Saturday, October 10, 2020

Love my Yak

 The waterfront portion of my property is a Midden.

A Midden
As the article states , for as long as 3,200 years ago, Indigenous peoples living along the banks of the Chesapeake Bay harvested oysters in vast quantities. They extracted the meat and piled the shells into mounds known as middens. It was in the spirit of these Naptown locals that I set out today. Like these early day laxbro's, I jumped in my Canoe

armed with a single Popa dog
. Admittedly, I am privileged in that catching a fish is not a must. But today it was. I wanted to catch a keeper and cook on the Breeo . The pedal from my beach to Aberdeen was every bit exhausting as any Peloton class and much more scenic. I immediately started working the shoreline. These pedal kayaks are incredible for this kind of fishing. You can go forwards or back and with the tiller, set the exact drift as you picture your mind. I was working the Melvin Road side of the creek working right up against the grasses that are plentiful in this stretch of water. I picked up three 16's between the second gap between piers. The grasses were starting to show their fall glory and things were perfectly still as Popa landed less than an inch from the bank. Before I had a chance to mentally stroke my ego, my fish of the summer exploded in 10 inches of water, Quite a scene from sea level. This was clearly a six year old fish
26 incher

. Starting the fire was certainly easier than the natives with a quick start log. As the fire heated up I cleaned the fish and raced up to the house to wrap a filet in tin foil with a bit of olive oil, salt , and pepper. If there was a  time record for such a thing, I surely would have podiumed. The new record for river to mouth, in the Aberdeen creek division, is 19 minutes. We have a waiting list this year for oyster growers on our river. I cannot tell you how much the effort will mean to the health of this river. If we make it a priority, sustainable fisheries are attainable. 







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