Jack – Roccus Writing

Thanks and God bless

Greetings and Salutations,

This is Jack here, back to leading as normal and as full a life as I can while undergoing the treatments that I have to go through that will bring me back to full health and a future filled with more adventures and explorations, ideas and creations, friends and follies. So stay tuned.

As you probably learned from the last newsletter sent out by my webmaster Mike Quigley, I’ve been diagnosed with small cell lung cancer and also what is called superior vena cava syndrome. I was in the VA hospital for several weeks but am now home as an outpatient. So far the treatments have been going very well, better than expected actually. I just finished a second round of chemo last week (two more to go) as well as my first radiation treatments (only 33 more to go). As you can guess these treatments are a little tiring but on the whole not so bad as you might think. I’m in pretty good spirits, experiencing no real difficulties (except for a radical change in my sense of smell and in my taste buds which makes a lot of food taste just awful–but this will pass as the weeks go on). I just try to live each day as best I can and to be thankful for all that is good in my life.

Hundreds of emails, get-well cards, and telephone calls have come in within the past few weeks, from all over the world, from friends and strangers alike, and although I’d love to respond to each one, it’d be a bit difficult right now but I’d like to thank everyone who wrote or called. I appreciate your thoughts and concern much more than you can know, than I can tell. It means the world to me to know that people care; they really do. And I do, too. God bless you all.

Stripers on the move!

It’s a rainy, windy, all-around dreary day today here in Winthrop, a poor day for fishing but an ideal one for catching up a bit with my blogging. So here goes.

The past few weeks have been among the best of the year for striper fishing in the Boston/Winthrop/Revere Beach area. In fact, in many ways some might say that it’s been the best in recent memory, at least where large stripers are concerned.

While bopping around Boston Harbor and nearby waters in my friend Mel Harris’ 21′ foot Eastern, I’ve seen enormous schools of very large (12″-14″ almost two-pound) pogies, the water absolutely black with them in places. And under these schools are some amazingly large bass! I’ve seen (but haven’t caught myself) more large bass in the past week than I can recall seeing in many years, with many in the thirty to forty pound range. There have also been many large bluefish in the inner harbor as well, some up to twenty pounds. Continue reading “Stripers on the move!”

Striper slow-down in September?

As many anglers can attest, the striper fishing has been very slow for the past month in the Boston Harbor area and in many other areas as well. While the numbers are way down, the average size of the stripers caught is much larger than I’ve seen in quite some time, with twenty-to-thirty pounders not uncommon, and a few in the forty-to-fifty pound range. Most of these fish, however are being caught by baitfishermen using live pogies or chunk mackerel; flyfishermen are usually getting skunked.

I don’t know why the smaller fish are not around in their usual numbers. There are lots of theories but nothing definitive. Whatever the reason, it’s certainly not for any lack of baitfish. The harbor and nearby shorelines are simply loaded with baitfish, large pogies mostly, with silversides and herring in the mix as well. I went fishing yesterday (Sept. 11) and cruised all around the harbor looking for fish. I found large (12″-14″) pogies by the tens of thousands off Spectacle Island and also around the Deer Island Flats. Sometimes the water was black with them but on only one occasion did I observe anything feeding on them–two, possibly three stripers, and the two I saw were very large, maybe thirty pounds or so. They crashed into the school once, right in the middle of the pack, but never showed again. Most likely there were other stripers lying well beneath the school but I’m not a big fan of deep-fishing for stripers, especially in a wind and choppy water and with a zillion large and tasty baitfish readily available, so I didn’t bother trying to catch one but turned my attention instead to the pogies themselves, staying with the school just to observe them–fascinating–and even try to catch one on a fly, just for the fun of it. Continue reading “Striper slow-down in September?”

New book in the works

If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been blogging more frequently, wonder no more. I’ve been simply too busy: filling orders, conducting classes, traveling, writing, photographing, fishing, and–though I didn’t know it at the time–doing research for a new book. At the end of each day, despite my best intentions to write up a newsletter or even a blog, I was simply too tired to do anything more than flop into bed and dream about the day to come.

Some of my regular newsletter and blog readers may recall that back in May I began to re-read my old fishing diaries, some going back to 1958, and to re-visit some of the streams and ponds and lakes that I knew and loved so well when I was young. Well, these nostalgic visitations became a bit of an obsession with me. And a revelation as well.

Fifty years is a long time and in that time many changes naturally occur, some for the worse, some for the better , some hardly noticeable. And so it was with some of the places I re-visited fifty years or so later. I found out, for example,that Fish Brook in Topsfield, one of my favorite small streams in 1958, is now only a shadowy trickle of its former self, all silted in and brush-grown and really unfishable over much of its rather short length. Same with Stony Brook in Weston, which I revisited just the other day. I almost couldn’t find it, it was so overgrown with brush in the stretches I used to fish and its water volume seemed to be about half what it was then, just a trickle; the meadow stretch where on June 5, 1959 I caught a beautiful rainbow trout on a Queen of the Waters wet fly now abuts a subdivision. Continue reading “New book in the works”

Fishing report: August 3-August 14

This past week has seen some very strange weather, unpredictable to say the least. Lots of sun, lots of clouds, lots of rain, lots of thunder and lightning. High water, low water; cold water and warm. The weather seemed to change hourly and it was very difficult to plan any fishing activities more than a few hours ahead. Come to think of it, most of the past month has been like this, most of the summer, really. But, hey, it’s New England and, like it or not, the weather’s supposed to be like this. Nothing to do but grin and bear it, do what you can, and soldier on.

Sunday, August 3, Dave Skok and Scott Wessels of the Bear’s Den down in Taunton went on an overnight camping trip to Bumpkin Island. We had intended on leaving early in the afternoon but had to sit out a thunderstorm for a few hours before we could launch the canoes and kayaks from Hull and paddle over to the island. Once launched, we fished our way over the mussel beds and the gravel bar but caught nothing despite a favorable tide and low wind. This area, deep inside Hull Harbor, had been very good to me over the years, a fantastic place, really, but over the past two years, the storms had dramatically altered the structure, covered the mussel beds over with mud, and the area wasn’t nearly as inviting as it used to be. There was baitfish aplenty in the area but no fish feeding on them, none that I could see at any rate. Continue reading “Fishing report: August 3-August 14”

Striper fishing getting hotter!

It’s been a hot week, for both man and stripers. Despite rather weak tides(plus one foot and up low tides mostly) the fishing has been quite good in the Boston Harbor area, especially the Inner Harbor along the Winthrop/ Deer Island shore and on the flats near the airport.

I’ve been avoiding mid-day fishing and sticking to late afternoon/early evening hours, cooler and more comfortable and certainly more active, with low tides occuring in the latter part of the day/early evening. Luckily the winds have been lower than in the past few weeks and that has certainly helped. There are a lot of baitfish around right now, mostly pogies, some herring and small mackerel, but I haven’t seen much surface action when I’ve gone looking for it. Despite this I’ve been fishing Gurglers on the surface whenever the water’s surface has been calm and have been having some fantastic fishing, both in terms of numbers and size, although these have varied from place to place and tide to tide. For instance, on Wednesday, fishing from a boat near the airport, all of the fish were in the 32″-34″ range, with one fish I estimated at about 40″ although I never landed it. On Friday, fishing the same area the fish averaged about 23″-25″ with only one bigger one in the mix. On Wednesday the action was slower but the fish bigger; on Friday the action faster but the fish smaller. On Thursday I fished from shore along the inside of Deer Island in the evening and picked up six within about an hour and half, again all on Gurglers, nothing larger than 23″ though but lots of fun. Continue reading “Striper fishing getting hotter!”

Striper fishing picks up!

five stripers

After several really slow weeks, the striper fishing seems to be picking up, especially in theInner Harbor. This is what other anglers have been telling me and it seems to be so from my ownexperience today.

This evening (starting around 6 pm) I went out for a few hours to fish some of the Inner Harbor water that I hadn’t fished much recently. The wind was way down and the surface as calm as could be. Ideal for fishing a Gurglerand that is what I tied on and stayed with until it got dark.

The tide was relatively high (but soon to drop) and I fished fairly close to shore, choosing places where the wading was pleasant and where there was some structure or eel grass close in. My first stop was Donovan Beach in Winthrop, where I picked up four stripers, all between 24″ and 26″. Next stop was around the corner in Belle Isle Creek, where I picked up some more. Then, just to sample a few different places, it was on to Bayswater Road (near Strawberry Fields) in East Boston, where I picked up five more, all about the same size–24″-26″. I quit around dark, when the bugs began to “bug” me. All in all it was great fishing for a few hours. And I can’t help but think that it’s going to get better and better now that the weather seems to be settling down.

Fireworks on the Fourth

fireworks Catching up on my blog-writing tonight. Somehow the time just goes by so quickly!

I spent the Fourth of July weekend rather quietly, catching up on my tying for the most part and workingon Striper Strategies (which I hope to have ready fairly soon) until my fingers and eyes got tired. On the Fourthitself–after finishing several tying orders–I thought I’d reward myself with a little fishing–and exploring.

The ocean was rather roiled up after all the rain we’d been having so I headed up Route 1 in the late afternoon to check out two ponds in Saugus (a nearby town) that I had never fished. In fact, I didn’t even know where they were but Mapquest helped me out there and in about half an hour I reached the first pond, Pranker’s Pond, whichI walked into from the road. Pranker’s is a lovely little pond and according to a man I met there quite a good bass pond; what he didn’t tell me was that it was for Saugus residents only (in fact there was a sign on the path that I hadn’t noticed on the way in). Well, so much for Pranker’s Pond. The other pond was Hawkes Pond, justa few miles away. This too turned out to be a really beautiful but much larger pond, very fishy looking. Only trouble was it was part of a reservoir system; No Fishing/No Trespassing signs were everywhere.

It was now closing in on seven o’clock and I still hadn’t wet a line. What to do? I remembered a pond in the town of Lynnfield, only a few miles away, Pillings Pond. I had never fished this before but I had heard good reports and it seemed as good a bet as any in the little time I had left before dark.

I found my way to the pond and parked at a small parking area on Summer Street and launched my belly boat around 7.30 pm. The air temperature was now about 70 degrees, quite a drop from earlier in the day and there was no wind, the surface as calm as could be. The pond had recently been treated with weed-killer and there were lots of dead and dying weed in close to shore but I managed to kick my way through most of it and get out where the water was clearer and where it would be easier to fish a surface fly. Continue reading “Fireworks on the Fourth”

From my fishing log: May 17 – June 8

diary Despite my best intentions, I’ve been a bit remiss in my blog entries lately. May was an exceptionally busy month for fly orders and I spent a lot of my days tying up a storm and rewarding myself at the end of the day with a few hours of fishing whenever the weather allowed it (it was a very windy, cold month of May and early June wasn’t much better). And at the end of each day I was often much too tired to sit down at the computer and think of something interesting to write about. I did, however, take the time to keep my fishing log up-to-date and tonight–after a great day of striper fishing in the inner harbor–the thought occurred to me that this fishing log might be of interest to some of my readers. And here it is: my log (somewhat abbreviated) for the past three weeks. Hope you find it interesting.

Saturday, May 17

Sunny but very windy and cool. Decided not to fish for stripers but to fish for largemouth bass.
As part of my plan to add to my range of fishing knowledge one new fishing spot a week I drove to Brooks Pond in Medford, located on the Brooks Estate. A very pretty pond with lots of trees lining the banks and scattered lily pads here and there. Very bassy. It was lots of fun but difficult to wade; much of the shoreline is littered with deadfall which makes for slow going. I caught numerous bluegills and some bass, mostly small, around half a pound. Made a note to return here with a belly boat some day. Around 7.30 pm went to Mystic Lake (middle). Saw fish rising offshore but only caught one small bass before dark. Saw one larger fish break near shore but couldn’t get to it. I’ll have to return someday soon and explore these lakes further. Continue reading “From my fishing log: May 17 – June 8”

Jack Gartside featured in Sports Illustrated

A Blast from the Past!

Sports Illustrated magazine has recently archived some of their past articles and my friend and webmaster Mike Quigley found an article written about me back in 1982. It doesn’t have any photos but still makes for interesting reading. Some of you may remember it but for those of you have never read it here’s a link:

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1125908/index.htm