the Bight: Vol. 1 | Issue 1

the Bight : A Journal for the Saltwater Angler
This bi-annual publication has "limited advertising—maximum content". Its well crafted articles and photographs by fishermen for fishermen. A special thanks to Scott Hulet for connecting me with Brandon Hayward and giving me an opportunity to be apart of a great publication. 

I got to illustrate, design and layout an interesting Information Graphic on Swordfishing. I saved all my preliminary iterations and documented the process from hand sketches to final computer layouts. It was a great experience to have creative freedom and be able to work with passionate people on this project. Go out and support this great magazine!

Magazine Cost: $15
http://thebightjournal.com/

Exploration Studies: Pencil Sketches, Xylol xerox transfers, watercolor pencils, computer illustrator graphic translations
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EXPERIMENTS IN THE LAB

Experimenting with some new hybrid lures. These limited edition hand tied lures are half fly and half swimjig. Combining a wide variety of materials from buck tail, krystal flash, pearl chenille, sili legs, saddle hackel, barred zonkers. Still in the field test mode tying a bunch of colors and styles. So far the root beer and chartreuse colorways have been producing good results with local bay and kelp dwelling bass. 

Colorways: Root Beer, Kelp Crab, Red Crab, Chartreuse Flash, Whiteout Squid, Blackout
Weights: 1/4oz, 3/8oz, 1/2oz. 3/4oz, 1oz.

Test Tube Rack: Custom handmade wooden test tube rack

~photos and graphic images copyright Bows & Arrows 2015

 

 

 

 

Underwater Image Making

Lightly Salted

Pacific Coast Skamping* Trip

Winter along the Gold Coast ~ San Diego • Malibu • Ventura • Santa Barbara • Cayucos • Morro Bay • Big Sur • Santa Cruz • Half Moon Bay • Pacifica • San Francisco

Southern California towns blur in my rear view as my eyes fixate on One North snaking her way along side the Pacific Ocean. Strong on shore winds and heavy winter swell slam into the sea wall spraying a salt mist into the air. My Jeep breathes the lightly salted air deep as she down shifts anticipating another switch back section along the edge of a steep Big Sur cliff.  I burn passed all the roadside sunset, Asshole Adams*, selfie photographers to find a good campsite for the night.

To sleep deep in the Redwood Forrest under heavy canopy among the stars, to smell like campfire all day long, to bathe in the ocean, to sweat the beer out at the next skatepark, to find your next campsite in the pitch black, then wake up at first light to the sound of surf cracking the cobble stone beach break. 

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> Graphics: Die Cut letterforms and graphic icon collage
> Swap Meet: 1960's Chevron Map and Texaco Gasoline Economy Calculator

> Trip Glossary:

*skamp • ing  /s, kamp,ing/ (noun) 

 The activity of skating and camping every night on an extended road trip.

*asshole • adams / 'as,hol a,dums/ (noun vulgar slang)

A photography reference to Ansel Adams in which a irritating person takes to long  and many photos making set friends wait for them impatiently. 

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Heightened Senses

I spent twenty two long seasons freezing in the north east and my blood has definitely thinned out since residing in Southern California for the last 16+ years. I equate California weather to the Bill Murray movie "Groundhog Day". 1  The same day and weather keeps repeating over and over. California is beautiful but the sameness, uniformity and lack of seasonal changes wears on my psyche. In the Northeast the weather and environment is more harsh and it has a tendency to shape your personality and attitude towards life. In essence all the pretense has been beaten out of you and people say what they mean. 

Late Fall : : T h a n k s g i v i n g   W e e k

I haven't showered in two days because I am staying at my beach house in south Jersey and we only have an outside shower. The water is currently turned off so the pipes don't freeze over night. The high for today should reach 32 degrees so I go outside and crawl under the house and turn on the water to the shower. I let the hot water warm up for a minute then run outside in my towel and jump in. All is good until a gust of wind blows frigid air under the door. Thats my queue to move inside. Well I am definitely awake now no coffee needed. I layer on all the clothes that I packed, pull up my waiters, grab my rod and headed up the street to the ocean.

I follow my shadow down towards the waters edge and slip waist deep into the Atlantic. The pressure of the cold surf vacuum sucks my waiters around my legs as I make my first cast. A north west wind blows cold air into my lungs waking me from a long three month slumber. The cold is invigorating spiking all my senses into the red.

My dad and I pace back and forth from Jetty to Jetty hoping to cross paths with migratory cow striped bass. I seemed to have missed that window this season but still have fun with light tackle and finesse fishing for smaller resident stripers. The beach is desolate this time of year except for some 4x4 tracks and lonely seagull footprints along the waters edge. As the sun sets I catch my first fish but my hands are completely numb and I fumble the bass in the wash. Its dorsal fin pricks my hand as I release her back into the wild and my blood flows out with the tide. As night falls we call it and walk back towards our small cedar shake bungalow following plumes of smoke rising from distant fireplaces. The smell of firewood trigger nostalgic thoughts of fall in my brain. Its short lived though, as my phone vibrates in my chest pocket bringing me back to reality. 5:43pm…I'm late.

1. Groundhog Day    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE8nNUASSCo

Slack Tide

"There is a moment sailors call Slack Tide, when the tide is neither coming in nor going out, perfectly still. A moment frozen in time when the world seems to stop and briefly rest. Everything is quiet, peaceful, tranquil, undisturbed." With no water moving the fish stop biting and I put down my rod and soak in my surroundings. This brief window allows me to eat my lunch and visually capture the kelp forrest that I am now motionlessly floating in. The suns warm glow illuminates kelp stringers as baitfish weave through her maze. 

This pause in time is short lived and as the tide and wind pick up its serene veil is lifted. I pitch a swimbait in heavy cover anticipating the next strike that will jolt me out of my meditative state.

Quiet Waters

Thick forests of Black Pine creep ever so close to the oceans edge where nature is stunted by harsh salt encrusted winds eroding them over wind swept dunes like mini bonsai trees. My parents property is a stone throw away from a salt water canal that runs through this small east coast maritime town like its lifeblood. All you have to do is walk out the side door and and a few footsteps away lies several private properties and neighbors docks to fish from. 

This town doesn't receive the heavy pressure of surf crazed striper fishermen. You can really get lost in pitch black nights hunting for bass as they tail slap and boil up along the banks of this canals fast moving currents. The fish are not pressured here but there is so much bait fish in the water that the bass become ultra selective. Add on top that the window when they feed is time sensitive from 15 minutes before sunset to and hour after dark it makes this some of the most technically challenging fishing I have ever done. All night you can hear hundreds of bass slapping along the banks. You see a tail swirl and try casting blindly as close along the bank as you can without snagging a low lying bush. If you hook into a striped bass the fish actually has a huge advantage on you, the ripping current. They instinctively swim out deep into the middle of the canal and if your drag is too tight they pop you off and too loose you will get spooled. I must of lost five or six nice fish before I figured out the correct drag.  Here are a few compiled clips from my Summer 2014 trip.

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