Monterey Fishing

 
Monterey has Fisherman’s Wharf and Old Cannery Row and a museum dedicated to its famous resident John Steinbeck, who wrote Of Mice And Men.  I haven’t read the book but watched the movie starred by John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.  Watch it.

Monterey also has a three story high aquarium, and among its famous residents are sharks and tunas and three-story high kelp - a giant seagrass that is in itself an ecosystem.  And for the first time I saw sunfish here.  It looks like a huge fish-head swimming about.

At night we went fishing in the wharf close to where the yachts are.  Anglers use granite fish poles and modern equipment.  And they fish quietly.  They would draw the pole back then cast forward causing the line to swish.  Ripples formed where the bait falls.  A neon bar attached to the float glows in the dark which distinguishes yours from the rest of the anglers’.  Fish fillet or squid strips were used as bait. 

When I was young, we use live worms as bait. So we go looking for fat soil and dig the soft earth to reach the worms, which fatten the soil.  To look for fat soil, we actually look for worm tracks.  These are mounds of earth lines on the soil.  As they move, worms pass earth through their gut cavity and the earth lines you see are the worms’ excretions. Apart from bamboo pole, and a hook and line, a can-full of worms completes our fishing gear.  And we hit the river, or the rice fields’ irrigation system which was always full of catfish.  We insert the barb into the worm’s gut.  So the hook is completely covered by it.  The hook disguised as worm works well as bait because it wiggles, which attracts the fish.  But hooking it and landing the fish is another story.  This requires practice and skill, and some say inborn talent, which I have.  Ehem…. (Let me brag a bit).  

And we practice catch and release (to the frying pan!).  For me, the highlight of fishing is eating….