Stop Slimming Me You Old Hag-fish.

"They call me a hagfish, don't mess with me! If you die around me I will eat you."

With Halloween right around the corner, what better time for a post on the the slimer of the sea, also known as a hagfish, class Myxini order Myxiniformes and family Myxinidae. The stem myxin means "slime" and this fish is the triple threat of the gooey stuff. If Dr. Venkman (Bill Murray) would have encountered a hagfish instead of a ghost in that swanky New York City Hotel in the opening scene of "Ghostbusters", he would have been choking on slime. That's the kind of slimming capabilities these creatures possess.

Hagfish are jawless, worm like creatures that live in temperate seas and have long fascinated biologists as the only living representatives of the ancient creatures that gave rise to fish and humans. Preying extensively on invertebrates, but are also important scavengers on the ocean floor. They can quickly congregate in large numbers on dead whales and fish with the ability to cover a carcass in a "writhing swarm" with enough action to stir up surrounding sediments and completely engulf the dead animal with slime. Being scavengers, they are not scared to enter a dead or dying fish through the gills, mouth, or anus, and consume their prey from the inside out! Like a miner entering a mountain to extract the gold.

It is not uncommon for marine commercial fisherman who use set lines or gill nets to find fish in their nets that are occupied by feeding hagfish. Once on deck the hagfish secrete incredible amounts of slime that sticks to both deck and fishermen.

Their main defense mechanism is their burrowing behavior and their slime, with which they can coat themselves in large quantities quite quickly. The slime is also used to coat dead fish, thereby making it unpalatable to other scavengers.  Talk about marking your territory. That reminds me of when we were children and you would lick every doughnut in a dozen so no one else would eat them. Apparently the hagfish does not like to share with others.

How do they get water into their gills when they are completely covered in slime? Good question, what they do is tie themselves in a knot, which passes down their body pushing the slime away. Kind of like natural Sudafed, clearing out those breathing passages. Very resourceful, inspiring creatures if you ask me.   

This Halloween when you are contemplating what to be, I hope this post inspires you to consider dressing as a hagfish, because it's cool and original. Sure, people might not know exactly what you are but when they ask, you can look them dead in the eye with a Clint Eastwood smirk and say, "I am a hagfish, and if you don't give me all of your candy, a bunch of my homies and I are going to cover you in slime until you can't breathe and then eat you from the inside out."

Be safe this Halloween, don't talk to strangers.

Skyman out.  

 

Reference:
Moyle, P.B., Cech, J.J. Jr. 2000.  Fishes: An Introduction to Ichthyology, Fourth Edition. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ.pg. 212-214. 

The Fluke is No Fluke.

The Fluke (3/0) and Fluke Jr (1/0). 

Fall for me equals pumpkin spice lattes, clean air, goofy sweaters, football, and shad. Bait fish really ball up in the fall and can create a bass feeding frenzy. If you can find these balls of bait, you will find the bass, and there is no better bait out there than a fluke for imitating a dying shad.

A little morning cruise. 

The fluke is an underestimated, underutilized bait in my opinion that often gets overlooked for the fancier more expensive hard baits on the market. There is not much to them, they are 3"-5" pieces of soft plastic that come in a small bag. They may be soft but they are hard to beat in the fall. It's subtle movements when paused remind me of a senko but it can also be fished as aggressively as a rip bait, or on top like a walk the dog type lure, you could even rig it on a lead head and bounce it off the bottom making it one of the most versatile baits in your tackle arsenal. It's main job is to imitate a dying shad and it has never seen an unemployment line.

Oh baby! Get ready.

So it's no surprise that it played a pivotal role in our teams first place finish at Pyramid Lake October 14th, 2012. We started off in the morning using top water to no prevail so we switched up to the fluke. The cove that we were fishing had lots of bait, so we knew the bass were feeding on shad, we just didn't know if the fish wanted an aggressive approach or a more subtle presentation. The fluke proved that subtlety was the key that opened the door to feeding bass but it was a door that kept closing on us through out the day. We only caught 3 keepers on the fluke, one coming on a hula grub, so it was not a wide open bite. But it was just enough to squeeze out a victory by 0.22 lbs over second place. Our total weight of 7.85 pounds just beat out the 7.63 brought in by Walt and Orin's son Andrew.

Orin T. and Angel A. holding our winning weight. 

In the Fall when the going gets tough, the tough tie on a fluke. So next time you're in line at your nearest tackle shop wearing a goofy sweater, drinking a pumpkin spice latte, don't Fall for the gimmicks and go with the original and best soft jerk bait on the market, you won't be disappointed.

Skyman out.
  

It's a Fluke party ya'll. 

Take me Back Tammi.

Tammi in all her glory.

The farm ponds that littered the landscape of San Luis Obispo like acorns from an oak tree, provided the soil for my interest in fishing to take root. My friends and I would buzz from one of these farm ponds to another, like villainous bees on the hunt for our next bass adventure.  

Bishop's Peak.

We would talk about girls, drink an occasional root "beer" and sneak a smoke or two all while pursuing whatever fish would take our bait. This grew into more of an obsession for me as I turned my baseball card collection into an expensive bass lure anthology. It started with bobbers, hooks and crimp weights, then escalated to a few Kastmasters, Roostertails and Rapalas, finally guiding me to the arsenal of bass destruction also known as the Bass Pro Shops mail order catalog, and I have been chasing the dragon ever since.

The view from Tammi's right arm.

Tammi and my arsenal of "dragon" baits mosied on down to a few farm ponds to see if she could be my "delorean" to those carefree days. Hoping each bass I caught would take me back closer to my youth, until finally I would hear Doc say, "Great Scott!", and turn around to see the amigos of my teenage years along the bank. This didn't happen of course, but fishing still gave me a jolt of youthful excitement with every new tug on my rod.

Farm pond. 

Even though my feet were planted in the present, these familiar images dispersed me back in time, like a strong wind does the seeds of a dandelion. Thanks Tammi, for blowing this little seed pod back to where it all began.

Skyman out.