Food Fishing

No deep sea fishing or big prize money here. Just meat-and-potatoes food fishing.

That's a fish. 41-inch Rockfish on a stretch plug. The gear consisted of 250 feet of 100-pound mono, a 2-ounce in-line torpedo sinker, and a Cuban Yo-yo.

You do NOT handle the line with you fingers. It's more like winding in a kite, with a figure 8 motion.

We trolled a hose eel on a yo-yo at 6-7 knots from Point No Point to Smith Point under sail and were rewarded with a pair of snapper blues. A home-made lure, tied from a bit of surgical hose, mono, an S-hook and a stainless fishhook; the purchased hose eel on the other transom caught nothing. We scaped (yes, that is the correct local spelling) crabs from dock pilings in Tangier for an hour and collected a bucket full.

Seafood feast at Tangier Island

Introducing whole crabs to a newby is always a treat. The fresh taste rewarding persistence and thoughtful exploration of the carcass.

For sand sharks we have great success with grass shrimp, mostly because we can always get them off the pilings with a net and thus fish with them a lot. Sea bass like them too. A bass rod is about right.

 Shark fishing, Cape May. Particularly good with onions and Old Bay. No bones.

Fancy? No. Fresh? Certainly. Full by meals end? Oh my.