"Careful They Bite!"

Deep Sea Fishing

     Hey everyone,       

    This was a great week of work as I was located at Castle Island on Wednesday and Thursday. I had not been to Castle Island in a few years prior to then and I had forgotten the layout of the island which made it fun when I arrived there. I went and explored the places that I was allowed to venture into which was nice. I ended the week on an all-day deep-sea fishing trip and caught many cool and new fish species that I had not heard of and interacted with. We also saw a few whales and a leather back sea turtle which I didn't realize how big they were until I was up close to it on the boat, it was a great way to end the week!

My amazing Catch

Climate change has affected me in a plethora of ways when it comes to my daily life. One of the most notable ways is that there are a lot more efforts to reduce the use of vehicles and large Co2 releasing machines which is why blue bikes are so common in the city of Boston where people can pay to rent out a bike for the day and ride to their needed destinations opposed to driving and releasing more harmful chemicals into the atmosphere. 

Something that I noticed that climate change has impacted is the type of fish that we catch, although I have only been fishing for about two years now with Save the Harbor I've heard many stories from fisherman and other people that fished in the harbor decades ago that back then there was always an abundance of fish and due to over fishing and climate change those fish have migrated south and off the coast because the water temperatures and pH levels have gotten too high for them to live. I believe change has been detrimental to the marine life in the harbor and all organisms on earth but on the contrary, I think that we as a society and people are headed in the right direction when it comes to making this planet healthier and we are on the up tick.

Fishing:Monkey See, Monkey Do

Last week on Thursday, August 11th, I had rushed back to Boston from the Capes to make this huge fishing trip on various boats! I slept whenever I could on my commute back to Boston and I fantasized about the huge fish I would come across. Not long after I arrived, everyone was split up with an assigned group led by boat Captains who would take us out to fish with the hopes of landing any large sea creature that could take the spot as the "largest catch!" I ended up on a small boat that was able to coast along the edges of water just a few feet above sand led by John and Al. I learned that these guys were from the Brighton area themselves and when they started telling me about their fishing experiences, I knew without a doubt that I was in good hands. It was unfortunate to hear that by the time we had reached John's Striped Bass hot spot that the tide was too low and that the larger fish probably left. Minutes had barely passed by when we snagged our first fish, a Striped Bass! He was roughly 26 inches, to small to keep. 

John and Al were telling me techniques to snagging Striped Bass and Blue fish! Things like making sure to troll the fishing rods to attract fish that are primarily surface and medium depth water feeders like the Blue fish and Striped Bass! We made sure to constantly use fresh bait and soon enough we landed our second Striped Bass. Then we got the call. Immediately our boat pushed past a few islands to be around "Graves" and "B.G." code names for areas in the harbor/ sea where these fisherman have nicknamed. We were now on a hunt for Blue Fish and we had arrived to the party late. We still managed to snag a huge bluefish that both John and Al had to wrestle into the boat!

-Raymond Chai

Inked and Crab Egg Pouches

This week we finally caught something with a fishing rod: a Squid! Joe, who is now hands down one of the best fishermen we have had in the program snagged the little critter with the help of Grace (Senior Harbor Educator)! Just before we released the squid back into the harbor, it managed to ink Sean right on the chin.

Thanks to Joe, the other kids were inspired for the rest of the day to try their luck in fishing! In the coming photos you will get to see the determined faces of the kids who wanted to catch something for themselves.

On the same day we found two pregnant crabs and saw that their eggs were of different colors. One crab had orange eggs that looked just like salmon roe, and the other had eggs that were more of a dark brown. At first I hypothesised that the orange ones were probably fertilized and that the dark brown were duds. After some very brief research, Ary and I came to a conclusion that the crab eggs change colors over their life cycle and they start off as orange and they end up brown as they near their "due dates."

This is a picture of some of the crew releasing our little squid friend back into the harbor!

I'm looking forward to telling you all about the other critters that we'll come by in the next coming blog posts!

Raymond Chai