Reef-Trapping for Perch.

The school of pileperch was about two hundred feet long and thirty feet wide

Timothy Kusherets

How far was I willing to go to get fish? What was I capable of doing to make sure that fish would decide that taking my hook into their mouths was much better than not? Most of the time I decide go the extra mile you can be sure it will be in the direction that most fishermen would never even consider. I recall a day when I showed some fishermen just how far that meant, and in this particular case I created the very first reef-trap for surfperch. A few of us guys got together to fish for surfperch and pileperch from shore. The tackle we were using was unremarkable. The bait of course was dime crab and tube worms, the favorite of all perch. We had been fishing off the point of Annapolis Port Orchard for about 2 hours when the tide had crested for the high right about 10 o'clock in the morning. We continued to fish until the tide turned when Ron, John, and Matt decided to call it quits. We had all decided to fish that particular time because we knew the tide would bring the fish in close to the rocks and pilings so when the guys chose to leave it simply made sense since there weren't any fish. All the tackle had been put away and everybody was ready to go as the tide turned exposing the first recesses of the beach when they suddenly noticed that I hadn't made a move to put anything away. "What in the heck do you think you're doing? We're ready to go bud. Pack it in." "Guys, do you know why we didn't get many fish?"
"Yeah, there weren't too many fish to begin with. Tell us something we don't know. I just want to forget it and drink a cold brew. You coming or not?" "Did you hear what you just said? You said the reason we didn't get many fish was because there weren't many fish? Have you thought about that? I mean…did you ask yourself why there weren't many fish? Why are we leaving when the fish are still here?" "What the hell are you talking about? Have you lost it? Do you see any fish? Why do you think none of us are fishing? You can contemplate all you want but that isn't going to help right now is it?" "I think it will?"
"What does that mean? Dude we want to get out of here. What do you want to do? You staying or leaving?" "You know what I need? I need a shovel?"
"Jesus Christ! Are you crazy? Hey! Did you hear what Einstein just said? He wants a shovel!"
None of them could believe that fishing and a shovel could have anything to do with each other. They complained all the way to the hardware store so I could get a round-nose. After they dropped me off they left me there to my own devices agreeing to come back for me later. Short of the second coming of Christ, as long as nothing kept them from the beer they were longing for, they were happy to leave me there on the beach. There was an old set of pilings I had decided to use as a fishing platform for when the tide came back in. I ascertained that there wasn't much of a window of opportunity even though the fishable tide was 10 hours away but to make the reef I was forced to wait a couple of hours before enough of the beach was exposed. The second the tide was fifteen feet further out I went to work. It made sense to me that the trap would need to be no less than six feet across so the diameter of it was going to have to be about 8 feet wide and four feet deep to fit the rocks nicely. Finding the rocks to line the inside of it was no big deal but the rocks themselves were huge. I thought I would be able to dig the hole and then move the rocks but the ever moving mud that fell back in the hole forced me to start placing the rocks almost immediately. I would dig an area down and wide enough to fit a rock into it and as I did the mud would cease to slide since the rocks reinforced the side of it. From a distance it may have looked as though I were moving slowly but that really wasn't the case; it was the sinking feet and the boulder sized rocks that made it appear that way. Now and again a few spectators that lived along the road would come out to watch me but the novelty of it would wear off after a few minutes. There was one man who seemed to understand what I was doing right away. He took the time to bring out a lawn chair, cooler, and towel and sat on his deck in direct sight of me. He wanted me to know he was there. It looked as though he didn't have anything better to do and I didn't mind since really I was practically in his backyard. "What're you trying to catch?"
That question stopped me in my tracks. I didn't think anyone had gotten it.
"I don't know what you're after but I pity the fish you're trying to catch."
"Why do you say that?"
"Cause you're going to that's why. I never seen a fisherman with this kind of determination. I'm pretty sure it's going to work. You don't mind if I watch do you? I would help but I'm not a spring chicken anymore." "What's your name?"
"Frank."
"Well Frank, my name is Timothy. I hope you don't mind me working in front of your property."
"When the tide comes back in you can fish from my deck if you want. It looks as though you should be able to reach it from here."
There was no fooling this guy. He knew I was building a reef. Something Matt had not thought about when he and I were discussing the lack of fish. There weren't any fish because there wasn't anything around to either draw fish in or to keep them there once they were. It made sense that giving them a good reason to do both meant building a huge dinner table and that meant a reef. I started the project about noon and continued to work throughout the day. It was late May and the day had been crystal clear with a high-pressure system that allowed me to work in wading shorts and no shirt; it was extremely warm. The Inlet was relatively wide and open allowing the sun to stay out particularly long and everything had begun to fall into place right around four o'clock in the afternoon. I had just finished placing the last rock in the hole when the tide had fully turned and was heading back in. The next step was to find the buffet the fish were going to look for once they got to my artificial reef. Dime-sized-crabs were on the menu but there were two problems; I didn't have any and even if I did the amount I needed would require something to transport them in. My new acquaintance had gone in and I had a question for him. "Hello, are you just about done?"
"Sorry to be beating on your door so late in the afternoon but I was wondering if I could borrow a bucket from you?"
"Sure, no problem. What do you need it for?"
"Crabs…lots and lots of crabs."
"That's a great idea but where are you going to find them? You didn't see any under the rocks you moved did you?"
"No but I have a theory."
"I thought you might. You don't strike me as the kind of fella that just lays over and quits."
"Further out on the beach are some huge boulders that look like great tidal holds for all kinds of tubeworms and crabs. I'm just betting there's all kinds of bait out there."
"I'll get a shirt and help you with that at least. I'm old but not too old to wrangle a couple of crabs."
He didn't seem old to me at all. As I had worked through the day he had sat on his deck talking to me about his retirement from the commercial airline industry. He was semi retired and built puzzles to take to the farmers market on the weekends. One of the few things he hated about retirement was the guilt of watching others get up at the crack of dawn to go to jobs they most likely hated. He told me that overall retirement was the best thing that happened to him and taking full advantage of it also afforded him a job he loved more than anything. His new fulltime job was loving life and to do that he got out a lot to fish and make to those puzzles. Frank had the youngest spirit I had ever seen in sixty-fiver year old man. If he hadn't told me his age I would have never guessed it. I thought the rocks I had put in the hole were huge but the boulders that had to be tipped over were monstrous by comparison. Most of the rocks that had to be moved were bigger than Frank and I put together. You have to understand. It was never my intention to sentence those crabs to death; I simply wanted to relocate them to anther holding area. I just wanted them close enough to draw fish in and with the many hundreds of tiny crabs we found I knew it would work. We had all the crabs we needed within an hour. The timing was impeccable. We had just put the crabs into the reef when the first waves licked at it; it was a close call. "Well Timothy, do you think the little buggers are going to race for higher ground?"
"Wouldn't that be perfect? All that work just to watch them scurry out from here? I sure hope that doesn't happen?"
"Guess there's nothing left to do but wait. Isn't that funny? We constantly hurry up to wait."
"I don't think it's that funny Frank. I don't like to wait for anything which is I why I had a contingency plan for this time."
"I should've known. You seem as determined about things as I did when I was your age. What ya got in mind?"
"Preparation Frank… preparation for getting all my tackle for the fish when and if the perch come in."
Frank invited me onto his deck to fish and to get there we had to go through his garage. He flipped the door open and boy was I shocked to see all the fishing tackle he had. He had three fifty gallon barrels full of fishing rods. There must have been well over a hundred rods sitting there, but that was nothing compared to all the other tackle. He took his fishing very seriously. I was in excellent company. We went out onto the deck and set out to rig up several rods for both of us. We had made it to the deck with a meager helping of dime crabs for ourselves as bait along with various other baits that could be found on pilings, under rocks, and in pools. We waited for about two hours when Frank alerted me to a seemingly approaching black cloud in the surf not too far off in the distance. "Timothy, if that's what I think it is this could be some of the best fishing I've ever seen. Currents, bait, and pressure being what they are, it still doesn't mean they'll head over here, but if they do it really will be a honey-hole you got there." He never had to finish the sentence. I couldn't believe the good fortune of meeting a man like Frank. He seemed to have the same fishing spirit. He seemed to understand all the nuances associated with fishing but was still willing to think in esoteric forms much the same way I did. Over the course of the next half hour we watched the cloud undulate in and out away from the shoreline. From the distance the "cloud" looked more like black water than fish, but neither one of us needed assurances of what it was. The closer it got the more anxious we got. Franks deck was about fifty feet long and ten feet wide, which gave us plenty of casting room. The school of pile perch was about two hundred feet long and thirty feet wide. It was huge. Frank and I cast out at the same time and hit into fish the instant both hooks hit the water. Even though we were using six-pound test we landed fish within a few seconds. It was a race. Both of us had decided to only keep a few fish between us and everything else would go back. It was a catch and release race the likes of which I have not seen repeated; though there have been many days that could make a close second. Have you ever heard the expression "cast out, pull back, fish on"? I use it to describe an area that has so many fish you can really do that and in this case it was many times better than that. Frank and I barely had enough time to put on the bait and get them into the water before we'd get a hit. In less than 40 minutes we both landed over 25 fish apiece, and the fish were in a holding pattern that was not bizarre to us but the neighbors and boaters near us could not believe that the pressure the fish must have felt from the many fish we hooked and they stayed. It was the reef that they hovered around and it was the reef keeping them right there. We fished for well over an hour non-stop hooking into fish after fish. In the end there was only one thing that made us stop fishing. We ran out of bait. We scrambled to get all the pile worms we could by bending over the rail but there weren't many and in a short time all the bait was gone. "Well Timothy, I don't have anything left to throw at them. Looks like your stunt worked…but what can you do? We're out of bait."
"Frank, I'm wounded. Just because were out of bait doesn't mean the fishing has to stop."
With a bare size 4 hook I cast out. The nickel plating on it was bright enough to get fish to strike it the second it had gotten down in the middle of the school. Frank couldn't believe what he was seeing. He told me that he would have never thought to do that and coming from him I took it as quite a compliment. We kept on fishing like that until the tide receded enough to force the huge school of fish to move. By the time it was all over we were exhausted. The day had been a huge success. Sitting there on the deck we watched as the sun set. I thought about the guy's I had started out the day with. They were a bunch of good fishing buddies and I never regretted that they left; though I was surprised that they never came back. I had met a great fisherman and a new friend. I caught more fish in the shortest amount of time than I ever would have imagined possible. For all intents and purposes it had been a perfect day. I suppose it is the willingness "not" to accept not catching fish that motivates me to ask the questions that I have. I'm sure that if I had taken the time to tell my friends what I had in mind they still would have left that morning. The work involved was such that no sane person would have been willing to invest that kind of effort on a hunch that fish "could" be brought to fishermen rather than the other way around; but it worked, and that's what matters. I was, and still am, proud of the effectiveness of the reef-trap and dubbed it forever "Surf and Pileperch Reef-Trapping".

© Timothy Kusherets, 2004/08