Tom Robinson of Vineyard Haven and I were after white perch in Tisbury Great Pond. We caught only one fish, but it turned out that was all we needed. My fishing rod was braced against a branch with a suitable fork in it that I had picked up along the path and stuck into a sandy bank. But, either there were no perch about, or they were uninterested in the earthworm on my hook — which seemed unlikely for a fish whose small size belies its aggressiveness. Tom had forded a shallo

For many homeowners, the arrival of spring weather is a signal to anticipate the start of home improvement projects and resume lawn care in earnest. I am not one of those homeowners. I think about where I can catch white perch in Island great ponds — a delicious treat — and I look forward to the April arrival of the first striped bass along the Island’s south-facing beaches. Honing a laissez-faire style of homeownership required years of studied neglect and strategic indiffer

Jay Sonia, owner of Brickstone Construction, pulled the plug on Tisbury Great Pond in March and I was there to witness it. Sitting at the controls of a Deere excavator on a freezing Sunday, the cab wrapped in plastic a la Salvador Dali (I’ll get to that), he took one bite after another out of the sandy barrier beach and over the course of several hours dug a channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the pond. With one final bucket scoop, Jay released a torrent of pent up pond water,