Bunny Clark Fishing Update
Written & Edited by Tim Tower
Sunday, November 26, 2023, 4:30 AM EST
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The wind continued to blow out of the north. At daylight, the northerly wind was just five knots, maybe less. Later, it might have been a bit more but not much more. After noon, we had very little wind at all. In fact, at noon, there was no wind. For the afternoon, there was just enough wind to be detectable out of the northwest. The ocean along the shore was calm with a light wind ruffled surface (no slick calm patches). The visibility remained excellent all day. The sky was nearly cloudless all day. The air temperature was cool with a noticed high of 41°F. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 43°F (with a low of 31°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 40°F (with a low of 17°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 41°F (with a low of 21°F).
I hung around the house all day while Deb drove off to see one of my nephew's football games in Massachusetts. He's a damn good little receiver at eleven years old and has caught many touchdown passes this season. Their team was undefeated this season. In today's game they went into overtime and he caught the winning touchdown pass to have the team remain that way. I guess it was pretty exciting. I wish I had been there but I had much to catch up on at the office.
After I posted this update page, I went for a 6.5 mile walk/run (hills & rises) including running a mile and a half of the beach at a satisfactory 8:22 pace. This started off as back recovery therapy but has become something I enjoy. I used to go for a run and would not stop until I got to the end, despite the chance of pulling a hamstring or calf muscle. Now if I even feel like something is feeling a bit off, I stop and walk. It's allowed me to increase my running distance without getting injured. I was thinking of my good fishing mate, Greg Veprek, who has been through some health issues of his own lately. And I was thinking about how this might apply to him. We have yet to enter a 5K together after so many challenges in the past. When I got home to start my working day, Deb was getting ready to go to Massachusetts.
I spent the rest of the day at the computer working on the Guestletter. I am way ahead of any previous year. My plan is to stay that way so I can release this missive early in January along with the schedule and rates.
Gill was moping around the house all day wanting to do something. I wanted to get to a certain point in the Guestletter before I did anything else. So at 2:00 PM, I drove Gill to Ogunquit Beach to enjoy a perfect cloudless walk on the beach at nearly low tide under cobalt skies. There were many other people there with the same idea, with their dogs. As is the case with Gill, as soon as he is off leash (after the first 100 feet on the beach), he starts smelling around and leaving proof of his existence. And this is the way it goes all the way until we get to our destination. On the way back, it's all business. Walking, I can't keep up with him on the way back. It's like he believes he's smelled everything and now it's time to go home. We walked up to the first house in Moody, took a left and got on to the road leading to the footbridge that goes back on to the beach and then walked back to the beach parking lot. I took a picture of Gill looking back at me on the down ramp leading to the beach. It's as if he's saying; "Come on, buddy. Let's get moving here!". This digital image appears on the left. We walked and ran for almost three miles total. Gill was very tired after we got home. But I believe he was a happy dog.
I worked another two hours on the Guestletter before I gave up for the day.
At 9:30 AM, I joined a Webinar hosted by the New England Fishery Management Council. It was a meeting of the Groundfish Committee with the Groundfish Advisory Panel and the Recreational Advisory Panel, of which I hold a seat. We went over a lot of the groundfish species specifications and concentrated mostly on haddock, cod, white hake, halibut and redfish. We also touched on scallops and a few species of flounders. The meeting lasted until before 5:00 PM. I didn't really look at the time but I know it was after 4:00 PM.
At the same time I was coordinating getting a team down here from Lewiston to clean the fan hoods at both restaurants. I finally got a resolution during the last half hour of the meeting. So there were four times that I had an ear on the Council proceedings while talking on the phone about dates and times for hood and vent cleaning.
I did work a little bit on the newsletter in the early part of the morning and, at the same time, tried to coordinate a haul out time to no avail. That will come tomorrow.
By sunrise, the sky had cleared. The sky was clear for most of the rest of the day with some clouds on occasion. The visibility remained excellent throughout the day. There was no wind until after sunrise. Then the wind started to blow from the northwest. Wind speeds of about ten knots or a bit more were seen during the morning. By noon, the wind was diminishing again. And for a couple of hours there was no wind. The ocean along the shore was very calm. Before sunset, the northwest wind showed up again. This time the wind speed went from zero to ten knots and beyond. I saw wind speeds of twenty knots into the night. The air temperature warmed up during the day and with the sun. The highest air temperature that I saw in Perkins Cove was 45°F. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 49°F (with a low of 36°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 46°F (with a low of 26°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 44°F (with a low of 28°F).
I had a busy day organizing everything. The hood cleaners were supposed to show up at 8:00 AM but had problems at their shop. It wasn't until 4:00 PM that they were able to come down to the restaurant. I finally got a haul out date scheduled for the Bunny Clark. I had been going back and forth with that one for a while. Half the problems I have with these items is me; I don't schedule these things enough in advance to make it easy for me or the outfits I'm dealing with.
I had a medical issue I had to check out at the doctor's office. It was actually a ramification stemming from my crash in June. These are things you can never anticipate unless you were a doctor dealing with this all the time. And it surprised me a bit. Hopefully, this will be resolved. That took up almost three hours.
The rest of the day was spent working on the Guestletter. I worked on that into the night.
The morning today was mixed between visiting the restaurants and working in the office at home on the Guestletter. The afternoon, until 5:30 PM, was all Guestletter - except for an hour nap after I caught myself nodding off while reading some of the old Guestletters for inspiration. You can see how inspired I am with my own writing when I can't stay awake while reading them!
Interspaced between my time were business calls both to me and ones that I had to make during the day.
Today's part of the Guestletter focused on databases and tables made from them. I do this to see how landings of different fish species compare through the years. Some things were very good including the numbers of legal fish taken last year. However, of concern were the low numbers of wolffish caught during last year. Some of this was due to the fact that I wasn't taking the boat to areas where we catch more wolffish. But in 2022 the wolffish count was way down as well. Not nearly as bad as this year but definitly the lowest point in the Bunny Clark's history of catching them. Last year we did even worse on them. We only caught six wolffish last year! We don't target wolffish but we haven't targeted them for years because they are not legal to keep. I have ideas about why this is happening but I'm not convinced of these thoughts. The chart below shows the changes in the wolffish catch since 1996. I started recording the number of wolffish after 1995 when I realized that we weren't catching over 500 wolffish a year. I record every wolffish we catch. Should I be alarmed?
It was a beautiful day ashore today. The wind in Perkins Cove was light today. It blew hard overnight and in the morning out of the southwest or west southwest. By mid-morning there was hardly any wind at all. There was no wind in the afternoon. The sky was clear all day the visibility was excellent. The air temperature rose to a value of 63°F (the truck thermometer while driving around). In Newington, New Hampshire, where we see the closest match in high temperatures to Ogunquit, the air temperature reached a high of 60°F. I never did look at the thermometer at home. Suffice it to say, it was a very pleasant temperature day. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 63°F (with a low of 43°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 60°F (with a low of 25°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 58°F (with a low of 28°F).
Today was a mixture of working on the Guestletter, planning for tomorrow with the Bunny Clark haul-out, cleaning a room that is long overdue at the house, getting a procedure completed at the hospital and checking up at the restaurant. There was a lot of running around today. But it was beautiful outside, a great time to be outside.
I received a generous $100.00 donation sponsoring me in the Pan-Mass Challenge today. This donation was made in the form of an "eGift" through the PMC site. The donation was from Peter Allaire (MA), a regular patron who has fished with us for years on the Bunny Clark. He couldn't sail with us last season because he had a knee replacement. Hopefully, we will see him next season. Thanks, Peter, very much. This is very much appreciated.
At sunrise, I realized that there was fog offshore prohibiting me from seeing Boon Island earlier in the morning. It was actually hazy all day. There never was any fog along the shore. The sky was clear and sunny all morning and into the afternoon. Clouds crept in late and into the night. The visibility remained good to very good in haze. The wind blew out of the southwest at ten knot in the morning. Late morning saw southerly wind up to fifteen or more knots. The wind increased from the south to twenty-five knots with gusts to thirty knots. It seemed strongest after sunset but then dropped a bit around 9:00 PM. The highest air temperature that I saw was 62°F at 1:15 PM. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 66°F (with a low of 41°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 65°F (with a low of 24°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 57°F (with a low of 29°F).
The morning was spent in preparation to take the Bunny Clark to haul out at Safe Harbor Kittery Point, formerly Kittery Point Yacht Yard, formerly Dion's Yacht Yard (where the Bunny Clark was launched new in May of 1983). At 7:15 AM, Ieft Perkins Cove alone to make the trek along the shore, up the Piscataqua River and to Kittery Point. The wind was out of the southwest, as I mentioned above. Seas were about two feet in chops over a long sea swell that I didn't bother to measure. The air temperature was 42°F the whole way across. As soon as I got to the floats at Safe Harbor, there was zero wind (this is very protected from the southwest wind) and the air temperature had risen ten degrees.
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Once I got home I had two things I needed to complete along with last day of the week phone calls, etc. I had to get the Barnacle Billy's web cam up and running again (which I did) and I had to prepare for a business meeting that was going to take place at 3:00 PM.
Meanwhile, Ian, Danny DellaMonica and Tyler Carpenter went back to Safe Harbor to watch the Bunny Clark get hauled out and to clean the bottom before she went up on the hard for the weekend. Ian and I went back and forth with him texting pictures and talking about the condition of the hull, rudder, wheel, zincs, cutlass bearing, etc. Everything looked normal for a change! We will move the Bunny Clark to the barn on Monday. I have another doctor's appointment at 8:00 AM then so I will have to catch up to the boat later.
By 6:00 AM, it had started to rain. Lightly at first, it was pouring rain by 7:30 AM. The only good thing was that the air temperature was still in the lower 50s, mild for this time of year. It rained hard for a while (I lost track of the time that it did rain hard.) By mid morning the rain was light but constant. After noon, we had periods of no rain. Late in the afternoon saw no rain. The visibility ranged from good/very good to excellent by the end of the daylight hours. The sky stayed overcast all day. The air temperature went steadily down hill as the day progressed. The warmest air temperature that I saw was 56°F at 3:00 AM. The air temperature was 48°F just after noon. The wind blew out of the north northwest after 8:00 AM. Wind speeds were up to twenty knots at times. But it never blew as hard as I thought it would. But the wind never abated either, hovering around twenty knots the whole time. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 58°F (with a low of 35°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 55°F (with a low of 29°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 54°F (with a low of 28°F).
I did nothing that was business oriented today. I had a meeting focusing on health care programs at 8:00 AM. At 11:30 AM, I headed with my two sisters to a celebration of life for a friend of ours and a former Barnacle Billy's employee who passed suddenly at 58 years old. You never know. I never feel comfortable at these things. I just never feel comfortable at any group gathering. I was back home after 2:00 PM.
Too many friends have passed this year, all younger than I. Disturbing.
By sunrise, the wind was already blowing out of the west at almost fifteen knots. Ashore, the wind continued out of the west at almost twenty knots at times. This wind velocity continued throughout the day. Later in the afternoon I noticed that the wind was more west northwest. This wind direction with wind speeds of about fifteen knots or so continued on into the night. The visibility was excellent all day. The sky was clear with a bright sun. The air temperature reached a high of 49°F by 1:00 PM in Perkins Cove. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 53°F (with a low of 35°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 49°F (with a low of 19°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 48°F (with a low of 25°F).
At 7:00 AM, I had to open Barnacle Billy's so our plumber could winterize all the water pipes and completely drain the system. That was completed by later morning. I went down and locked up after he left.
At 10:00 AM, I arrived at South Berwick for the annual Thanksgiving South Berwick Food Pantry Ride. I used to do this ride every year. Last year I forgot completely about it. This year I was unable to ride because of my back injury. I usually bring a check from Barnacle Billy's to support their efforts for the less fortunate. Since I didn't bring a check last year, I doubled the amount and brought the check up before the ride just so I could say hello to everyone and wish them well. I was envious of those heading out on bikes. But that's all I would need; a crash putting me out again with who knows what kind of devastating injury. And, even if I didn't crash, I'm not sure I could sustain the wrath of Deb.
The rest of the day was spent working on the Guestletter and working down in the office at Barnacle Billy's, Etc. Both buildings are now cleaned up and ready for winter. I stopped work at 5:00 PM.
The day was nearly cloudless all day. In fact, I never did see a cloud all day. There could have been one when I wasn't looking. The visibility was excellent. Even when it was colder, this morning, it didn't feel like it was that cold out. It was probably just me. Actually, the highest air temperature that I saw was 40°F, only barely getting out of the 30s today. The wind blew out of the northwest up to twenty knots in the morning, backing off to about ten knots after noon. After sunset, the wind had backed into the north more with wind speeds increasing a bit with gusts to almost twenty knots again. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 40°F (with a low of 30°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 37°F (with a low of 18°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 38°F (with a low of 23°F).
After posting this report, I had to get ready to go to the doctor's to get my physical. I had blood work done last week. So I had everything I needed for him to see how I was doing physically. There were a few questions so I went for more bloodwork after I left for the doctor's office.
From there I went to "The Barn" where the Bunny Clark had just been placed. When I got there, Independant Boat Haulers were jinking the Bunny Clark around so they could put stands underneath to keep her in place. Ian Keniston and Tyler Carpenter were there at the Kittery yard to see the boat loaded and head over the road to her winter storage facility. Below is a shot of the Bunny Clark as she is being secured for the winter.
I spent the rest of the day working on Bunny Clark office stuff. Boring.
The air temperature dropped to 22°F by 6:30 AM. By 8:00 AM, it was back up to 25°F. The air temperature was slow to warm. Right around 2:00 PM, the air temperature came in at 39°F. But that was the highest air temperature that I saw today. The visibility was excellent all day. The sky was cloudless in the morning until noon. After noon, the clouds started to creep in. The sun was a hazy orb at 2:00 PM. The sky was completely overcast at 4:00 PM. Rain was expected later but the roads were still dry at 9:00 PM. The wind was light all morning, mostly from the north or some variation of that. The wind completely dropped out of the day between 11:30 AM or so to 2:00 PM. But I did notice a wind shift out of the east a little after noon. A southeast wind of about ten knots kicked in at sunset. Southeast winds increased to fifteen knots or more by 8:00 PM. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 42°F (with a low of 27°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 38°F (with a low of 12°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 39°F (with a low of 17°F).
I did much housekeeping today, actual housekeeping (cleaning out rooms) and getting business affairs in order. I worked on the Guestletter for two hours. But I had some work at the Cove to do as well. It wasn't the most enjoyable day but I did get a lot accomplished. I finished by 5:30 PM.
It was a miserable day ashore for weather. It rained hard all morning and blew hard out of the southeast all morning. It rained all afternoon as well but it wasn't the hard driving rain that we had in the morning. And I can't remember a southeaster that lasted so long. Southeasters never last longer than a day but it was a full twenty-four hours before this storm was over, despite the various wind changes before the end. It was a huge storm that stretched along the east coast of the United states past the Carolinas and moved so slowly, parallel, offshore. The next stop will be England where they name it and it continues on. The last big one in England, storm Debbie, pillaged the UK last week. The southeast wind was strongest about mid morning with wind gusts to forty knots. All morning the wind blew out of the southeast at a steady thirty-five knots. Seas at the offshore weather buoys were ranging from thirteen to fifteen feet every nine to eleven seconds. By noon, the wind had backed out of the northeast. Wind speeds had dropped to twenty-five to thirty knots. The early evening, after sunset, saw the wind backing out of the north. Wind speeds were still as strong. The rain was very intermittent after sunset, almost to the point that it had stopped. The visibility was fair all day. The highest air temperature that I saw was 49°F. It seemed that most of the day it was 48°F. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 53°F (with a low of 38°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 41°F (with a low of 32°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 47°F (with a low of 36°F).
I spent most of the day with accountants, lawyers and financial advisors. I was working, still, on settling my parents estate. I am the executor of the estate. Along with that, I have been keeping my brother and sisters apprised of every move I make, which takes time. This took most of my day.
The rest of the day was filled in with working on the Guestletter. I was able to fit in three hours there, which I was very happy with.
The hood cleaners showed up at Barnacle Billy's, Etc. They worked until 10:00 PM. I went down and checked a couple of times along with driving around on the other items of work. And I kept in contact with Eric Littlefield who was the manager overseeing the project. I offered to trade places with him but, as dedicated and as wonderful as he is, he wouldn't allow it. He knows more about that building than I do anyway. But that's beside the point.
The wind blew out of the northwest to west at fifteen knots, more or less, the whole day. The sky remained cloudless. The visibility was excellent. The air temperature stayed over 40°F from just after sunrise to sunset, the highest air temperature that I saw, in Wells, was 50°F. It was a beautiful day for Thanksgiving. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 52°F (with a low of 40°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 47°F (with a low of 35°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 51°F (with a low of 35°F).
I spent most of the morning working on the Guestletter. I was very happy to be able to work on it. The rest of the morning until 1:00 PM, I worked on cleaning the same room I have been cleaning (for an hour or two at a time) that I haven't cleaned for probably ten years. I know what you are thinking; "What was he doing all those years?" You may well ask! Some of that time was spent cycling. You know what else I was doing. But it's probably the cycling that kept me from some of the other things that I should have been doing. I had the cycling bug like a disease. And making new friends always encouraged me to keep doing it.
At 2:00 PM, we went to Wells/Moody to enjoy Thanksgiving with our best friends, Hez & Jo Haseltine. They put on a feast that you only read about in gourmet magazines. My sister, Meg, was there as well as her daughter and daughter's family and kids. And Hez's nephew, wife and one of their children were there. As far as I was concerned, it was an all star cast. I would love it if on every Thanksgiving we can have all that same crew together. It was a warm kind of fun that you do not find very often.
The sky was clear all day, cloudless for most of it. The visibility remained excellent. The wind hauled out of the west after sunrise and remained out of the west for most of the day. Later in the afternoon, the wind came around out of the northwest and blew out of the northwest for the rest of the time that I was up. The west wind blew at fifteen knots, more or less, all day. After sunset, the northwest wind picked up in velocity to well over twenty-five knots. The wind speed never dipped below twenty knots after sunset. The air temperature got up as high as 47°F, which surprised me as I thought it would be colder. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 49°F (with a low of 30°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 46°F (with a low of 22°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 45°F (with a low of 22°F).
Except for finishing up some banking stuff, the whole day was spent working on the Guestletter, specifically editing and placing digital images. I have eight more to go. I did have some business items that I resolved by phone. But that's a daily occurance every day of the week.
The air temperature dropped to 20°F by sunrise (19°F in Kennebunkport) and then rebounded. The sky was clear all day, cloudless all morning. The visibility was excellent. The wind blew out of the west northwest or northwest at fifteen to twenty knots in the early part of the morning. By late morning the wind had dropped significantly. By noon, there was no wind at all. The ocean along the shore was calm with wind ruffled spots and slick patches. After sunset, the wind backed out of the southwest and started to increased. The southwest wind blew up to about fifteen knots before I went to bed. The air temperature reached a high, that I saw, of 35°F. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 37°F (with a low of 27°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 37°F (with a low of 19°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 33°F (with a low of 18°F).
I worked on the Guestletter until I got to a point where I have to review the season in particular. This means that I have to read all the year's reports and take notes. It wouldn't be so bad if I were reading someone else's writing. To read mine all over again is boring. What I wrote about, however, is not. And it's always interesting to review the chronology of different situations. It's something that has to be done. But it does take a while.
The Guestletter took all day to complete. Aside from visiting a friend in Kennebunkport to watch the Manchester City/Liverpool game at 7:30 AM, the Guestletter was all that I did.
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