Alameda Rockwall Butts -Sunday 04/01/07

Sorry guys...no picture for me cuz:

1)  I'm not on the water in my yak
2)  I didn't think fast enough to put a banana or knife in my mouth aka Mooch / FishHunter

Actually the fish do look bigger in the yak than on the shore.  I was looking at Doug's pics and its almost like looking at different fish.

Another thing that we're not mentioning is that Doug caught that beast on a dead smelt.  At least my smelt was alive and swimming before it met Mr. Striper.  Doug must have had the right drift, hook placement, leader length, weight and camera angle to fool that bad boy...good job.

We chowed down on that striper last night and it was awesome.  My wife prefers stripers to be smaller because they're more tender.  Before I got into yak fishing I used to bag some decent stripers on the party boats so that's where my family's comparisons come from.  She steamed it with sliced ginger, green onions with some black bean sauce on top.  So my family is looking forward for me to catch another one.  Nate did say that he prefers a striper over a halibut and know I know why.

Gary

Way to go Yakers!

Nice hookup for a days float...Marmite thanks for the Pic's I was surprise how well you fillet that Butt! and the Gut shot," way coool!, I'm just wondering how long it  took you to do such a perfect job for the fist cut

Great Job! I'm Envious!

Doug are you sure your not a surgeon?

Didn't do all that well in surgery rotations...found it hard to tie knots when everything was so darn bloody and slippery.  And the prima donna surgeons and flying instruments was a bit too much for me.  But I did learn one thing--the difference between dissecting and cutting.  Scalpels are extremely sharp and once you cut into a muscle you have no idea where your going.  You've got to maintain the anatomy cuz once you cut the wrong thing it's a bit late. The key is to find the seams of filamentous connecting tissue between organs or muscle groups and then, while applying constant tension to the seam, gently tease through the  connecting tissue with very light pressure with the scalpel tip/edge.  Kind of like just touching some braided line under tension with the edge of a knife--snap!  Turns out the same technique works on fish bodies.  And I seem to be doing a bit better with the knot tying as well.