USA, Portland, ocean

Well, now I've got something to write about ocean fishing.

In the morning we went to a pier, right in the city, to catch
bait – Atlantic mackerel (they call it mackerel). The two of us caught about 70
mackerel in an hour. The fish are roughly 20-30 cm long. They're caught pretty much like herring – you cast a rig
with 6-10 hooks and start reeling it in with little jerks. Ready-made hooks
are sold in the shop – they've got a bead tied on and something like a feather, but
made of plastic. You can also catch them on a regular hook baited with their own meat. After
we'd collected the mackerel, we moved to another spot – also in the city, there's a bridge over the bay, and under that
bridge is where we sat down. We sat for 2 hours, caught nothing and went home. There are
some details here you have to keep in mind – since this is the ocean,
there's high tide and low tide. Let me tell you, the differences are really big,
when the water goes out in the bay you can see the bottom in places, and from various landmarks like
the base of the bridge, the pier pilings, the shore, you realize
the water has dropped 4-5 meters. The fish move during the incoming and outgoing tide, i.e.
the tide has started coming in, there's little water, the fish aren't moving. The incoming tide lasts about 6 hours. 1.5-2
hours after the tide starts coming in, you need to head out fishing. The fish will bite in
the window from 1.5-2 hours after the start of the incoming tide until 1.5-2 hours before the end of the incoming tide,
i.e. it turns out you can sit for about 2-3 hours. But that's what they say, in
practice, for example, it also happens that people catch fish at full high tide. After
full high tide, the outgoing tide starts almost immediately. The second time we
sat from 10 in the evening until 2.30 at night. Full high tide was at 00.30. I caught a Striper
at 10.30 – 2 hours before the end of the incoming tide. Striper – Striped Bass, aka Striped Perch, aka American Sea Bass. I caught a specimen of 69
centimeters, 27 inches. Unfortunately there were no scales,
so I couldn't weigh it. They've got limits here on the size of this fish and
the number. Fish above 26 and up to 32 inches can't be kept, but...

You can only keep 1 fish. If you take a second one, and they catch you
at it – they'll confiscate all your gear and fine you 1.000 bucks! Stripers are caught on
mackerel. You can use it live, or you can use its meat – you cut the mackerel into 2 pieces and
put it on a big hook. Since our fish were already dead, we
fished with the meat. Instead of mono – braid, then a sinker, then a 50 cm leader and at
the end a big hook. People here catch Stripers of 40 inches – about 1
meter long. Well, that's how it is... I also want to show
you the local lobsters – yesterday we bought one, 1.5 kilos, boiled it and with
a bit of beer... Mmmmmm...