There was 5 of us fishing from a friends boat out of my same Marina. We encountered something rather unusual, on our way out of the harbor; a piping plover, or possibly a woodcock was getting attacked (knocked out of the air) by a hawk or falcon. The bird kept getting hit by the raptor every time it tried to make a break for it. While this was all going on there were schoolies breaking all around us. At one point we had a quintuple hook up! Once we had our fill, we switched to black fishing. This was my first time, and I was pretty excited. We motored up to the spot. Dropped two anchors to hold us in place, and dropped out crabs down on jig heads. Right away we had action, with many nibbles, and misses. It wast too long before a few came over the gunnel. This was a totally foreign way of fishing to me. I thought it was pretty interesting that the fish were literally just 10' beneath the hull. We broke off the legs of the crab and then split the shell down the middle with scissors, or a knife. We primarily used 1/2 crabs at a time since they were quite large for the most part. I learned to drop my jig to the bottom and let it just rest on the bottom with out much movement, waiting for the tap tap tap. Once I felt that I had to resist the urge to swing. Instead, I waited for the line to actually move off, then set the hook.
I thought this was a good opportunity to try out my Gyotaku supplies, that I had bought a while back. I find it hard to justify killing fish, since they are so much more valuable in the water, where they are able to reproduce, however the plan for the day was to grab a couple for the dinner table. So when I got home I used a paper towel to wipe all the slime away, then I painted the skin and fins of the fish with watered down acrylic paint, and then I also tried actual sumi ink, which is traditionally used for this type of printing. I bought various types of rice paper, and mulberry paper. Turns out the least expensive roll of rice paper from amazon worked the best. I also learned that not putting the ink on too thick was key. Sometimes wiping excess off was necessary. I am going to have to go back and add in the details such as the coloring of the fish and the eye.
