ON THE MODIFICATION OF SMALL FISHING VESSELS

By  Mike Stubblefield

Sanford Florida

Regardless of the type fishing craft you have, the impulse to add goodies, gadgets and otherwise improve it is a very strong instinct.  I'm especially prone to this and just as I was about to drill the 85th hole in my Scupper Pro TW kayak, I had to pause and consider.  I scanned the numerous padeyes, cleats, rodholders, straps and so on and, yes indeedy, there were 84 holes (some of them very large) in the old Gray Ghost.

 Naturally, to my prejudiced eye, these items improved the whole package immensely but there was a nagging worry:   how much weight did all the aluminum or stainless rivets and plastic doodads add to my baby?  So, I dragged the bathroom scale out, adjusted for a small cradle to hold the yak, and precariously set it.  Yeow!  Ten pounds?  I knew there was no water in the hull sloshing around; therefore, the Gray Ghost was getting fat with necessities.

 And, of course, everything I'd added was absolutely essential:  the padeye there served as a cleat for a paddle strap system I'd never used, but  I might use it some day;  that one forward was for the grass stake out pole when I wanted to face dead upwind.  I couldn't reach it but one day I might.  That clam cleat was for  an anchor I'd not used in two years but  ... and you get the picture.

 However, tinkering also involves altering or removing things from a small craft.  These usually are gross designer errors that interfere with the successful fisherman.  For example, my kayak had (note the past tense) a small, round, flat area aft of the forward hatch for a compass.  I immediately installed a flush mounted rodholder there and the very next weekend got hopelessly lost in a dense fog out in the mangrove islets.  Happily the wind blew the fog out by noon and the Coast Guard search was terminated.  By 3:30 p.m. that day I'd purchased and installed a bungie mounted compass on the hatch cover which required four rivets and two padeyes, naturally.

 My Georgia friend and frequent visitor, Tacklehead, considers himself a bit of a nautical architect and must have things to his specifications.  His third kayak was a Wilderness Systems Tarpon which has adjustable foot pegs.   These were deemed to be not only in his way, but were unsightly and possibly less efficient in grass flats prowling endeavors.  Never mind a significant weight factor.  He removed them.

 Then on one of those rare fishing mornings when the reds and trout seemed to be everywhere and hungry, a cold drizzly, wet one at that, Tack had the good fortune to hook a red on a jerk bait.  While fighting that one he spotted a tail 20' to starboard.   With one fish still on, he back hand tossed a shrimp bomb to the tailer and promptly had a double in progress.  Unfortunately, both upper slot sized reds took runs straight ahead of Tack.  A wet seat and no foot pegs coupled with average length legs and a stake out pole dead astern meant a rapid slide forward stopped only by a crotch encounter with a rodholder mounted where the compass belonged.  He lost both fish by the way.

 Well, you'd think that all the drilling, attaching and messing might clutter up a little vessel.  You'd be correct. However, it's a comfortable clutter and, what's more, it's all my stuff.  And, I know this will happen, I'll be trolling in some store and a widget will jump off the shelf screaming to be riveted to my little sport fisherman.   Shortly after that, I'll be drilling hole number 85.

                               Improving Your Fishing Mojo

                                              By Mike "Stubb" Stubbleflield

My understanding of "mojo" is a bit vague but i do know it's an essence, a feeling, of luck, either good or bad; and, this mojo may be embodied in "something."  Mojo might be found in a particular fishing lure, a lure in a hard to find or no longer available color for instance. It's kept as a luck piece, to be used rarely but always to be toted in the tackle box.  In other words, that lure has "mojo."

I was firmly convinced that I had good mojo in a mesh fishing vest. I really liked the vest as it had numerous pockets and rings to hang do-dads and it was cool in the summer heat.  The vest was a wearable tackle box and I caught a fair number of fish while wearing it. Then, saltwater corroded the zippered pockets, the sun baked the material to a point of brittleness and I noticed a distinct decline in the numbers of fish brought alongside my kayak.

 I knew something had gone wrong with the vest's mojo one afternoon when I walked into a fast food shop up in Edgewater, Florida.  I'd spent the morning chasing spooky redfish and gave it up to chase a hamburger and still wore the vest.   The young lady behind the counter looked at me, called her manager and he advised me they didn't feed vagrants. 

 I decided not to consult with various fishing friends since there's no such thing as a secret with them.  And, I knew good and well, the moment they learned of my worries, the word that "Stubb's lost his mojo...!" would be hooted and yelled all over east central Florida.  There's only so much a man can stand, you know, and my fellow fishermen are not known for sympathy and understanding. I had to get a fix on this mojo as it was beginning to depress me.

 Sitting at the kitchen table one morning and staring at the now bad mojo vest, and not having the major dollars to replace it with the same brand, it came to me that a homemade fishing neck lanyard would do as well.  But, this couldn't just be any old lanyard .. it would have to have some good, powerful stuff in it’s materials for new mojo.

 I paid a visit to a downtown Sanford shop called “Junk n’ Stuff” owned by a grizzled Rastafarian.   I figured he might have some hexed beads to string on to my lanyard.  He stirred around and came up with some, sure enough, and proclaimed: “Dese be jade, mon.  Very pow’ful.”  They looked suspiciously like glass but I took them and also some beads he said were made out of lignumvitae wood.  I rushed home, strung them up on a length of fly line, attached three brass swivels, and tied the loose ends up.  My lanyard looked good; it looked like the mojo I needed.

 But, I wasn’t sure and before I tried it I needed a second opinion.  I happen to work with a petite young cutie who is a Miskito Indian from Honduras.   She is a computer whiz, sometimes will practice a little jungle medicine, and has a desk drawer full of strange medicines. So, I carried the lanyard in and asked her:

 “Whattaya think?   I got some mojo here?”

“Hmmmm.”  She checked it out.  “You blow some smoke over it?”

“Yup.  Two whole cigars worth.”

“I like these brass thingy’s.  They feel pow’ful.”

“Those’re swivels. It’s the beads ‘sposed to have the mojo in this thing.”

“Well, it will bring you many fish but it needs a little bag of ‘positives’ attached.”

“Positives?”

“You dumb gringo; yes, ‘positives.’  Here.”

 And she handed me a leather pouch about the size of a dime.

 “Tie them to that green bead there.”
”That’s jade.”

“Sure it is.”

 The next Saturday I had my mojo around my neck with a rusted Orvis line clipper, Seki City pocket knife and Fiskar kid’s scissors (for the Power Pro line) attached.  The weather was right, winds were down, the water clear and here and there I spotted a distant redfish tail.  The kayak was gliding perfectly over thick grass and sandy potholes; I could feel the “positives” multiplying harmoniously and radiating right to the rod in my hand.  

 I caught a nice bunch of reds and trout that day and took pictures of several by using a delay timer on the camera.   I stopped by the Fly Fisherman shop in Titusville, pictures in hand, to crow some in friend Mudfoot’s presence. He’d been through a fish drought lately and was grumpy.

 “What’s that bead thing you’re wearin’?”

“New mojo, my man.  Worked too.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Ol’ man I know make’s’em for $40 over in Sanford.”

“Yeah?  He make me one?”

“I doubt it,” I said.   “He only does it for friends.  But I’ll sell you this one.”

 There’s honor amongst fishing friends, but not much. 

Collecting Saltwater Gamefish

                                                                  By Mike "Stubb"Stubblefield

There are some fishermen among us who are not at all choosy about gamefish. They like to catch fish in multiple fingered numbers. "Well, I got 10 reds yestiddy and 14 t'day. Fair day, but I've had better." However, there are those, I like to count myself in this group, who are a bit more fastidious. We seek a quality fish and see it not as "fishing:' so much as "collecting." As in: "I picked up a rare, 5 tail spot, ultra copper red, of 12", just this morning." Size is irrelevant in collecting fine specimens and numbers are just so much bother. In fact, schools of large but average looking gamefish get in the way and make collecting difficult.

 Collectors are not confined to one species of fish, understand. There are those among us seeking the palomino redfish and I understand in South Dade County one obsessed angler is haunting the canals chasing the taupe peacock bass. It's a growing and satisfying sport, particularly for those who've forgotten how to count above five fingers. In fact, state officials realize that the huge majority of fisherman are probably avid collectors,and, therefore should be licensed separately.

 One of the bits of evidence that inforrns you that you have a collector and not just a fisherman is the typical "fish" picture. I was browsing through a pile of photos from the last couple of years and noted that nearly every one of them had a beaming guy in it holding up what appeared to be a less-than-legal size gamefish. Why would he be smiling holding one, smallish fish? Now, the quality of the photos isn't the greatest so I got out my magnifying glass and, Yessir, there's a slight anomaly on most of those fish. That about proves this is a photo of a collector. Admittedly, just a beginner, mind you, but a collector nonetheless; one still finding a thrill in one fish of unusual physical description. A lady friend, upon looking at my stack of collectors' photos said they mostly appear to be pictures of me. I advised her that was not the case .. the beards were all much whiter than mine.

 I stumbled upon a large clump of collectors last weekend on Mosquito Lagoon. They were in canoes, jon boats and kayaks and spread along the dike road several miles south of Haulover canal. I suspected they were collectors, not just fishermen, when I saw a canoe and two kayaks keep their backs to a large school of reds. They might have seen the palomino redfish, or the albino sea trout, but whatever they were after the intensity showed on their faces. Driving further along, I confirmed they were all collectors because a half dozen fellas asked me to take a group picture. These boys were all from Georgia and the middle one in the group had a pretty, heavily spotted rat red. I took the picture and gave them my address for a copy.

 Since we were near a launch site soon the other small rigs drifted in to shore. Collectors to a man, we stood around drinking beer and admiring two fine, unusually marked bull pinfish. These specimens were passed from one to another so everyone got their picture taken and more addresses were exchanged for prints.

We collectors have to stick together.