Image from Danbooru

Gone fishing!

A few nights ago, I had pasta. Was tasty. The cheese melted into a clump though. Not that I cared much. The melted cheese is good too.

Mmm. Mint chocolate is soo goood. It's not as good as the Durian & Green Tea gelato I had yesterday. Just to make it clear, it was one scoop of Durian gelato and one scoop of Green Tea gelato.

Jericho Beach this morning. It was cloudy, and a bit chilly, but at least it wasn't raining. Went up the beach to do some Shiner fishing. Do East Cost people do fishing? Some of the Torontorians I know were surprised. Andrew specifically. He was a bit douchey about it. Unfortunately, that's pretty much the image of East Coasters that us West Coasters have. Douchey.

 The story behind this wheel is pretty dark. A boat long ago ran aground near this location. This was before cellphones and stuff. The sailors left the boat trying to find their way to society, but couldn't. They eventually found their way back to the boat, where they died. The wheel is in memory of those sailors. I kid. The wheel is probably just for kids to play with.

A nice scenery shot of Downtown Vancouver, with wind surfers in the foreground. Jericho beach is a popular location for kayaking, sailing and windsurfing.

A shot of North Vancouver. Capilano University is there somewhere. I can't quite point it out though, so I'll just say it's over there. Yes, there. No, not there. Yeah.

The floor of the pier we were on. Putting things down made me worry, as I feared things falling between the boards. 

Fishing for shiners off the pier. You don't need rods to catch these buggers.

All you need is some bait, some fishing line, and hooks. When you feel a tug, you pull it in. Was pretty scary, even for those who don't have acrophobia. As you can see in the third picture (right), we pretty much just hung off the side of the pier. In the shots are my cousins visiting from Texas.

Hooking up the bait on the hooks. We used small pieces of shrimp. In the photo is my oldest cousin's boyfriend, Chris. He and my older cousin did much of the dirty work: unhooking the fish, setting up the bait, and other things like that.

Shiners are just a general term that encompasses small silvery fish. They make good bait for larger fish, like trout, because they're shiny. If you use live bait, they also struggle, making them even more attractive.

They're caught simply like that. No skill is really required, as even my sister caught two of them. There was a line with a hook that was dubbed 'That Hook', as it could catch fish without baits. They wouldn't be pretty catches though. One fish had the hook go through it's throat, killing it almost instantly. Another had the hook pull it's eye out. Every fish caught with that hook bled, and probably didn't last long. If you're wondering, I didn't catch anything. I was happy enough to get nice shots on the camera. My lines never got anything, and while I was pulling it in, the wind got it caught on one of the poles supporting the pier, and I lost my hook. After that I stopped fishing.

- Edgar Allan Poe, from The Raven (1845)

That's a crow, not a Raven, just in case someone decided to call me out on incorrectness. 

I went kayaking here on Jericho a few years ago on a school field trip. The scenery here was very nostalgic. I think we're going kayaking here later in the week. Will remember to bring the camera for sure.

Behind the pier. Lots and lots of big rocks. 

Those big rocks also extend below the pier. Diving in would result in a crimson rose blossoming on the surface. You might have a bit of a headache too.

One of the other people fishing for shiners caught this. Not sure what kind of fish this is though. From the looks of it though, it seems to be an algae eater, similar to the ones you have in aquariums to clean algae off the glass and other surfaces. 

A fun focus shot. You'll probably need to enlarge the image to see what's there. 

 My pocket knife was used to cut up the bait. The scissors and large knife was used. Left overs of shrimp were caked onto the blades. Wasn't a fun sight. Dunked it in a bucket of boiling water to disinfect it before cleaning the whole thing.

We were all beating around the bush, quite literally. Hunting for an elusive wild beach rabbit.

They're about this size, and in various colours. This one was a black rabbit. Adorable, isn't it? Tried to catch it, but they're really fast. Another person spotted an orange rabbit. I didn't catch a glimpse of that one though.

Mussels and barnacles attach themselves to all the rocks and surfaces under the pier. If you could wrench these guys off the rocks, I reckon you could make yourself one mighty mussel soup. Or maybe not. 

A nice shot. The dark electricity pole against the grey sky has a rather dark, dramatic feel to it, doesn't it?

Picked up some food at Siegel's Bagels on our way back to the restaurant. They've got the best bagels in Vancouver. My cousin got Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer. You don't see these 'specialty' pops in many stores. 

Remember all those shiners in the bucket? Here's what they ended up as. We probably should've kept them as bait for larger fish because they apparently didn't taste very good.