Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Zachary Jones – Karma Chameleon (Culture Club cover)

Here’s an acoustic version of this new wave classic. I recorded it and it put Betsy to sleep quite literally, so I suppose it has a lullaby feel to it.

Quite different from the original, but I like it a lot.

Today after work, Betsy and I went out seining, hoping to catch a nice batch of shrimp. On our first drag, we pulled in over 75 shrimp and two whiting fish, so we were very happy.

Then we decided to pull in a different spot and direction. We starting dragging it in, and nearly right away a big huge fish starting going crazy in the net. We both got scared, because we thought it was a shark (which we’ve caught before off of this particular beach). It put up a little fight, but I screamed out to Betsy, “Stay calm! We’ll just stay ahead of it. If we just keep dragging, we’ll be ahead of it. It’s caught in the net” and other random encouragements (just as much for myself as for her!) So, we dragged what we later described as “faster than we’ve ever dragged before” and pull this massive sea creature up onto the beach. It wasn’t a shark; Betsy knew what it was, saying, “It’s a gar!”

I say sea creature because this thing is practically prehistoric in nature. It was flipping all around on the beach. Betsy was like, “I don’t think this is going to fit in the bucket!” We weren’t really sure what to do! We stalled by getting all the shrimp from the net (yes, we pulled in a nice bit of shrimp on that drag too), but we were really just trying to think to give ourselves time to figure out what to do with this thing.

Gar video

Finally we decided to drag the net farther up the beach so that it wouldn’t be so close to the water. Then we decided we needed to knock it on the head of something. We bonked it with a big stick, but it didn’t do anything at all! I wondered why, so I touched it through the net. This fish might as well be a freakin Stegosaurus for as hard of scales as it has. It felt like you would imagine a crocodile would feel. And it had a really long snout, as you can see, with razor sharp teeth.

We finally thought to just slide it in the bucket, snout down. It flipped around a bit, but we threw my shirt over it and drove our catch home. Betsy immediately hopped on the interwebs (aren’t they great?) and searced Wikipedia for Gar. Then she started searching the boards for what we were to do with this thing.

The boards she found kept describing the meat as “tastes like lobster”, but also stated, “You need a skill saw or hatchet to be able to get to it.” No joke, a skill saw. That’s a quote. Or a hatchet.

I decided to take it outside and dump it on the driveway. I thought, “If this thing needs a hatchet, we better do it outside!” I took it out and put in on the driveway and then put the shrimp back in the bucket. Going out, I was surprised to find that thing thing was still alive! I was like, “What in the world!?” Furthermore, I look at it, and it looks like it is breathing!

I go back in and read Wikipedia again:

Gar bodies are elongated, heavily armored with ganoid scales, and fronted by similarly elongated jaws filled with long sharp teeth. Their tails are heterocercal, and the dorsal fins are close to the tail. As their vascularised swim bladders can function as lungs, most gar surface periodically to take a gulp of air, doing so more frequently in stagnant or warm water when the concentration of oxygen in the water is low. As a result, they are extremely hardy and able to tolerate conditions that would kill most other fish.

The thing can breathe air. That is insane. Anyway, so we read on the boards what to do with it next. Let it suffice to say that the guy who said that you need a skill saw was not exaggerating. Or… a hatchet.

I will say this, that this beast is amazing. Absolutely amazing. The scales on it are like a tank. Then on top of it, it can freakin breathe air and it’s a fish.

We tried to do it civilized, I swear. Those who know me, know that I have never really fished. I love to shrimp and crab, but I had stayed away from fishing. But, I also have a very strong principle that you don’t just kill something if you’re not going to eat it. So, I did what I had to do, which involved hacking through this thing with an ax as I were chopping wood. No joke. Have I said that this thing is a tank?! My first timid swing just bounced off. It didn’t even do anything to it unless you put all your force behind it.

Soon I sent Betsy inside, saying, “We can’t forget about the shrimp and the other two fish.” So she went in a prepared them up for freezing.

Then a guy on a golf cart and his kid drives by. There I am swinging a hatchet, halfway covered in blood. He says, “Is that a fish?!” I say, “Yes, but I’m kinda in the middle of cleaning it, so don’t come over if you don’t want to be traumatized.” He pulls up with his kid and is like, “What is it?” We tell him it is a Gar. He says, “That is huge…But don’t you need a knife?” I laughed out loud. I said, “Umm…if you’d like to try a knife on this, you’re happy to try, but we’ve already been through that. This thing is a tank.” He came over and touched it and was like, “Wow, it feels like a crocodile.” His kid looked scared.

After following the instructions from the Internet, I finally managed to get the tank off of it only to reveal…two massive filets of perfect fish meat! I mean, again, I’m not even a fisher. But this was a sight. It was so protected (as I think you get by now) that it was just perfect meat. I also read that it has no natural predators and only eats other live fish, so it is really clean meat.

Then Betsy took the two filets, got a recipe off the Internet, which also described it as tasting like lobster, boiled it up in some cajun boil, melted some butter, made up a Caesar salad and we ate it up! Guess what?! Tastes like lobster! And we ate plenty of it dipped in melty butter. And we deserved it.

Betsy just got this coupon for a 16 oz. new Oreo Cookie Jar blizzard, so off we went to get one at our local DQ. We pull up and it goes like this:

DQ guy: May I take your order?
Betsy: I would like a 16 oz. Cookie Jar blizzard. I have a coupon. I would also like an M&M blizzard, medium.
DQ guy: An M&M blizzard. Would you like anything else?
Betsy: Yes! A 16 oz. Oreo Cookie Jar blizzard.
DQ guy: [silence]
DQ guy: What size?
Betsy: 16 oz.
DQ guy: [silence]
DQ guy: Yes?
Betsy: Yes??
DQ guy: Would you like anything else?
Betsy: No.
DQ guy: That will be $27.53, pull around.
Zachary: 27.53?! You’ve got to be joking. We ordered a two blizzards and one with a coupon!! There must be some mistake.
DQ guy: [silence]
Betsy: Let’s just go.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Zachary Jones – Natural Ghost (Ryan Adams cover)

Thanks Dad for teaching me that D chord when I thought it was impossible. You rock!

Here is a Ryan Adams track. Yesterday I played guitar and wasn’t feeling it. Today I returned to the Ryan Adam catalog and immediately felt good.

On an unrelated note: Underwater rocks, 1. Zachary’s foot, 0.

Seining has become our favorite hobby. We go whenever we can, even mid-week after work when we have enough energy. Two weeks ago, I got home from work, we went out to the beach, caught two fish (a seabass and a sheepshead) and a few dozen shrimp and then ate them for dinner! That was cool.

Lately, the shrimp have been running even more because the season is starting. The water is getting colder too.

Here’s a compilation of some pics we’ve taken in the past month. We usually can’t take any pictures because Bets and I are both hard at work pulling the seine, but on Betsy’s Dad’s last visit, we had the chance to take a few pictures. Plus, last week we caught a 2-foot Spanish mackerel right off of our beach with the net while shrimping, so we had to take some pics of that. I like catching fish with the net because there are no hooks involved.

We don’t have any pictures of the shrimp, but we’ve caught so many, it is insane! Forget Jekyll; they are way better and cleaner right off of our beach. We’ve started freezing them in hefty meal-size bags. Our freezer currently is packed with 10 bags of them.

Yesterday was a banner day for shrimping, in fact. We broke our record for most shrimp pulled in on one drag (which previously was 83). We pulled in 175 on only one drag! It was a tough drag, but it was definitely worth it!

Before moving here, I never thought I’d be seining, but it is great. We have so much food from this net that it definitely has paid off. The old adage, give a man a shrimp vs teach a man to shrimp, I guess. The shrimp alone would cost $10 a pound. Then the occasional fish that wanders into the net too. By the way, thanks Mom and Dad for that fish griller thingy. It has come in handy.