When Anglers Journal Magazine editor Bill Sisson called me to discuss a new project he had for me, he seemed in a bit of jam. He was doing a story on the cinder worm hatch, a phenomenon I was familiar with from fishing the salt ponds in Rhode Island. The problem was that there were no photos available at all depicting a fish feeding on cinder worms. Literally none. The photos of cinder worms alone were sparse. Fellow angler and friend John Jinishian had been assigned as the author, so I gave him a call. He and Bill had a vision of an image taking place at night, of a striper cruising through a cloud of cinder worms. I immediately thought of an underwater scene illuminated by the moon. Bill seemed a little nervous when he gave me the go ahead--"This isn't the kind of painting you usually do, are you OK with it?" "Yeah, Bill, no problem." I said, "I feel like it's good to mix it up, get out of my comfort zone." So I started with a rough sketch:
I shared it with John and Bill and they like it, so I went to the final sketch:
From here I went right to the final watercolor painting:
The final product was a piece we all felt captured the magic of a moonlit night when stripers are gorging themselves on this hatch of tiny creatures more like trout than saltwater predators. Combined with John's artistry with words, Magic Hatch is another Anglers Journal contribution I am really proud of. See the full article here:
