October 19th 2013: A Day of Fish

Today was a day of fish for me. It started off with me picking my friend up in Quincy, getting a donut breakfast consisting of Boston Creme, Lemon Creme, Jelly, Coconut, Butternut and Honey-Dipped donuts from Donut King at 151 Copeland Street in town. The donuts were pretty large, and pretty good too.

We headed to the town of Medfield, where we were to learn fishing for the first time within the Rocky Woods Reservation, with the help of an instructor from Charles River Charters.

The pond we were to fish from was the Chickering Pond, and the fall foliage today was beautiful.

Our instructor brought a total of 5 rods today,

and he started us off with smaller ones with tiny buoys on the end to help assist us in determining whether a fish is attracted to the bait.

 The bait itself was live earthworms.

I felt a pang of pity when I saw how he would rip the earthworms apart live, then impale them several times on the fish hook.

Oh well, all for the sake of a first experience at fishing. In order to cast out the line, one first reels the line in until a short length of line remains dangling.

The line near the reel is then held with the index finger,

before opening the reel to allow for casting.

The rod is then swung toward the water in one swift motion, either from the side or from behind, taking care not to hook any branch (which happened a few times during the course of the day) or person, releasing the line from the finger at the right time to propel the line a far distance.

Once the line lands in the water, it is time to play the waiting game.

With the buoy present, it is easy to tell when a fish comes knocking, as the buoy starts to move erratically on its own, moving from side to side or bobbing up and down. When the buoy is pulled under, it is time to reel the fish in.

Unfortunately, the fish are not that easily fooled, and most of the time they let go, or manage to eat the bait without getting hooked. At other times, other stuff like water plants get tangled up instead.

My friend was really lucky though. On his first few casts, he managed to land a largemouth bass.

To hold it, one must hold it by the lip, and I was unable to do it effectively as the fish struggled while I was holding it. Thankfully, it was a catch and release day, so we removed the hook from the fish,

then threw it back in the water.

Another fish we managed to catch today was the Redear Sunfish,

which tended to get caught on the hooks more seriously and had to be removed using pliers.

Unfortunately, one fish died today because it swallowed the hook too deeply.

As the time flew by quickly, the fishing became less successful, even as the day got warmer and the sun got brighter. This is because what we would instinctively think are the best conditions for fishing (sunny, clear skies and warm temperatures) are the exact opposite for fish to be active, them choosing to be easier to catch during dark, cold and stormy nights.

With not much more success, and our lines constantly getting caught in the plants, we decided to call it a day soon after, and proceeded to hike a little in Rocky Woods itself to find a few water bodies I missed out on the last time I was here, the path we took being shown below in pink.

Unfortunately, both June Pond and Cheney Pond were nothing much to look at.

From here, we headed back to Cambridge to have lunch at Fuji at Kendall, passing by the Head of the Charles Regatta going on on the Charles River.

The restaurant itself was pretty nice looking.

For food, my friend decided to get the Beef Teriyaki Bento Box (white rice, miso soup, salad, pork gyoza, shumai, veggie tempura, california maki),

while I got the Crispy Maki Lunch, consisting of a Cruncheese Roll (Smoked salmon, fresh mango, cream cheese, lightly fried katsu style with panko breading) and a Crispy Mango Shrimp Roll (mango, tobiko, spicy mayo, shrimp tempura, cucumber),

and also came with a side salad and miso soup.

The maki were pretty good, although the bento box was just alright.

The meal wasn't very filling though, so after dropping my friend off, I decided to grab some more food from Anthony's East Side Deli in the town of Arlington. The Honey of a Sandwich (honey glazed ham, honey glazed turkey, Swiss cheese and honey mustard)

and the Spicy Italian (Provolone, Mortadella, hot Capicolla, hot Soppressata) sandwiches

I got from the deli shop were just so-so though.

From here, I headed to my flameworking session with Fiamma Art Glass in the city of Newton, where the instructor was just about to start the lesson. A little bit of the basics was talked about, like the different types of flames, and how only glass of similar coefficients of expansion can be used together in flameworking.

We were to make a marble and a fish today,

much like those on display around the room.

Our tools were laid out in front of us,

 and clear borosilicate rods were cut for us

 and we were given colored rods as well.

After donning our safety glasses,

and being given our rods for the day,

It was time to make our marbles. The torches were turned on to the right intensity, 

and we heated up our colorless stock rods

to ready them for attachment of color dots obtained from the color rods, which are first heated till molten,

then brought into contact with the stock rod, leaving a significant dot on it, 

broken by pulling the color rod away, burning away the thinning glass in the flame.

The process is repeated as desired, with different colors as well.

The next step involves joining another clear rod, the punty rod to the end of the stock rod with the color dots, done by heating the both ends to be joined in the flame while constantly rotating the rods

 before bringing them together 

and cooling them outside the flame with constant rotation.

 It is then time to heat the portion with the colored dots while rotating the rods at different speeds, with hands held at a distance to ensure the rods stay level and do not form "valleys" or "mountains",

to twist and integrate the colors into the rods

 and start forming the sphere.

In order to properly form the spherical shape of the marble, the punty rod is first removed by heating its end and pulling away from the stock rod.

Excess punty rod glass is then removed,

and the shaping of the open half of the marble commences by heating it and rotating constantly.

After shaping is completed, it is time to cold seal the punty rod back onto the shaped end of the marble, by taking the sphere out of the flame to cool and heating the end of the punty rod,

 then joining the punty rod to the cool sphere.

The stock rod is then removed from the unshaped side of the marble like the punty rod was earlier,

and the shaping process is repeated for the second half of the marble.

The shaping process is perfected with the help of graphite moulds,

and the punty rod is broken off with a slight knock.

The last step involves smoothing out the broken ends of the punty rod stuck onto the marble and integrating them into the marble.

then leaving the marble to cool.

I have to say, the marble I made looks more like a jellybean. Making a marble is clearly harder than I thought it would be.

Moving on to our next piece, the stock rod is heated at one end till a small portion is molten,

 and then the molten part is flattened out with an appropriately shaped tool.

The punty rod is then heated at one end, 

and the disk on the stock rod is heated as well by bringing one side to the flame, then flipping over and heating the other side, ensuring that the entire disk is never in the flame at the same time.

The punty rod is then joined to the disk,

and the disk is stretched to form the body of the fish, 

before melting off the punty rod in the flame, leaving behind a spearhead on the stock rod.

It is then time to start adding the fins, tail and eyes of the fish using color rods.

Like the marbles, the colors are dotted onto the spearhead, except in the correct positions on the fish and in larger blobs,

Which are first heated separately from the spearhead in the correct orientation over the flame,

and then a pair of pincers are then used to pinch out the fin.

The pectoral fins are done first, then the tail fin in a similar fashion, and finally the dorsal fin.

The eyes are then dotted on to the face of the fish. I accidentally dotted 3 on mine. Oh well. It is also important to keep the fish appropriately warm throughout the process, or it will crack like mine did. Thankfully, the cracks can be partly healed by heating over the flame again to melt the cracks.

The next step involves cold sealing the punty rod to the tail end of the fish,

then melting off the stock rod to form the fish mouth, which can be pointed if left alone,

or pouty if shaped in with one end of a forceps,

giving a pretty different looking fish.

Our pieces were left overnight in the kiln to cool, and we left for the day. I decided to go grab some dinner at Charcoal Guido's, a pretty nice bar restaurant located in Waltham. 

The place was pretty full today, although I was still able to get a seat at the bar. The starters were presented pretty well, although it was just alright in taste.

For food, I got the Arrosticini (Grilled skewered morsels of lamb) for appetizers, 

the Octopus and Pork Belly (With orange-arugula salad and lemon vinaigrette) for a salad,

and the Fava Agnolotti (Filled with fava beans, tossed with asparagus, speck (smoked prosciutto) , truffle sauce and a splash of cream) for my main dish.

The lamb skewers weren't too bad, although they could have done better with a marinade or sauce, while the salad was delicious, especially with the sweet orange flavor. The pasta was the best dish of all, being flavorful with the cream, and crunchy with the speck. An excellent meal overall, which I somehow managed to finish.

That wasn't the end of the night though. My friend had a birthday party, so I headed into Boston to celebrate it with him at Shojo in Chinatown. After drinking a shot of Hennessy with him, I decided to head home for the night as I still had a long day of doing food truck stuff tomorrow. 

With that, a long, fun day of dealing with fish in various forms, live, dead or glass finally came to an end.