The Monkeyface News

Getting Back

The unhappiest five days of my week are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  This is because I have taken a vow of temperance on these five miserable days... (so miserable they feel like five days).  

There's a great Joseph Mitchell story about the miseries of sobriety.  Joseph Mitchell... 

 

All these hip young "foodies" with blogs and TV shows and production teams and publishing contracts... Joseph Mitchell makes them (shouyld I say us?) look like a confederacy of dunces (actually not very hard to do). Why? Because he's a writer first and a gourmand second.  Anyone who has not read Bottom Of The Harbor has no business talking about seafood.  Plain and simple.

Here's the link:

The Bottom Of The Harbor

If you do not at least look at it, fie on you!  Joseph Mitchell.  Oh man, what a writer!  
 
 

Boney M. And The End Of Western Civilization
 
I can't quite believe the music I'm listening to right now.  Neptune, what's wrong with me?  I can't shake this Boney M. fixation.  Like a half step removed from Milli Vanilli.  Brown Girl In The Ring (?) What the fuck is this song about?

  

Boney M.  In all their glory.  Actually, I don't think any of these people were musicians. The band was the brainchild of this man:

... Frank Farian.  Following the same phony game plan, Farian brought us these guys:  
 
 

Winds At 35
 

And that may have been the strangest diversion yet, on this strange blog of mine.

What other fishing blog is so willing to test the boundaries of taste and sensibility?  To bring you Joseph Mitchell, Boney M., and Milli Vanilli in one paragraph?

 

Winds blowing at 35 knots.  Not going anywhere.  Sat on the beach watching the birds diving 75 feet too far to the West.  How fierce was the wind today?  The wind was so fierce, when I threw my net, it came back and landed on me.  In other words: I caught myself.  The ultimate squack.  

Uh oh.  I just took a Youtube diversion.  Watched Tyson's last fight.  Against the Irish version of Primo Carnera.

                                                             McBride and Carnera
 

Mike Tyson who burst onto the scene with such vehemence... and went out with so little of it. Would never have happened if he had been eating oysters all these years (ask Old Mr. Flood).

When Tyson sits down and fails to get up against the unexemplary McBride, in the sixth round of his final fight, it's possibly the greatest moment that ennui has ever inspired. Not with a bang but a whimper.  I mean... is that a guy who no longer likes his job or what?  

One thing in defense of McBride.  He can sure take a head butt!  I mean damn!

 

            "Not with a bang but a whimper."

NPR

Got interviewed by NPR two days ago.  It was weird.  Sitting in the KQED studio being asked questions by a dude whose voice I recognized.  I think I heard him interview Mit Romney. The longjaw mudsucker of politicians.  Woops.  Sorry if I insulted the 14 Mit Romney fans out there. Where was I?

That was totally awful.  That I would ever in any way injure or degrade so noble a creature as the miraculous G. mirabilis.

 

                                                    Will the real mudsucker please stand up?

Speaking of politics... went to the Fish And Game Commission Meeting in Monterey two days ago in an attempt to put forth my casting-net-herring idea... and was well received.  Even if one of the higher ups took 96.3 percent of the wind out of my sails. Hey, I still got 3.7 percent.  Exactly what Tyson had against the long-boned McBride.

The dude who shot the mountain lion was there.  I forget his name.  He's the commission prez.  Someone from an animal rights group in Oakland got up and complained.  But other than that the hoopla surrounding the killing of mountain lions in Idaho--and whether a F&G Commission prez should be involved in such activities--has died down.

 

Though it does seem both ecologically problematic (trophic cascade anyone?) and unethical to shoot tree-bound apex predators, I'm not sure how you can justify firing the dude for engaging in a legally sanctioned hunt.   On the other hand... I think he said he ate the thing... but come on.  Nobody hunts mountain lions for food. You shoot a mountain lion you're doing it for ego... and that's what makes pictures of a dude holding a mountain lion a tad disturbing. 

{At the same time there's probably someone out there who has the same feelings about me posing with herring or MF Eels or clams...}

Also the American lion on a historical level has been persecuted, trapped, poisoned, had a bounty on its head for most of the 20th century, and in much of its former range was actually exterminated.  Can't we find something else, something more common, something lower on the food chain, something less problematic, to hunt?  I guess Commission Prez Richards can't.

 

              Q:  Quien es mas Macho?  Senor Richards o Sasha Siemel?   A: Senor Siemel

You know how they always say trophy hunters are suffering from Napoleon complex?  It really is weird how tall that dude looks while holding the mountain lion. I was expecting a Sasha Siemel type, but when I saw him in person... well, frankly... it was more of a Paul Williams association.

          Fish and Game Commission president Dan Richards and songwriter Paul Williams... Evidently separated at birth... or maybe just the same hair stylist?

That's funny.  I just googled Sasha.  He actually looks about the same height as the F&G Commission president (wirier though--remember he was the middleweight bare-knuckle champ of the Brazillian mining camps).  Which may in fact go a long way towards confirming the whole Napoleon complex thing. Nevertheless and despite the horrifying impact Sasha no doubt had on the apex predators of the Mato Grasso, there's one detail that can not be overlooked...

 

Sasha Siemel killed his jaguars with a spear!

Let's do this:  Let's change the Idaho regs on mountain lion:

241.23a Mountain Lion

Mountain lions may be taken only by use of an implement known as a "Guato Indian stabbing spear," measuring no more than 7.5 feet in length. In addition, only one dog is allowed in the pursuit of mountain lions.  

 

Now, if a guy wants to go kill his 200 pound mountain lion in hand to hand combat using the same implements Sasha Siemel used... then by all means, go crazy with the happy, self satisfied photos. 

Speaking of which...

 

Lombard of the Intertidal, happy and self satisfied, poses with record shattering basket cockle. He evidently killed this puppy with a Guato indian stabbing rake. "I think anyone who wants to kill apex clams like this one should have to wrestle them from in the mudflats with hands and rake, anyway, it's legal in California." Lombard said.


 

One other thing... To that handful of people out there who have actually read Tigrero... how bad-ass was that little dog?  One tough terrier.  Like a mini version of "Lion" in Faulkner's, The Bear. (FYI: As great a story as has ever been penned on the problematic destruction of apex predators--and what the ultimate costs are when we kill them).

Where the hell was I?

 

The Great One.  Much more inspiring, I think, to kill the beast with a pen.

 
 

Staring at the waves across Tomales Bay today.  Man.  Had to be blowing 40 there.  Seriously.  Looked like the Potato Patch on a bad day.  Got to the beach 3 hours after a -0.6 minus tide.  Hoping against hope that I might score a few littlenecks before the tide got too high.  Was supposed to go with semi famous hunter gatherer chef blogger.  He bailed.  I bailed too.  Then suddenly got a wild hair and drove 2 hours north, way after bottom of tide.  

AND STILL GOT MY FIFTY LITTLENECKS!

HA!  My littleneck gathering skills are extreme, yo.

 

Just sayin. 50 clams and I didn't start raking till 3.2 hrs after the bottom of the tide.  Chowder will happen two nights from now. That's how long I likes to soak 'em.  Maybe add the horseneck I will doubtless catch on tomorrow's tour...


 

                                                    Garibaldi

Hmmmm.  I need to get back to Oregon for those cockles.  I'm still dreaming about 'em.  Big fat juicy cockles.  Lovely cockles.  Everywhere you looked.  Oh man... Tilamook bay.

 

WAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I'm gonna admit something.  I was ruined forever by Tillamook Bay.  Here I am scratching the gravel for two hours at Tomales for a few skimpy ass barely 1.5 inch littlenecks and manillas, while in Tillamook bay it takes 12 minutes to gather 50 baseball-sized basket cockles.

Such is the price of sharing the resources with 38 million some-odd Californians.  Oh well. Honestly I don't think there's been any kind of cockles to speak of in Tomales since the 70s.  Though I do occasionally (very occasionally) find them in Princeton Harbor.

 

The Smelt Diaries

 

Eulachon, from Lewis and Clark journals.

The wind right now is something to be reckoned with. Strangely, the smelt ran again right in the middle of it. Got another 14 pounds blind tossing.  Very strange that everyone thinks smelt don't like rough
water.  If you were a smelt would you spawn only when pelicans, seals, cormorants and guys with nets could see you? Or would you spawn under cover of turbid water?  Kind of a no brainer.  But then maybe there's things I don't know. Like maybe turbidity effects egg survival.  

All the fish I saw today were oozing milt and eggs so the spawn was definitely happening.  But the fish were moving fast up and down the beach and I made a total fool of myself chasing them. Or I should say, chasing the birds that were chasing them.  All sea gulls  No terns today.  Terns don't like windiness, it interferes with their higher aesthetics of flight.  No self respecting tern is going to hit the coast on a day when the gusts are reaching 40.  Seagulls sure.  Terns have too much dignity for that business.

                                                            Happy 75


 

Okay... I've been working on this durned blog post all day and it is time to go to the 75th anniversary of the GG Bridge celebration.  The fishwife calls.  More on the Fish and Game Commission Meeting, my forth coming salmon trip (tomorrow), and other wide ranging subjects from Milli Vanilli, to mountain lion hunting, to herring regulations, to paul Williams, to smelt, to Faulkner, to Primo Carnera and Joseph Mitchell.  

Just in case you needed to be reminded:  You have definitely been reading The Monkeyface News...
 

Kirk-out

 

Home Sweet Home

 

First off.  Apologies to everyone who expected a coastal update on my Seaforager site.  Traveling this month took me off the bite.  I'll be back on the updates in June.

 

 

Wow.  Ireland.  Not really sure what to say.  Good to get away from the states if for no other reason than to see how other peoples/cultures are getting along in the year of our Poseidon 2012.  

 

                                           The Fishwife poses with Molly Malone.

 

 

Reflections On The Ancestral Homeland:

The nicest, most helpful, most emotionally self expressed citizenry on the face of the earth. Three bands in every bar on a Tuesday night. Kind of funny when you ask the guys what key they're playing in (so you might join in) and nobody knows.  Which means there's a very large percentage of self-learned musicians.  The best kind.  Very strange how often, in the midst of a "trad" music jam, right after Whisky your the Devil, or Whisky in the Jar, (anyone ever tabulate the percentage of Irish songs that contain some reference to Whisky?) someone breaks into Creedence.

 

Rolling across the rugged peninsulas of the SW catching up on my Pogues.  "And the boys in the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay... and bells were ringing out for Christmas day..." Fly fished in the surf for a couple of hours in Waterville... a coastal stop along the Beara Loop.  Tantalized by these massive mullet that wallow in the shallows and refuse to take a fly.  I even went so far as to dig up some sand fleas and throw that at them.  No dice.  (Nothing great about this video. Just put it here for the background).

 

 

Spoke to a fisherman in Dingle, who informed me they commonly get 15-30 pound conger eels, off the jetties. Looked into this further and discovered that congers get up to 100 pounds. Typically caught by means of 6/0 hook, mackerel head and wire leader.  Crazy.  One guy told me he attaches the line to a crab buoy and leaves it overnight.  I was quickly disabused of thinking that poke poling for congers was the way to go.  My informant laughed and said, you could definitely get them to bite, but pulling a five foot, 30 pound eel out of a hole in the rocks "would not be possible unless you were Hercules."
 

 

I close my eyes and vistas of lush meadows and rocky, windswept coastline dance through the interior vaults of my eel obsessed brain.  I felt kind of like Alex Haley must've felt when he went to Africa.  A good portion of my (and probably about 40 percent of everyone else in America's) DNA derives from the land of Eire.  Was thinking a "Barak O'bama" tee shirt would sell very well over there. 

 

                    Alex Haley
 

Anyhow, I've made two more night smelt trips since my return but the little guys are nowhere to be found. That's 6 trips this year for a whopping total of 2 pounds of nighties.  What does it mean?  Is the universe crumbling?  Is the end at hand?  Good news on the "dayfish" though, here's a pic from yesterday:

 

                        Just when I'd forgotten what 25 pounds of smelt looked like.

Anyway.  This is just a "hello I'm back" post.  Hopefully I'll have some more stuff to report on as the durned Chinooks move closer to Duxbury.  Also having a bit of an inkling to shed my saltwater ways and head upstream for shad.  Could use some insight from anyone willing to give it.

Smelt ran yesterday at high tide so I'm out of here.  

Much as I miss the emerald isle, it's good to be back.

Kirk-out

 

The Big Time(s)

Looks like I've hit the big time!  Of course, I had to get the fishwife involved in order to do this... but in any event... here's my latest sortee in the realm of fishy fame.

Monkeyface Kirk In The NY Times!!!!!

 

                                            sniggling for eels

 

Snigglers Unite

Nikko Von Sharkenheimer writes in to let me know that the term "poke-poling" which has always struck me as a rather unfortunate and cumbersome term, has a much more pleasing and antiquated progenitor:  "Sniggling."

snig·gle

[snig-uhl]  snig·gled, snig·gling.

verb (used without object)

1.

to fish for eels by thrusting a baited hook into their lurking places.

verb (used with object)

2.

to catch by sniggling.

On the road again... back here in NY.  Might try to sneak out to sniggle in the Hudson, as I did in days of yore...

Otherwise I'll be posting a few updates from Ireland when I get there.

Until then.

Kirk-out

The Prickleback Diaries 2012

 

 

 

Psalm 15:11:  "Death and destruction are before the Lord..."

 

I dunno.  I mean I kinda want to live a public life here with my minor commercial fishing ambitions but at the same time there are other considerations...

Like for instance... am I going to Hell in a hand basket?  

Uh huh.  No doubt.  I am the Tamurlane of eeldom.  The Attila.  (You know this would not be such a bad thing in Hungary where Attila is thought of as a generally agreeable sort of conqueror--but we're not in Hungary).

 

 

In their primitive mucoidal animism monkeyface eels now liken me to Shiva, the destroyer.  As I've said before:  on the day of my passing they will celebrate in great writhing masses.  They will rise up out of the turkish towel beds and slap their tails in unison.  They will slime me in effigy, slander my name, step on my blue swede waders... but until then...

 

                         {Photograph removed at Fishwife's suggestion}

 

Demptser

 

I am slowly becoming the Bryan Dempster of eeldom.  Madness creeping in. Absurd risks.  Oneness with the rocks.  Oneness with the seagull shit.  Oneness with the eel.  

 

                                        

 

The book Crocodile Fever, though out of print.  Is very much worth the effort of seeking out.  Crazy South African guy, after losing his farm, gets into commercial crocodile hunting and slowly loses his grasp on reality....  

... I'm feeling his pain.  Kind of. Albeit pricklebacks are not quite as threatening as crocodiles.  This I can accept.  But still.  For cuts, scrapes, twisted ankles and bruises on my back... poke poling three times a week is the perfect thing.

Anyway... i promised a blog post everyday for 14 days--as my pennance for disappearing from the blogosphere.  And so far I'm 3 for 4.  

Heading to the rocks.

Kirk-out

Osmerid Diaries 2012

Due to this picture, I figure there's probably some lost soul wandering a beach in Tahiti looking for surf smelt.  Background image provided by The Monkeyface News editorial machine. 

 

Well... they ran finally.  And though I got there late I did in fact walk off the beach with what amounted to a limit of day fish.  Yes day fish.  April is winding down and I have yet to catch a single nightie.  Go figya.  A little further north than I anticipated.

 

                                                                22 pounds.

 

Listen people.  I don't want to see any more pictures of your Marilyn, okay?  There's nothing I can do about it.  I'm otherwise occupied all week and Mikey's boat is dead in the water.  Gone all next week to Ireland.  So leave me alone... please.  I'm begging.

 

Haiku #3,345

No more salmon pix...

Please, don't you realize I'm...

... dying of envy. 

 

Kirk-out 

 

Trophic Cascades And Whatnot

 

Let's see.  In a continuing effort to prove my re-commitment to this blog, I will try to post once a day for the next 14 days.

 

This just in:  

 

Whole Foods Sets New Sustainability Standards 

 

Truth is, I was a tad uncomfortable with my erstwhile employer's stance on sustainability.  Seemed a bit odd for me to be talking sustainability on one hand and doing a show for Whole Foods on the other. But what can I say?  They are now officially making an effort.  No question.  Unfortunately there is no way to make an effort and simultaneously keep everybody happy.  The fishermen have a point: what's the use of all these rules and regs. if at the end of the day the fish aren't sustainable?  But at the same time.  Drag fishing for Atlantic cod?  Really?  I don't care if the species is on an upswing or not.  Just compare the current projected abundance to what it was in the not-so-distant-past.  There are stretches of the Atlantic seaboard bottom that look like the Sahara desert.  Feel me?  It's not like they said they won't by cod.  Just not dragged cod.

 

                          Bottom trawling as seen from outer space: click here

 

Seems to me we're at a point where people might be willing to pay more for a sustainably harvested fish. I mean we readily do this with organic produce, right?  Does it or does it not make more sense to catch a tenth of the number of fish, at ten times the price?  As a fisherman, if you're getting 20 cents per pound for dover sole you necessarily have to catch 20,000 pounds to make any money.  But if you're getting $2.00 a pound... it changes the game completely... pisses off a lot of wholesalers, and gets deemed "bad for the industry." Go figya.

Anyway, the Wikipedia article on Atlantic cod is not a bad place to start if you're interested.

 

And if you're not, here's the key sentences:

"The northwest Atlantic cod has been regarded as heavily overfished throughout its range, resulting in a crash in the fishery in the United States and canada during the early 1990s."

"The population has yet to recover... with large predatory fish removed, their prey have had population explosions and have become the top predators, affecting the survival rates of cod eggs and fry."

Here's what we're talking about in ecological terms... trophic cascade:

                                      A stunningly clear representation of the issue.

 

My Own Travails

 

Went down to Princeton yesterday and watched the salmon coming in from the party boats.  My gawd. Poseidon have mercy on my soul.  Big friggin' slugs.  And this is April!  I am burning with jealousy.  Niko von Sharkenheimer is out on the water even as I write this.  Have had three offers to go salmon fishing in the last three days and haven't been able to go on any of 'em.  

Just to let everybody know. I'm now officially available.

Okee dokie.  Time to run.  More tomorrow.

All these salmon coming in and I'm throwing hair raisers at Fleishhacker in the face of 15 knot winds. Idiocy.  

Okay.  Time to stop whining and scare up a ride.

--Kirk-out

 

 

Fleishhacker

To those MFN fans who have no idea what I'm talking about with all this Marilyn and Lana stuff, go here:

The Code Explained

 

                                        A big year for Marilyn



And so the errant blogger returns.  Hmmmm.  Where to go, what to do?  Looks like the Marilyn numbers ain't bad (for April). Monterey had an epic week, and there were some decent numbers off Deep Reef (12 mi south of Princeton Harbor) for a minute.   This just in:  a pair of local commercial guys went out on a scouting mission two days ago, trolled popsicles 30 some odd miles out of the gate and caught -- if our sources are correct -- 20 salmon, catch and release style. Yikes.  

 

                                           Bette ain't biting.

 

But Bette Davis is still dead.  In fact, I have bad feelings about Bette.  I would imagine there will be another precipitous drop off this year.  As if last year wasn't bad enough. Maybe all the brown water out there is keeping her off the bite.  Or maybe there just ain't that many Bette Davises out there.   Remember three years ago when party boats were limiting-out off the Alameda Rock Wall in an hour? Seems like an alternate reality at this point.  But who knows, maybe she'll come back?  Maybe the projected Marilyn abundance will take some pressure off of Bette... and then... maybe it won't.

 

                                   Surf smelting back in the day.

 

What is of equal concern to me is the osmerid population.  Where the hell are they?  I mean I'm talking locally here.  Lots of night fish coming down from Usal and points north, but what about our local smelts?  Know this:  I have gone out 5 times and have yet to produce a single fish.  Wondering what's up. Yes, all that rain and ugly water in March didn't help matters (for smelt), and it's still a tad early for day fish... but damn.  I mean, not one single fish?  

 

                                    Any day now on Lana!

 

Dusting off the ol' Lana Turner rod today. Maybe multi-tasking is the way to go. Hit the beach for Lana and hope the osmerids show up.

 

Heading Down To Fleishhacker

 

Strangely, although Ocean Beach is a mere five minute drive from my front door, I never fish it.  This is because I spent five years of my life hopelessly casting hair raisers out there--with paltry results.  I've actually done far better at Baker Beach.  But I think this year it's time I manned up and started hitting Taraval or heading down to Fleishacker at night, as that seems to be the most productive way to fish OB.

 

 

 

Fleishhacker.  Everyone knows about Fleishhacker right?  I recently had an argument with a local striper fisherman about the exact location of this famous surf/fishing spot on Ocean Beach.  I was wrong.  As it turns out the original Fleishacker was a local politician who donated money for the construction of the largest heated saltwater pool in the world (hence: Fleishacker Pool).  This pool was located where the current parking lot for the SF Zoo now stands.  Unbelievable photos of this online. The pool employed 11 life guards and was so huge they used row boats to get across the thing.  

As it turns out the city simply couldn't afford to maintain the pool.  And after the original buzz wore off, people started to realize what a cold and blustery (read: stupid) location this was for a swimming pool. After the 1940s the pool fell into disuse and became a sort of ruin.  Evidently, they filled it in back in the 70s. Turned it into a parking lot--you know the Joni Mitchell song.  But the beach house still stands, just south of Sloat Ave. Seems the city might be able to do something other than letting our wayward youth run rampant there.

 

                    Bath house of the former Fleeshacker Pool

 

Really?  The lockers are still standing? Man, strip those puppies down, shine 'em up and put 'em on Craigslist!

 

The thing that breaks my heart on this isn't the fact that the city let the pool go to seed, or that such an inspired contribution to the public weal fell flat on its face.  It's the missed opportunity to turn the damned thing into an aqua-culture facility!  Can you imagine the revenue the city (or some forward thinking individual) could have generated by raising oysters or clams or salmon or... I dunno... pompano there?  Too late now. The pipes under Great Hwy are all gone, the pool is filled in, Fleishhacker's dream is but a crumbled ruin... 

Oh well.  At least the fishermen keep the name alive...

Heading down to Fleishhacker to see if the stripers are running... 

More tomorrow.

Kirk-out

 

Life Sometimes Interferes

 

And that's the trooth, people.

I've been getting quite a few e-mails lately asking if I've died and gone to fish heaven or something.  Rest assured, when three weeks goes by without a Monkeyface blog post, I am one (or two) of two things:

1. travelling

2. catching nothing (or not interested in sharing details about what I am catching)

In this case I'm in New York, dealing with some family issues, and will return in mid April full of fish tales and blog posts... that's the hope anyway!  

Kirk-out

 

 

Sustainable Dynamite

Seriously.  12 percent of the Philippine's fishing population uses                                                   depth charges to catch fish!  That's 70,000 fishermen.

 

In a startling decision that has fisheries managers world wide scratching their heads, the Marine Stewardship Council in conjunction with the Monterey Bay Aquarium has given a yellow (or "good") rating to the Philippine dynamite reef fishery for blue tang surgeon fish and harlequin tusk fish.

 

          "Dynamite fishing is in many respects more humane than fishing with hook and line."  Says MSC Chief Executive Rupert Howe.  "With dynamite there's no suffering at all.  It's just blam!  Lights out."

Howe goes on to say that the MSC approval for dynamite fishing is further evidence of his agency's commitment to supporting the small artisinal fisherman.  

          "In many cases these guys are out there with home made amonia nitrate bombs.  We're hoping that through education and funding we can provide them with proper dynamite, so their fishing activities can be safer, more precise and more productive."

 

               Light tackle blast fishing on the Philippine reefs.

 

Despite the unanimous decision the MSC has met with spirited resistance from sustainability advocates, biologists, PETA activists and fisheries managers, all of whom claim that blast fisheries are wasteful, impossible to regulate, dangerous and potentially destructive.  

Howe argues that such extremist groups tend to polarize the argument and bring little to the table by way of concrete solutions.  "Look," he says.  "At some point we've all got to compromise, and blast fishing is as good a place as any, to start."

Kirk Out

Oh yeah... here are some archived April 1st entries from the not too distant past:

April 1st 2010:  Canary Rockfish Opens

April 1st 2011:  MSC Approves Narwhal      

April Fools!

My Show Is Up!

Well, I came up with an idea for a show. And thanks to Kelly Lecastre and Lolly Merians, the idea became a reality.  Beyond everything else, I think I'm most jazzed about being able to get some exposure and screen time to my two favorite fishing cronies: Mike D. and Nikko Von Sharky.  In the coming months we will be going all over the US, putting our quirky spin on the urban fishing experience.  Gotta love the flat tire on Mikey's trailer here!  A personal touch.  And that's kind of what I like the best about it all... for better or worse, it's definitely us.

Anyway, go here:

The Curious Adventures of Kirk Lombard