The above photos are from an east coast whale watch last week, those guys are tagging humpbacks with a two-suction cup recording device. They are doing this for research purposes, on one of the whales you can see the tracker on its back.
That looks like one of the more fun jobs you could have!
The last photo, the beach in the background, was the site of multiple family-free dawn patrols. No one gets up till like 9 and that means I have from 5-9 to do whatever I please, and what pleases me is casting metal. I was throwing tin, the Kastmaster XL, which is probably one of the finest chunks to throw for any hyped up aggressive fish. I had hooked fish three days in a row, and landed precisely one fish, a solid bluefish at around 28 inches. I let that one go. At least until I fought the biggest fish I've caught.
The next morning was foggy, the features of everything less distinct. The hit came hard, the rod bowed, and the fight was on. Sure this was dirty gear chucking devil's play, but then again the fish were feeding about 60 yards off the beach and that's the kind of cast I can't/don't particularly care to even try with the flyrod. This thing was on for around 20 minutes or so, and part of the delay there was between the fish and me were pods of eastern gray seals moving up and down the shore.
Those evil seals will steal whatever they can. If you take a strategy similar to a tweaker crossing 99 at 125th avenue to get closer to Krispy Creme, pants low, mind set on donut or vapor or whatever, oblivious to the traffic, someone or something is gonna get hurt. So waiting for a window, letting the fish head towards Stellwagen Bank when the seals were close, horsing it back when they weren't around, after several rounds of that dance, I finally landed a Striper that I thought was going to be a keeper. This thing was 3 of my feet long. This gal was too big, 32 inches. they have a 28-31 inch slot limit!
Back to the sea it went...
Ohh and there was some flywork, on the the float tubes, getting stuck into some largemouth bass in the kettle ponds on herring flies, I was the engine, Jack got to do the catching part...
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