I finally Went Fishing and Caught Something...

...over the weekend. No, Brendan did not tag along, he works on Sundays, but I went fishing anyway. I set off early yesterday afternoon for the Long Island Herpetological Society meeting. I left there about 3:30 and headed over to a Nassau County Park for some fishing. I set up my fishing gear, but didn't have much luck on the outgoing tide(?). I was fishing in a lake and the tidal creek that comes out of it, or feeds into it, dependent upon the tides. When I got there the water was flowing out of the lake. In the span of an hour the tide was coming in fast, the water flowing rapidly into the lake over a small damn at its end. Along with it came schools of fish. Then within the space of about about 2 1/2 hours the water was again coming out of the lake. Now I am none too sure that the tides had changed that quickly from low to high to low as I always thought that took many hours to change, but I do think that the tide actually did start to come in after I arrived there and with it arrived the fish. I think the tide was still high tide when the water started flowing out again because I think the water only flows into the lake at the very top of the tide being a bit above sea level at any other time. Whatever!

So it was on that incoming flow of water that I started seeing and catching fish. Within about an hour or so I had caught at least 75 of them. It was great, non-stop action, and to think I had not even put my fishing pole together or cast even a hand line before I had tens of them. You see I was using a minnow trap, and the fish I was catching were Killie fish. They just could not resist the bread and cat food I had in the trap. I did try my hand at some regular fishing in the lake, trying to catch a bass, but no luck there.

As for the Killies, I took them out of the trap and into a bucket with and aerator attached, that way they would stay alive until I got home. The Musk turtle is going to be living large on fresh Killie fish for awhile, if he can catch them. If not, then I'll have some pet Killies for a while. I put about a third of them into his tank, and I froze the rest of them for later use as turtle food or fishing bait. Of course I asked my wife, who I know loves sardines, if she would like to try some of these in lieu of sardines, but she only gave me one of those wife to husband looks indicating that the husband is quite off his rocker.

As for me, well this bait fish trip was one of the better things to happen to me this weekend, especially in light of the fact that a few others had gone wrong such as us needing to buy a new washing machine (just under $1,000 for the machine, 5 year extended warranty, delivery fee, and taxes), my not being able to make it to the range to shoot, my not catchjing the striped bass I had hoped for on Saturday, my oil hot water heater going out and so on. Life goes on despite the bad things, and when there are some fun things in the mix, it isn't so bad after all.

All the best,

Glenn B