Hello from NJ..

[Sam3]

Long time lurker and learning alot from reading great info here. I've owned a Bradley OBS for over a year now and have made alot of smoked striped bass and venison jerky in it. Looking to expand my horizons to sausage making, BBQ, etc. As well as participate on this forum.
Santa is bringing me a new grinder and stuffer this year, can't wait to try them out.  ;D

[mikecorn.1]

Dude you still believe in Santa ;D :o. Welcome to the forum.

[Caneyscud]

Smoked striped bass - now that is my kinda guy.  And if you caught them while on a beautiful rocky shore throwing a fly rod - I might marry you!  Wait, I can't do that!  We have landlocks here in Tennessee, but I really want to catch some in the salt - standing on a rock, with salt spray all around me, site casting to big stripers with a 10 wt.  A guy can day dream can't he?

Welcome to the forum - no finer place to help you expand your horizons.  Two warnings though - First this site will also help you expand your waistline - some great food is produced here.  And secondly, the receiving of a grinder and a stuffer puts you at extreme risk of "sausage making addiction" - from which there is no cure.  But most don't want to be cured from sausage making so it really doesn't make any real difference - except that your wife may look at you funny and scratch her head! 

[DTAggie]

Welcome Sam.

Caney - you make it sound so romantic!

[ghost9mm]

Hello and welcome Sam, really great forum...enjoy...

[Leadfoote]

Welcome aboard Sam :)

[ragweed]

Welcome to the forum.  I enjoy sausage making too.  (There are a lot of deer in Nebraska.)  Tell Santa that I highly recommend Cabelas Commercial-Grade Meat Grinder.  I also recommend the Stainless Steel Stuffer by LEM Products.

Good luck...Ragweed

[Caneyscud]

Welcome Sam.

Caney - you make it sound so romantic!

Oh Oh – DT done did it now!  He rouses the spirits!

Oh, the sweet pain of temptation that doth pass my wanton breast – hark – what doth my eyes perceive?  There emerging from the ever clinging velvety caresses of mystery, from the sultry recesses of our cob-webbed memory – there he is – The Bard – The Bard of Hot Air – The Shakespeare of Smoke. 

Romancing the Striped Bass  (a short, MANLY, paperback romance)

In the long-forgotten past replete with heroes, soothsayers, and highbrow simpletons, far across the Blue Ocean in the now forgotten kingdom of the Flyrod, there emerged a sassy creature, mean of soul and cold of feature, yet mesmerizing with its alluring, well-formed silky sleekness.  This creature, surreptitiously sired in the abyssal sea, the womb of its creation, lures those prone to infatuation along with the adventurous to unknown depths of self-indulgence and with the promise of forbidden fruits.  The Striped Bass, in beguiling tales told of them, flaunt their salacious power over human males, ensnaring these tawdry humans by making them think they have been gifted with supernatural powers or by seductively enticing their mortal fanciers, striper groupies, to pursue them to the far ends of their watery boudoir.   

Supernatural passions spring from the fusion of two biologically different entities, opposites that embrace and yet explain practically nothing.  These creatures materialize on their own account in the dreams of these poor mesmerized males.  They impress themselves on the general consciousness of the weak-willed.  These primordial images, sediments of accumulated memory, grab at the love-starved heartstrings, and seemingly have a wantonly seductive life of their own.  As children, these men may have dreamed of monsters.  These monsters approach, they threaten, they terrify and bewitch, and the men dream of fleeing or conquering these monsters.  The Striped Bass manifests itself in shameless dreams reminiscent of Homer's tales of the lovesick Sirens of the Salt or even of...... Lilith.  Lilith typically symbolizes rebellion, rage and an untamed nature.   She encouraged men to come and worship at her corporeal temple.  Lilith, in men's minds, saunters about between the domains of Heaven and Earth.  Her song calls men to abandon themselves, to hurl into the deep, to sprout wings, to transform, to die to self and emerge into a new form with new and winsome revelry. 

How does the sordid story begin?

First you take a man, and then you put a fly rod in his hand, and tell him to go fish.   First he dry casts on the lawn spilling his line onto the grass until utter frustration sets in.  He has to catch, he has to conquer something.  He goes off to the nearest trout water and proceeds to catch the easy stuff – the stockers – but still that aching of unfulfillment.  In utter desperation and suffering total emptiness of his soul, he drifts on over to the local fly shop where he hears that fellow fly fishermen gather to exchange lies and information.  During one of the confabs, he notices this one guy he hasn't seen in a couple of weeks.  He notes the strange far-off longing stare out the window and the constant sighs emanating from the pouting mouth.  He starts up a conversation, and, after much cajoling finds out the guy just came back from a very successful fishing trip to the nor 'east.  Curious as to what he caught, he asks.  Immediately this look, which only can be described as pure unbounded joy, appears on the fisherman's face.  Letting out a soft moan, he utters, with carnal undertones, the two words – Striped Bass.  That is all it took.  One taste and the guy was hopelessly addicted even before he wet a line.  He did not know it at the time, but, insidiously his life was changed forever.    We cannot dream upon love bared.  We are too weak, too temporal, to bear up to the bold unashamed beauty.  The pain of desire was so sharp that it made him utter several moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused by this intense pain that he had to live it out. He packed up his equipment and ventured forth to the waters of iniquity – the red light district of the fathomless depths of the ocean blue.

Arriving late in the afternoon, the entire location (before him, on either hand, and behind) was a sea of leaping flames! The waning afternoon sun, burning its way through the discarded modesty of the salt spray – foreshadows the unbridled rapture that is to come.  Kneeling spellbound at the throne of the Goddess, with hands to the sky, he shouts: "Grant me thy love, sweet siren — else I shall surely die." 

Gaining his senses, he notes that this is a fine day – a perfect day to pursue the quarry.  He thinks "it is all about the hunt," not knowing the error of this reflection.  Later he will taste the consequence.  With polarized glasses he watches wave after wave peak and upon these waves he sees the Striped Bass ripping through the waves.  He watches primal nature unfold. Baitfish get caught in the surf and crash against the rocks.   Birds dive bomb into the water taking advantage of the disorientated and helpless baitfish. The predatory fish scan the shorelines like sharks and attack the baitfish with unrelenting aggression.  The predatory switch is flipped in their brains and they come racing to the surface with the intent of uncontrolled gorging.  At that exact moment, a Striped Bass propels its entire taut body out of the water in pursuit of prey; it is a titillating sight that he won't soon forget.  With quivering desirous hands, he jams the two parts of his rod together and with trembling fingers threads the line through the guides and ties on a fly.  Now united into one powerful tool, his hands feels the rod come to life, restrained only by knowledge that it's turn for satisfaction is quickly approaching. 

With his sun-bleached hair and usually laid-back demeanor, he could pass easily for a surfer, or at least someone who lives where it's warmer, but today he is intensely after prey.  At low tide there is an outcropping of rocks that extends about 100 yards into the Atlantic. The rocks are covered with barnacles and kelp.  Totally covering the rocks, the kelp is so thick; it is sometimes difficult to tell if his footsteps will be on solid rock or thin air, a far cry from a normal walk on the beach.  On both sides of these rocks there is surf – white foamy surf - with many pockets of froth and current formed by large rock formations and underwater ledges. This is striped bass heaven!  Remembering the advice reluctantly given "Fish any and all white water -- it's NEVER too rough for stripers," he notices water which was shallow enough where could see the bass chasing bait. Then without warning, the surface of the water became alive with slapping tails. All around the rocks the water was boiling with bait and stripers! Breathlessly and excitedly he launches a mighty cast.  Through the crystal clear water he could see the bass take notice.  Out of the depths he heard a siren singing.  Bang, he feels a tug at the end of the line – a tugging at his heart.  Fish on!  Oh what rapturous words of joy he thinks.  Thus the battle raged, the fish answering each stroke of the rod with an ever-strengthening runs for freedom, until it seemed that our hero's strength would fail.  With lightning-like convolutions the monster strove to wrest the rod from the hand of her antagonist, then with a thunderous battering of fins soared into the air. Writhing as in ecstasy, she hovers for a moment, then falls crashing back into the depths.  Now knowing that there is no escape, she surrenders to the power of her pursuer – timidly and coyly letting him pull her to her reward.  He stares down at her, flirtatiously twitching – gasping for breath in the rarified air of the moment. 

He tenderly reaches down, touching and enjoying the cool skin, until with a quick twist of his wrist, he removes the lure from her glistening lips.  He gently gathers her up.  Enamored of his fair prize, and, inflamed by his raging hormones, he holds her momentarily in his arms - yearning.  Until suddenly he cries out "With thee let me live or perish!" With that he reluctantly releases back into her domain.  The sea was calmed, and a snow-white heron soared upward to the sun.  He sensed something wrong; he sensed that he has lost something very powerful.  Again the siren's song rang in his ears and his former madness fell over him.  A teardrop hung for a moment in his eye, listening to the singing with a sad heart.

Suddenly, he climbs a rocky crag, and divesting himself of his garments, he plunges deep into the heart of the swirling surf. Manfully he strokes through the briny breakers which like great white chargers came galloping ever onward, he surmounts their foamy summits with strokes of his powerful arms.  "Where art thou?" he cries, but no answer was forthcoming.  He plunges headlong in pursuit of the fleeing siren as another dark wave closes above him.  The song of the sea become louder and louder until he recognizes the voice of his beloved inamorata.  In the seething emerald waters he beholds his siren stretching out moon-blanched fins – becoming him to come to her.  Forgetting his former existence, "Take me to thy watery kingdom, " he cries, with eyes glowing like coals of fire, belching forth the steam of a score of geysers he charges toward her.  "'Tis my last fight," he declares. "From this day forward we will spend our days in never-ending peace."  Longing for his sultry siren, he severs his earthborn bonds with a swift strong stroke, crying, "I am home."

[DTAggie]

Was that Pandora's Box I opened?

[SamuelG]

Welcome Sam!

Sam

What a novel!


SamuelG

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[SouthernSmoked]

Welcome to the forum...Enjoy!

http://www.susanminor.org

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