Catchin' dinks, and loving it.

It's been a while since I've caught more than a couple of dinks in a day's fishing.

Today, I caught plenty of them, and had a ball doing it.

That may sound strange to some, and downright ludicrous to others. But that's fine with me. My enjoyment is neither enhanced nor diminished by what others may think of that "logic".

I've been catching plenty of nice bass, averaging over two pounds per. Catching them on shaky head jigs with finesse worms, jigs, wacky worms, and fluke type baits.

Today, windy, cloudy, occasional deluges, and one thunderstorm which drove us to the beach and the shelter of my truck, was a different day.

Took a friend, and for some unknown reason, felt inclined to toss a Jackall Wacky Weedless Jig Head rigged with either a three inch *** bait, or the small *** shad in root beer color.

I did not fish it exclusively, and alternately used the shaky head/finesse worm, and the fluke, SK caffein shad.

While I caught some nice fish in the deeper water using the shaky head, I was intrigued with the number of dinks, some no more than six inches long, maybe even a few shorter than that.

Why was I so "thrilled" to be catching dink after dink?

Simple answer. Those dinks are the future of the pond. The pond is a great fishing hole today, and from the looks of things, will be into the forseeable future.

I started lobstering before escape vents became mandatory on lobster pots. The escape vent law is one of the best things the government has done in the managing of the fishery.

In the pre escape vent days, it was common to see traps come up with "bumble bees", the term for lobsters that were not even close to the legal size.

While they were a nuisance, fishermen were glad to see huge numbers of them, because they were the future of the fishery.

The beauty of the vent is that it allows the small lobsters to escape from the trap while on the bottom, where they find shelter.

Numerous fish, among them codfish, stripers, and tautog/blackfish, will eat lobsters when the opportunity to do so presents itself.

Lobsters have a very slight negative bouyancy, which means they fall very slowly from the surface to the bottom, not unlike slow falling baits.

How many lobsters have been grabbed by predators during that trip from the surface to the bottom? No one knows, but the vent went a long way toward eliminating that loss, simply because the small lobsters once had no way to escape, and were brought to the surface, only to be returned to the sea.

I loved to see plenty of short lobsters in the trap, and today, I loved to see plenty of dinks on the end of my line.

But, having seen them, and now knowing they are there, I'll go back to hunting their larger brethren,............. and sisteren.