Natural Resource Withdrawal Part Two (Back to Passage Creek)

Saturday morning I woke up and it was 21 degrees outside so I went fishing. Blair and Greg would be glad to spout off about my "Natural Resource Withdrawal". It may be true, and my response is "Who is actually catching fish, and who is just thinking about it?". I have no problem wearing two pairs of long underwear in order to catch fish.
There was a middle-aged fisherman at a pull-off in George Washington National Forest, sitting in his running classic unmarked white work-van with ladder, waiting for the temp to rise a little. When I pulled up, he got out and talked for a bit about trout fishing strategies in the cold. He said his wife and friends thought he was nuts, he took a swig of his coffee put on his gloves and said "Pussies, all of 'em - a day like today separates the men from the boys". Here is a shot of Passage Creek I encountered that morning.

I started fishing a little after nine. Yes - it was that cold, that is a frozen spinner, the same thing happened to my line. I had to let the sun come over ridge until I saw a fish, they were a bit dormant and keeping under the ice ledges.

Once it warmed up, this is the upper part of the hole I caught two fish in (after several hours of thawing). I crept so slowly as not to spook the fish and I sight fished the whole day. I watched each trout I caught take the lure (and more often than not pass it by) I fished this one hole for close to three hours as I watched trout come and go.

The two rainbows caught came from the above hole. I caught them on two different plastic jigs. I had to horse them up onto the ice to pull them in (yes thats ice at the bottom), it was too far to net them.

My creel for the day, two Rainbows and a Brown, the Brown (at top) came from just above the previous hole. I crept up on him and two other trout, within 10 feet in the middle of the creek, calf deep in the water and watched him chase the spinner a few feet and then another cast caught him chasing hard and he took it about 5 feet from me. the other two wouldn't look at anything I threw.

What a great, yet tough day of fishing, I worked for those fish. I only ran into a few other fisherman. I was the only one who caught anything. This is a view upstream of where I decided to hike back to the road, theres another few miles of this section of the creek, I only covered about a mile. Ah, more left to explore. Tight lines.

Natural Resource Withdrawal

Yeah buddy it was that cold on Green Mountain in The George Washington National Forest. At one point my rod tip got wet, a few minutes later I went to cast and I got this horrible backlash - I thought my line had wrapped around the rod tip, but instead THE LINE WAS FROZEN TO THE ROD TIP. Damn I wish I had brought my gloves.

This is a view down stream of one of the better holes on Peters Mill Creek in GWNF, The biggest holes are only 8 feet across and 2 feet deep - most places it is only inches deep - Fly Fishing would be better for this spot. I was too busy staying warm by hiking and fishing to take a bunch of photos, sorry guys.

In trying to curb my "natural resources withdrawal", I decided to get up at 5 and roll out to the Blueridge. Who else, but someone trapped in the city would actually go fishing when its 30 degrees outside? I started out by driving to Hawksbill Creek in Luray, got there around 8:30 and it was overcast and chilly (mid to upper 30's) - It seemed like there were a bunch of cars in the lot, but it really wasn't bad at all. Cool medium sized stream - very clean, I fished the lowest part downstream from town and was impressed with the cleanliness of everything else too - the stream has its own park that runs through the town - a few riffles, lots of runs. I fished downstream from the town and did well. 3 small rainbows on the stringer and I caught my first Brookie, but he was tiny so I carefully returned him to the creek (he was pretty cool looking). I lost a few fish as usually, including the biggest rainbow I saw there of course. By lunchtime I was cold and needed a break (my thumbs couldn't squeeze my clippers anymore, but my finger tips were not cold ). Halfway to my limit and feeling confident, I decided to leave the Massanutten Valley for Green Mountain in the George Washington National Forest.
REMEMBER THIS RULE: Never leave a place that you know currently is holding biting fish for another spot - you ALWAYS get busted - and I did. It was an amazing drive - Gorgeous! I also scouted Lower Passage Creek - which looks like a real Beaut, ideal really (sorry, no picks) - I'm going back there the next time it is stocked - its near the trail head for the Massanutten/Tuscadora Trail.
I took the Scion up the forest roads with no problems, although I was the only guy up there not in a pick-up. I had consulted my guide, and it warned that the stream was small, but could be fished with ultralight gear; what it didn't tell me is that Tower road (a state maintained dirt /gravel road) is closed in winter before you get to the highest elevations, so I missed probably the best pools. The lower parts were too shallow and I'm sure I could find more than the 6 or so little (4x5' to 7x15') pools if I had the entire day to hike and look. I did find two large rainbows hiding in a pool, and I snuck up on them from behind, but they wouldn't take my lures. If Greg was there, I'm sure he'd try to snag them, but I'm more of a sportsman than that. So I hightailed it and scouted out passage creek until it got dark. I drove home, cleaned my fish and overall, felt like I got a pretty good dose of the outdoors, but all I could think was.... hmmmm backpacking, trout, good friends, campfires and a little of the "Turkey" - I can't wait. I have even talked Rochelle into a backpacking fishing/photography safari in Shenandoah (she of course will take care of the Photography and eating all of my fish). Tight lines.

Twist and Trout

I headed out to the Shenandoah Valley yesterday morning to meet up with my buddy Mike to do a little trout fishing, and we had tons of action on a warm January day. We caught all of the fish on small panther martin spinners - I was using my ultra-light rod and it was a ton of fun. There were tons of people fishing the deep holes on this creek - so we hoofed it up stream to fish any structure we found in the more shallow runs and little holes here and there. Within my first 15 casts I hooked in to a fish (which is so much more fun because they are only 10 or 15 feet away, and sometimes almost at your feet) but lost it before I got it to the net. Two casts later, I had my first Brown Trout ever in the net - good fight!

As you can see by the cooler of Browns and Rainbows, we had a great morning (we fished from about 8am until 11:30am) as I said earlier. There were a ton of trout - I was getting hook ups back to back sometimes (but I lost 7 or 8 fish), and I went for no more than 10-15 minutes between hits. Drift-fishing for floundercan be tricky, but I have learned that trout can be just as hard or harder to get from strike into the net. It was great because I could see every hit and the trout just seemed to materialize from nowhere - an extremely fun way to fish. I can't wait to do some more of this kind of fishing.

We headed back to Mikes place and decided to smoke some of the trout for lunch - that's Dakota in the lower left hand corner - waiting for me to give her a trout - no dice girl.
This is Mike homemade smoker - it works well!

Mike stoking the smoker - Oh man were those trout good!

Happy New Year!

New Years Eve on the lift, yeah it was fun, obviously. Does anyone have a good group photo with the girls too?

New Reel for Christmas = fishing the day after Christmas

Greg prepping the skiff late in the day.

Hauling ass - thats no photoshop, just pure Carolina Skiff speed.

A beautiful evening, but quite rough!

It seems like a no brainer, I get a new fishing reel for Christmas, I'm fishing the next day, right? Well there are always complications, such as having to leave Rochelle at my parents house while I fish, because she wants nothing to do with 15 mph winds from the SW, the dropping temperatures and a bit of drizzle here and there and especially... fishing. She does understand wanting to try out the new reel, but that means my fishing time is severely limited - Greg and I are determined to limit out, we have 3 hours or so to fish and we feel like WE HAVE TO CATCH FISH as the season will close this weekend while the whole crew (Blair, Wendy, Me, Rochelle, possibly Erin, and Greg) is snowboarding in Snowshoe. The pressure is on...
The ride there is beautiful, but choppy with the wind in our face and we have the skiff planed out perfectly, a great ride. It is sunset and we head to a familiar spot and fish the hard running current in a spot that is glassy and guarded from the wind. The lights on the docks cut on and we expect a ton of action. In an hour Greg lands five on soft plastic topwater lures, I miss a good follow with 3 short strikes but no takers - almost desparate to get something to work, I spy a large mullet subsurface plug in my tackle bag - tie it to my leader and cast it out - bam hard strike on the second cast, its only 17 inches, but fat - I return the fish - hmm, Greg has one in the box and a bunch brought to the boat, I'm feeling the pressure - we have little time to fish. We agree to hit our favorite night time (and sometimes day time) jigging spot.
We haul ass only to find another boat in the best location - CRAP - and the wind is howling with the current pushing the boat at trolling speed - its going to get tricky, being pushed toward the dock, we have to stem the current and fish the structure. It is choppy as hell greg looks nervous - the topwaters arent looking too possible in the wind and chop, but all of a sudden in front of us, we see huge splashes from a few breaking fish. I cast and start catching fish almost immedidately. I land one in the 19-20 inch range and toss him in the box. The topwater is tough with all of the huge chop and the wind continues to pick up.
We catch a few more fish and Blair calls asking how its going. He wants to know if we will make it to the Green Leafe by 9pm for our annual Christmas pint between buddies - I look at my watch, its 7 - I tell him we just got into the fish and yes we will make it by 9:30 - He tells me we are assholes and we suck because he's not on the boat.
Greg looks at me and says "You know we have to limit out and take a picture just to bug Blair right?" I say "Of course" - The fishing goes on, its really difficult to stem the tide and get accurate casts in because the wind is getting worse, but the fish as still there - I land a few more and catch up with Greg. We switch to our own bucktails and I caught a ton on my signature orange and white combo on a white head - but I keep catching schoolies just undersize. We got quite a few double hook-ups, with me taking Greg's fish off his line for him while he is trying to keep the boat off of the dock in the strong current and wind - the action is so crazy I even accidently throw out a keeper from gregs line and tried to keep the smaller one I caught because I got confused. We caught around 20 rockfish in just over 3 hours, all fat and we managed to limit out, I went to pick up Rochelle and we still got to the pub to meet up with Blair and rub his nose in the picture of us with our fish! Merry Christmas Blair!

Merry Christmas Blair, you should've been there!

Blairs Props

Blair - I thought I would honor you before I posted the next story - ladies and Gents -this is Blair's first season Rock fishing He just moved by the James River (He's a park ranger - very honorable dude), got married and bought a boat - His first two rock fishing trips ever, just going on advice from Greg and I over the phone - he caught a few fish like this, in a tough river he didn't know. This is extremely pretty damn good for a new boat and a new kind of fishing after being a complete hippie park ranger and not fishing for way too many years while living in New England. Quite frankly - he made a few of us carnivorous boys who have stayed true to VA quite jealous of his beginner's luck - and I will give him credit for it now, because soon, I will post a new blog entry, tearing him a new one, all in good fun, because he is my boy, and that’s how we show we care, by completely humiliating the other one, so Blair, grit your teeth and suck it up. I'll see you on the slopes bitch.

Rockfish veggiebake

Mmmm, my new creation from the fish caught last night, its great!(details of fishing will come later)
Rockfish Veggiebake
(serve on top of/side of couscous: add 1/4cup celery, 1/8 cup onion, garlic, salt and rosemary to taste all boiled into water before adding couscous)
Preheat oven to 350 f
1-1.5lbs rockfish filets (lightly oil and coat with OLD BAY Seasoning)
3 tbls olive oil
6-8oz fresh mushrooms sliced
4-6 stalks of celery chopped
1 small onion sliced
8-12 oz fresh baby carrots chopped into 1/2" pieces*
1/2 to 3/4 lb snowpeas*
Fresh or dried herbs such as basil, oregano and/or rosemary)
Salt and pepper to taste
*other fresh veggies such as squash, broccoli, green beans can be substituted - go with your garden or what available

Lightly oil lasagne pan with EVOO, add a layer of sliced onion and some celery, top with seasoned filets of rockfish. Put all veggies in bowl with oil and herbs and toss. Pile over fish filling pan evenly. Cover with foil, bake for 30-35 minutes. Test fish for flakiness, cool 2-3 minutes, serve over couscous. Enjoy that shit!

My Dads Christmas Light display - as promised

Well here it is as promised earlier - A view of my Dad's Christmas light display - It is toned down and a bit smaller this year because he had to work every weekend since thanksgiving, but it still looks good (sorry there is no total package shot - it was cold and raining a little) Let me know what you guys think - I'll tel my Dad. Hopefully I'll post the latest update of my fishing adventures later tonight.

Ok guys, tonight was -once again- insane. Went out at like 1800 to Amoco docks and picked up 15 rock! It was slow at first but once the tide started to come in the bite picked up and they tore up the sluggo. I also tied on that .5oz ultra minnow pictured below and pulled in my last three in like 15 minutes. All in all it was kick ass and the river was SO glassy.

Hope to C U guys over the holidayz

P.S. - that third rock pictured is for my pop and he caught it - guiding my cast over the cell phone...

Ultra minnow...

Ok, here's my first attempt at a .5oz powder painted ultra minnow with googly eyes and bucktail! The powder paint is a pearl white with a second coating of clear silver glitter. It was a more involved process cause I had to bake the dang lead heads to give the paint a harder finish. John, your critique would help here...

Yorktown action...

Well guys, I headed out at like 4:30pm this afternoon after my work X-mas party and slayed em! I hooked into a fat 19" in less than 5 minutes and proceeded to pull in like 15 total! One keeper and the rest were in the 14-15" range. It was a blast though and the water was so calm that you could literally see the fishs' dorsal fins outta the water when they were chasing the bait at the surface. I saw like 10 rock skim and swim all over the surface at one point! It was pretty cool and was a cool way to end my dang day!

-Capt. G

It ain't over til' the fatty is caught...

Hey bubbas, remember that rock season is on up to the end of
March. Read below and here's the demarcation map line. I
fished pretty much right up to March of last year for Taug and
Rock right off of Cape Henry. Inshore fishing rocks cause you
don't know what kinds of fish you will run into trolling deep
lures (demarcation map).

Virginia Coastal Seasons
..................................................................
January 1 through March 31
May 16 through December 31

Minimum Size Limit............................................. 28 inches
Possession Limit............................................... 2 per person

Sunday, on the Rocks please...

B-Mo in the Cabin.

Greg rocking it waterman style, where orange PVC is the right choice for any occasion.

Fifteen days without rockfishing during the fall season can seem like an eternity, or it can slip past you without really noticing - its been a little of both for me. I've been insanely busy at work during the day, then at night and I come home to work on the 31 or 32 paintings that I have going at once ( ranging in size from 12 to 48" high), the steady stream of applications for grants and art exhibitions, making the rounds to a few gallery openings, or discuss wedding preparations with Rochelle. Thinking about fishing always seems to jump in at the wrong time, there is always something to do, and some other place I have to be . Sunday I found myself heading out with some pals in pursuit of big Rockfish, the "Hogs" as the are Known in Gloucester, which come into the bay from the Atlantic as it gets cooler.
We had a gentlemen's hours on Sunday, due to strong lunar tides and steady south winds keeping the tides 3-4 below normal. We waited about and hour and a half after a scheduled late start, and Greg looked like he needed all of that time, as apparently he had a late night in Williamsburg on Saturday, after limiting out with his friend Will on schoolies in a honey hole across the river (they did a repeat of our previous cbbt trip trolling for hogs to no avail).
With the low tides, we had to bank everything on one tide, deading out and back before the tide dropped so low, the Parker (soon to be officially named "Lawdy Be") would be sitting on the sand (the previous, day Greg had to jump out of the boat into 48 degree water in his jeans and pull the boat the last few yards, all one ton of her, notice he went to a bar instead of the hospital - this guy thinks he is hypothermia proof).
Our late start out to York spit reef and York spit light, but we saw no dive-bombing birds, no schoolie Hogs, so we high tailed it to a few honey holes and caught them up on topwater lures. Greg landed two on a bucktail I had tied and given to him. He was getting a ton of bites, and and fished with it for less than ten minutes before he had hooked into a nice chainlink fence, 10 feet up on a peir. Of course it was a prototype, so thanks Greg - back to the drawing board with that one. Brad caught his first topwater Rockfish, landing two, but they were under size, or too close to call, and since we didn't have a ruler just returned them to the current. I managed to catch five fishing slug-gos subsurface and topwater. All of the fish were fat and healthy, with a few in the maybe range. No ruler, no keeping fish that aren't clearly keepers using my forearm test.
We had a blast all day with an almost steady strem of laughter - it was great, but for better or for worse, no "hogs", no blitzing fish and birds. Perhaps that is reason, myself and a few of my friends will most likely find ourselves on the very same boat in the last days of this year, freezing our asses off in 25 degreeg weather with 10-15 mile and hour winds, laughing our asses off, having a great time, and for a few minutes out of the day, catching rocks.

Perrin Islands in the distance. Sunday, all water, no big fish.

Greg and Will's Rockfish from Saturday, the Captain was nice enough to let Brad and I spit these porker schoolies, since we didn't keep any of the 10 we caught between us.

Ok - I'm hard core - after barely getting the boat in - we all split, and as I drove across the bridge with the sun setting, I just had to stop. I parked under the bridge, grabbed my rod and headed for the rocks, but there was nothing biting or breaking the surface, so instead, I got the obligatory sunset-lit (sometimes, sun-rise) shot. Greg and blair - I know you will laugh at me for stopping off - but really - it just shows how hardore I am. Fish on.

John can't keep the days straight

oh I'm a dumbass - good luck Saturday - i'LL SEE YOU SUNDAY! (ah, I've been at Rochelles sisters party after and art opeing tonight - I should hit the sack! later!

Fishing Sunday

Greg - I'm going to a friends birthday dinner at 6 pm on saturday - I'll be leaving DC no later thant 8:30 with my shit packed - I'll see you around 11 to 11:30 - we can still hit the dock late night if you want - regardless - I still want to be out and fishing before light on sunday... fish on - good luck sunday - send pictures...

New Years is on and I'm fishing this weekend

We have a place for Dec. 30 and 31 and leave on the 1st. Blair-you can join in still - its sheap and will only get cheaper if more stay. rochelles sister and some friends of hers have a condo that weekend too - so it will be a blast - don't be a pooper blair (or get your own room - its doable at the place we are staying at this hotel
I am excited about rockfishing this weekend - did you catch anything Blair?

snowshoe butter...

Snowshoe taken on 12/2/2006

new years in the air - striper in the water...

Bummer we have no place for new years - Greg is going to call tomorrow to see what he can set up, but no promises.
On the bright side, I am going to do my best to be in Gloucester in time to hit the night-time run at Amaco Saturday night with Captain Greg in the skiff. topwater, topwater, topwater... We are planning on being out in the parker before sun-up Sunday patroling the bay for birds and a rockfish blitz... wish us luck - plenty of photos to follow....

Snowshoe for New Years

There are no time-shares available at Snowshoe. However, Canaan Valley has some openings...

Rockfish and Vail

clip 1, clip 2, clip 3, clip 4

Deer kill...

Blair, did you happen to keep any buck hair or skin with hair
attached for bucktail tying?? Oh man, also, I'll trade you some
rock for some deer meat??!!

-G

Trout fishing with a GLOCK

So Blair, if we planned a trout fishing trip on a premier river in West Virginia this spring, would you be able to carry your GLOCK to save us from any bears trying to eat us after having our trout for an appetizer?

The Vegetarian Deer Slayer

Sorry that I don't have any pictures to tell the stories of my fishing chronicles from the Windy Gale. Last Tuesday I embarked on a solo fishing adventure to the Jimmy Rivah Bridge. Stoked from hearing about Greg's fishing trip, I was excited to hook into some nice rocks. However, my day was filled with disappointment. No fish, not even one hit. I returned home only to clean the Windy Gale and prepare for a busy week of work here on the Plantation.

On Saturday, the park hosted the annual Southern Heritage Deer Hunt. I sprung out of bed at 3am to start a 16 plus hour work day. Shortly after we got all of the hunters to their stands Chippokes Plantation State Park began to sound like Iraq, gun shots everywhere. Hearing these shots made me think two things. One, these hunters can't shoot. Or two, we are going to have to process a lot of deer. Well against my wishes and hopes, Wendy's warning to all the deer in the park to leave before the deer hunt, did not work. We began to bring out deer after deer to be processed. By 11 am 16 deer were killed, and by the end of the day at 5:30 25 deer were harvested from the park. Since this hunt is a special hunt, we also butcher the deer for the hunters. Having to Butcher 25 deer takes a long time and requires team work. At first I refused to butcher the deer, it's just plain disgusting! By the end of the day I was soo tired and wanted to go home I sucked it up and skinned 5 deer. Covered in blood and hair, I turned into another person. The sound of ripping skin, strange sucking noises and cutting these deer did not affect me at all. I rallied and got the job done, I was able to go home sometime close to hour 17.

Although Saturday had some pretty disgusting events, it was also a pretty awesome day. It made me realize how much I love my job. As a Park Ranger you never know how your day is going to be. Canoing up the creek to find a half alive deer stuck in the mud (needed to be shot by my gun when I arrive), being covered by deer parts, squeezing Doe nipples to see if they are milking or just drinking coffee by the fire.

I hope to go fishing later this week........

Help a brother out

Hey fishing dudes - were are the picks from this week and weekend - I can't get out of the city to fish the weekend - help a brother out with some photos and stories....

Powder paint!

Here's what I ordered in the hopes that it all will arrive before Dec 31st:

Item Ref.   Price ea.   Qty.  Description

516-15-001  $4.99       1     Pro Tec Pro Flake - 1-1/2 oz.
                               Bottle - Silver Hologram
520-02-008  $4.99       1     Standard Powder Paint - 2 oz.
                               Bottle - Silver
520-02-030  $4.99       1     Standard Powder Paint - 2 oz.
                               Bottle - Pearl White
545-01-008  $1.90       1     3-D Molded Lure Eyes - Size 1
                               - Shimmer Silver - 20 Pack

With this I should be able to supply us all with bucktails for the
rest of our fishing careers!

Rockfish Thanksgiving

Pre-dawn patrol on the Parker at 25 knots with a long exposure.	Sunrise from the cabin of the Parker, about 40 minutes later.
The days haul of fat schoolies 19-21 inches up to 2.75 lbs.	My top water rocks caught Saturday evening on slug-gos, I took the picture when we returned to Greg's dock at sunset (I told you we fished all day).
Awesome light on the York and a long day of fishing, ahh, good stuff.	Blair took his blushing bride Wendy on her first fishing trip out on the James, and she jigged up this 26 incher, which fed their family for Thanksgiving. Wow, Blair I can see it now - you will never get to fish again - you will be stuck driving the boat while Wendy pulls in all of the Rockfish. Photo courtesy of Blair.
Greg's biggest this year so far- 26-27.5 inches and 7 lbs - the hogs are moving in. (Blair - this puts him in the lead of the 2006 Three-Monkeybubba Rockfish Tournament) He ran into a blitz of diving-bombing gannets (large torpedo-like seabirds, that bomb the water for the fish a huge school of Rock are feeding on). He caught 11 fish bottom trolling with huge heavy weights during this, all while driving the 21 ft Parker. Photo courtesy of Greg.	Greg back at his homestead - the fish looks a lot smaller because Greg is a big lanky ape and he is holding the fish several inches behind his gorilla head. Photo courtesy of Greg.
Rocks in the live well (I think Greg needs a bigger one). Photo courtesy of Greg.

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving, my lady and I had a great dinner at my parents, brother, sister in law and their girls . I helped my Dad put up less than 25% of his Christmas light display (which ends up covering 2.5 acres when finished, I'll send pictures). I went out with the high school buddies on Friday and then got up at 4:30am early to troll for Rocks with captain Greg and Jason West - We were day early for the striper blitz Greg found fishing solo on Sunday - Jason caught two decent schoolies about 19 inches but no hogs that we expected to find and we fished all day - only to return to a honey hole across from Greg house on the York, near Yorktown. With the light tackle I landed for schoolies and kept two in the twenty in range (2.5 lbs) and Greg hauled one in - that only took 20 minutes - I had my limit in 5. Saturday night we went to Wren and Derek's, where I got to listen to Derek razz me all night because he didn't get to go out with us. It was great to catch up with people.I finally got some pics from some of my fishing buddies so check them out.

Tight lines - John