Excellent fishing on Newport Harbor and Narragansett Bay for at least the past week has local fisherman reeling in delight. Bass, pogies and blue fish seem to be running so thickly that all one need do is drop a line tied to a shiny hook and bingo!
Or, just stick your hand in the water and grab.
Admittedly I'm not a fisherman but of late it has been impossible not to see (or feel) how good the fishing is. For example, a couple of nights ago I was comfortably sleeping aboard my sailboat, comfortably sleeping atop windless glassy water when a school of fish swam through so thick and jumping so wildly that the boat started to rock.
On an evening or two later I was making way through a fishing frenzied harbor (sport fishermen, lobster boats with lines off the stern, etc) to arrive at a dock with what appeared in the near dark to be a family with a bunch of lines in the water. As I tied up to the dock one of the family members, an Asian woman I'd guess, peppers me with questions.
"You catch a bass?"
"No, riding around the harbor."
"Shark?! Me no like shark, tastes like sand. How come you no catch a bass?!"
You gotta love how at times people interpret words amidst an emotional peak. At that moment I thought, "There's no point in trying to clear the air." Instead I replied, "I'll try to catch a bass."
"Bass better than shark. Shark tastes like sand."
"You got that right."
I left the dock and ambled off into the dark harbor as the family on the dock kept fishing like crazy.
Later on I got back to reading Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl. Opening where I'd left off on page 144 of a very yellowed 1966 paperback edition of the book originally published in 1950 my eyes fell upon this line, "The mood of a shark may vary immensely, the animal being completely at the mercy of its emotions." Reading on, I'd sum up what those adventurers were up to at that point in the story as Shark Shenanigans.
My own encounters with sharks have been quite tame, the most memorable occurring between Montauk Point and Block Island near the end of a sail from Norfolk.
I guess it happened when I got caught up in those funky currents, those funky currents of the Long Island Sound-Block Island Sound-Narragansett Bay-Rhode Island Sound-Buzzards Bay-Vineyard Sound vortex that Eldridge more simply and clearly explains.
It happened when my handheld GPS instantly went from saying my speed over the ground was about 3.5 knots to about 6 knots with no apparent speed over the water change. At that moment I saw the fins. Many fins that didn't have the personality of a dolphin that's for sure. At that moment I chose to keep my arms inside the boat.
Fair Winds
Captain Bill
Or, just stick your hand in the water and grab.
Admittedly I'm not a fisherman but of late it has been impossible not to see (or feel) how good the fishing is. For example, a couple of nights ago I was comfortably sleeping aboard my sailboat, comfortably sleeping atop windless glassy water when a school of fish swam through so thick and jumping so wildly that the boat started to rock.
On an evening or two later I was making way through a fishing frenzied harbor (sport fishermen, lobster boats with lines off the stern, etc) to arrive at a dock with what appeared in the near dark to be a family with a bunch of lines in the water. As I tied up to the dock one of the family members, an Asian woman I'd guess, peppers me with questions.
"You catch a bass?"
"No, riding around the harbor."
"Shark?! Me no like shark, tastes like sand. How come you no catch a bass?!"
You gotta love how at times people interpret words amidst an emotional peak. At that moment I thought, "There's no point in trying to clear the air." Instead I replied, "I'll try to catch a bass."
"Bass better than shark. Shark tastes like sand."
"You got that right."
I left the dock and ambled off into the dark harbor as the family on the dock kept fishing like crazy.
Later on I got back to reading Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl. Opening where I'd left off on page 144 of a very yellowed 1966 paperback edition of the book originally published in 1950 my eyes fell upon this line, "The mood of a shark may vary immensely, the animal being completely at the mercy of its emotions." Reading on, I'd sum up what those adventurers were up to at that point in the story as Shark Shenanigans.
My own encounters with sharks have been quite tame, the most memorable occurring between Montauk Point and Block Island near the end of a sail from Norfolk.
I guess it happened when I got caught up in those funky currents, those funky currents of the Long Island Sound-Block Island Sound-Narragansett Bay-Rhode Island Sound-Buzzards Bay-Vineyard Sound vortex that Eldridge more simply and clearly explains.
It happened when my handheld GPS instantly went from saying my speed over the ground was about 3.5 knots to about 6 knots with no apparent speed over the water change. At that moment I saw the fins. Many fins that didn't have the personality of a dolphin that's for sure. At that moment I chose to keep my arms inside the boat.
Fair Winds
Captain Bill
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