Announcing the first annual Skunk Report Complete-the-Corny-Saying contest! This year we will be completing this old corny saying: “Give a man a fish and (fill in the blank).” The winner is guaranteed to get a real prize of the judge’s choosing, plus recognition on the nation’s premier web site devoted to the fine art of fishing without catching. If your saying is morally acceptable, it may even wind up on a genuine bumper sticker! Can’t beat that!

For example, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer the rest of his life.”

My own personal favorite is: “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and you crush his spirit for life.”

The contest ends September 30, 2007. Send your entries to bigjohn at skunkreport dot com. If you can’t figure this out, you get this attractive booby prize:

Good luck and slack lines!

The Skunkmeister scored big last night at the Big Ditch. Here’s how it went down.

It was a dark and stormy night (really). Disdaining my map and compass, and carrying no provisions for the journey, I slogged through rain and muck, and arrived at the edge of the known world, the Cape Cod Canal. Here there be monsters.

Baitfish were hopping all along the edge, and birds lined the stony banks, hoping for fresh fish. I clipped on a brand new Hopkins and cast away. Nothing. A second cast and, pow! The Hopkins snapped off and sailed magnificently northward alone into the mist. What a cast!

I rerigged and tried an amber Hogy. A few casts later and, bam! A major league hit! But no hookup. I reeled in a shredded softbait. This was getting exciting.

I hooked on a 4 ounce leadhead with a Sluggo, lovingly prepared and donated by my friend Bill Dean. I cast that baby out and jigged it a few minutes, but nothing. I cast again, letting it slip to the bottom, and, oomph, it was sucked in by a what can only have been a monster striper! I set the hook, and the fun began.

The monster moved slowly and fitfully eastward with the strong current. I kept the pressure on and swung the monster closer to shore. Within five minutes it had hunkered down in the rocks. I slipped, stumbled, and staggered over the slick rocks in the dark, keeping that pressure on, moving toward the great monster and hoping to get around to the front of it. But this trophy was both smart and tough, and it stayed solidly entrenched. After another ten minutes of fighting, I tightened the drag just a smidgen and gave a mighty but steady pull on the rod and, snap! It was gone.

I will never know exactly what that monster fish was. I think it was a big-time, canny striper. Uber-piscator Andy Nabreski says it was probably a rogue lobster trap.

In any case, the evening was a great success. I did not drown. I did not break an ankle on the dark rocks. I hooked something large and spooky and fought it valiantly like Captain Ahab for almost fifteen minutes. I even came home with some gear to use next time. As you can see, here I am at the brink, with this here big yellow popper thingy that I plan to use next time.

Not bad for an evening’s work at the Big Ditch!

Check out this article.

These Colorado state biologists are hereby admitted en masse into the Skunk Report Hall of Fame! Congratulations, guys. Maybe you can come out here and get rid of our pesky brook trout population.

Every August a cool offshore fishing tournament takes place in Falmouth, Mass. The Skunkmeister has been going every year for two years now; here is this year’s report:

In order to prevent a repeat of last year’s stampede, the famous Skunkmeister showed up this year in a generic tourist get-up, incognito, as it were.

But this clever disguise did not work, and, as you can see, a crowd gathered instantly. Even the famous Dave “Pops” Masch, author of the hit cookbook, Cooking the Catch, was overheard saying to the Skunkmeister, “Yeah, I know you.”

Here is Dave (on the left) cooking up a storm (or wondering what to do next) with uber-piscator Andy Nabreski from On The Water magazine and a groupie (I understand that you can catch some pretty big groupies in the tropics. I gotta see that some day).

The air was so electric with excitement that one young lady on the last boat to come in actually swooned. In the photo below you can see people ignoring some fine yellowfin tuna and looking over toward the lady.

Eventually, she was taken away by rescue personnel but appeared to be fine, calling out “Save me some!” as she was loaded into the ambulance. The tuna appeared to be fine, too, but had no comment on the whole affair.

You know what the best part was (besides the free freshly-grilled fish)? The Skunkmeister didn’t even use a boat and still finished in the top ten! The man is a genius.

At next year’s tournament they had better plan a police escort or there will be pandemonium.

Once in a while I find myself clobbering around at the edge of some fast moving water in the dark, wishing I had an extra hand to hold my lucky flashlight so I wouldn’t fall in and drown.

Now, some would suggest that I stick the flashlight in my mouth, but it is a double D-cell model, and I have found that, once stuck in my mouth, the flashlight prevents both eating and breathing (real men breathe through their mouths), and I prefer not to do this. What to do?

After some thorough online research, I came up with this solution:

Now, there are a whole passel of things wrong with this approach. First, it costs $43 plus shipping. Second, it was obviously cooked up in an urban studio by some design school graduate sipping a latte, not by a real human who has stood in the pounding surf in the middle of the night with a monster on. Third, and worst, they used a pink hat to model this contraption. That’s all you need to know. I wouldn’t be caught dead in this fool getup, even in the dark. There must be a better way.

A minute of careful thought and two minutes of precision construction and, voila, something a real man would be proud to wear:

This beauty didn’t cost a nickel, and it integrates my lucky hat and lucky flashlight. I tried my rig out in the Skunk Report equipment testing area:

So far, so good! Now, we take the Skunklight out into the field!

Here we are, at a local fishing hole known to produce large results on an irregular basis. Patience and toughness matter here. Because of the tight quarters, I am using a traditional handline, a technique I have used since I was a little snapper.

You will see that the Skunklight not only looks great, but also works like a charm! I can’t wait to see what I scare up in the old hole tonight! If you want one of these fabulous lights, you’ll have to make your own. I refuse to succumb to the siren song of commercialism.

This morning I left the house early to enjoy a little peace and tranquility down at Megansett Harbor before work. Once I got into the parking lot, I rolled the car windows down; it was dead quiet. After a few minutes I heard some playful splashing but could see nothing. The splashing continued, and so I got out of the car and wandered over to the rocks, and, lo and behold, a school of small bluefish were hopping about on the surface. I determined to get out there after work and scare up a few to try in the smoker. Then, off to work.

As I toiled in the cubicle, my wife Tricia went off with the rest of the On The Water crew on a field trip in Vineyard Sound and Washburn Island. I thought, “How nice, she’ll have a nice little boat ride today,” and gave it no more thought. Until I got home.

“Look what I have!” Tricia said, as she showed me a cooler with a tail fin sticking out of it. Okay, I thought, someone had pity and gave her a fish.

“I caught it!”

“What?”

“Well, Bill Dean hooked it, but I reeled it in.” So, now my wife is having better luck than I. She showed it to me…

Apparently, there were a few other interesting moments on the trip, like when Martha hooked a big one…

On the other end of her line…

And the last straw, just before the long swim home from the island…

And now Tricia is learning to troll…

And about those snapper blues destined for the smoker? I guess I’d better bring my wife or it’ll be a small meal.

PS - Thanks, Chris Megan, for giving the crew a fine day on the water.

This woodcut is by a woman named Clare Leighton, who immortalized many Cape Cod scenes in word and art. Has she not captured the essence and romance of surf casting in this woodcut?

Being moved by the mood of this piece, the Skunk Report tracked down and interviewed most of the men in this picture. We found that their thoughts matched perfectly the mood of the moment.

Here’s one I had not heard…

Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting.
Dave Barry

Now, I can see where the uninitiated would think that fishing is boring, what with all that standing around (or floating around). I don’t get bored, because, when I am fishing, I occupy my time with trying to keep my footing, trying to keep mosquitoes at bay, trying to cast, trying to unravel rat’s nests, trying to recover lost tackle, and this sort of thing. I have never been bored while fishing.

As far as the disgusting part goes, I’ll let you know, right after I catch an actual fish.

I hereby use my right as the all-powerful Skunkmeister to reset this stupid thing at the top of the page. It is inaccurate. I haven’t even been fishing for about a month.

Now, if you are going to be bad at something like fishing, you have to try, at least. You can’t just lie about being the worst, sort of like other fishermen lie about being the best. You can’t simply hide behind mountains of work and kidney stones and other excuses and then claim to be an expert at what you do. You have to get out there, wet a line, and then stink it up like a skunk in the road.

So the Skunk-O-Meter is now officially at zero, and tonight begins another chapter in the saga that is the Skunk Report.

Jason and the Skunkmeister before the fishing trip:

Jason during the trip, fish on:

The Skunkmeister during the trip, giving advice:

Jason after the trip, enjoying his catch:

The Skunkmeister after the trip, working on the boat:

It’s a darn good thing I was there, that’s all I’ll say.