (fisherwoman?).

-CC

Fishing Alone

This morning I decided to do something I normally don't do - fish alone.  Usually I bring my fiance along - he helps me tie setups, de-barb hooks, remove hooks from fish-lips/eyeballs/faces, take photos, yada yada yada.  Of course, this means I don't get to fish nearly as often as I'd like, for two reasons:

1. My fiance does not care much for fishing.  He loves it when he catches fish, and he likes to play with them when I catch them, but he hates hurting them, hates waiting around, doesn't care for keeping them/cleaning them, and doesn't usually see the fun in sitting around in the dark/cold/heat/wind while I throw a line in the water.  I don't mind, but I don't like making him do something he doesn't particularly like.
2. Our schedules almost never line up.  He's usually just waking up when I'm going to bed, and I'm getting ready for work by the end of his day.  Bleh.

That blows, for someone with a newly developed passion for fishing.

Anyways, this morning after work I decided I NEEDED some alone time by the water, so I packed up the camera, the tackle box, my favorite pole (Marcy), and my fishin' license and headed out to one of the less frequented fishing ponds - right by the police station.  It's less frequented because it's terrible fishing and there are police everywhere.  = Less overfished.  Unfortunately there are an abundance of turtles and very little structure, plus the water is incredibly low and the morning was blowing in rainclouds.  Oh well.  I had to be in the area anyways.  Someone drove too tired and didn't notice the school zone sign in time to slow down.

(That someone is me.)

ANYWAYS.  Fishing by yourself is a lot more fun than I'd anticipated.  Instead of worrying about making conversation, scaring away fish, boring my fiance, or being rushed to leave - I just got to focus on fishing.  I tried some new lures, mostly shooting for those elusive sunfish and bass I KNOW are in there somewhere.  I got a lot of turtle nibbles, but thankfully, none of them felt like ripping apart my lures or line.  It was nice.

Toward the end there when I'd mostly given up, had fished all the way around the pond from every angle and depth and determined nothing was biting, I was daydreaming and letting a gulp minnow on a tiny hook with a crappie nibble sit about a foot or so away from a bobber out toward a shallow side of the pond.  Since I wasn't paying attention or keeping my line tight (not so easy from bank with a bobber, imho), I didn't so much notice that I had a bite as realize something was swimming away with my minnow.

Whatever it was swam sideways and toward me, making it easy to reel it in.  When I got it toward the dock I realized it was a catfish.

BECAUSE I CAN NOT CATCH WHAT I'M GOING FOR, NOT EVER.

It's cool, though, because I freakin' adore catfish.

So I pulled the little guy in and *duh duh duhhhh* got my very first hook out of a fish all by myself without getting spined!  Go me!



I wound up heading home around noon because these weird city folks were backing up a boat of some sort to the pond and gesturing wildly about...and I didn't really want to hang out for that.  That, and some restaurant had started to cook food that smelled AMAZING and I had not yet eaten.  So I went home.

I think this should become a regular thing.  Extremely relaxing.  :)

-CC

Photos from the Weekend of Catfishing

Hey!

You remember that hole I got in my hand from holding a cat wrong?  Well, earlier that weekend I'd been out at a city pond fishing them out for the channels TPWD had just stocked it with.  They were depressingly small, but once I found where they were hanging out, it was loads of fun pulling one after another out of the water!  I finally got the pictures I took of them, so here are the results (for all of 2 or 3 hours fishing, heh - they didn't start biting until the sun actually came up):

All caught in the AM of October 23rd

He had some really pretty green on his face.

No fun!!  Someone nibbled and when I set the hook, I snagged his tail.  Ouch!

This guy was a croaker.  I remember him.

Some day I'll stop obsessively taking photos of every single fish I take out of the water, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the pictures!  :)

-CC

First Trip Since Mah Injurah!

FINALLY got back to fishing today!

I wasn't sure I'd be able to, since finishing my antibiotics meant my fiance could immediately get me sick with this awful chest thing.  But, hacking and sniffling aside, I got to fish.

We tried the Brazos River first, but couldn't for the LIFE of us figure out where to park in order to fish beneath the bridge.  We determined it wasn't worth getting towed - there weren't many good spots for banking anyways.

We then decided to try a pond near our apartment that we'd actually never been to.  I'm sincerely glad we did.  While the bite was not extraordinary, I did pull this guy outta the water:

Caught on a crappie grub lure on a small white-headed hook

He was a 13.5 inch LMB caught in the shallow, separated end of the pond.  There actually appeared to be several fish his size over there, which was surprising, given how shallow it was.  My theory is the weather - it was about 60-65 degrees and windy.  The sun was just starting to warm up the water, and I think they dug the different temperatures on that side.  Oh, and minnows!  He was released to continue to grow big and strong.

The silly thing is - I was going for sunfish at the time.  I gotta work on this whole "catching what you're aiming for" thing!  I'll be heading out to that private lake I got spined at tomorrow hopefully, to do that place the right way.  I'll let you know how it goes!

-CC

Allllmost

My fiance was THIS close to letting me fish again last night.  He'd be at a game, though, so I'd have to fish alone.  We figured it probably wouldn't have worked out too well if I'd caught anything.  I still have that hole in my hand, and I probably shouldn't go rubbing fish slime all over it before it closes up.  -.-

Oh well, soon soon!

A cold front came through, and I'm still not positive what that means for fishing.  (Yeah, by the way, I AM new at this heh)  I heard a story the other day that someone was out fishing when it hit, and just like that, the bites stopped completely.  I also heard that the fall is great for cats, and that November is an amazing month for crappie.  I suppose it depends on what you're fishing for.  I personally prefer catfish, sunfish, and lately sparked an interest in crappie and trout.  In any case, I'm not putting up my rods for the winter!  :)

Here's a photo of what I caught out at a local private lake the same night my hand got stabbed:

I'm not very familiar just yet with fish that aren't cats or sunfish, but I'm mostly certain that's a cute little crappie.  This booger took five bites before I actually got him onto the pier (I mostly bankfish - at least, until I can afford my canoe), and when I did, he fell right off the hook!  That's what I get for fishing barbless!  :p  He was caught on a black- and orange-eyed hook with my killer combination I usually use when going for sunfish - a Berkley Gulp! pumpkinseed grub and two chartreuse crappie nibbles - at around 7 or 8 pm in just a few feet of water.

Hope you guys are getting more fishing done than I am until this silly hole heals up!  Have a happy Halloween!

-CC

First Post, WOOH!

It occurred to me about an hour ago that I would sincerely like to start writing a blog (because I need another blog?) about my latest favorite hobby - fishing!  I'm not terrific at it just yet (fishing, not blogging), but I learn fast and I love to post pictures!

So here I am!

My favorite thing to fish for is, you guessed it, catfish!  I also love fishing for sunfish, that is, sunfish love to bite my line.  I live in Texas, and love checking out new lakes I haven't been to yet.  Unfortunately, I got poked in the hand a couple of days ago by a catfish I had no intention of catching, and I'm not allowed back to the water until the hole heals.  Check out the inch-long spine:

 

Is that not incredible?

I'll letcha know next time I go out!  :)

-Corycat