Captain Hoochies

 I received a package yesterday from my son Brian. He had ordered some fishing gear for me for Christmas but he was in Spain at the time and postal freight being what it is and whatever other factors were involved, I just got it yesterday, which I think is kind of nice. In fact, I think it would be a great idea if everyone went shopping when they could get the best sales on things, and then sent part of the stuff after Christmas, so that you're not so overwhelmed at one time. It's kind of neat to not know when a gift is coming and it arrives out of the blue. All of this gear was packaged in a shirt box, so I figured he had bought me a shirt, which of course I'm always in need of because I have a tendency to be hard on my clothes. I don't know how one person can get a shirt and still have it five years later and it looks good enough to wear to church, and I get a shirt, and six months later my wife is telling me I need to get rid of it because it makes me look like a bum. Oh well. Anyway, between Brian's gift and some hoochies and a flasher from my grandson and a package of Chum bug hoochies that were in a shoe box from Jen, I struck it rich in the fishing gear department. I'm anxious to try them all out. As you can see from the bottom picture, the green hoochies are much smaller than the clear one. As it is, the green is the standard size of three and a half inches. The clear ones are over seven inches long. Thunderation! Those things are huge! Brian mentioned that they were for use with halibut or Ling Cod, but I suspect you could use them to catch Blue Marlin or giant Blue Fin Tuna. I'm going to try and rig a few and see if the King Salmon would be enticed by them. It would be fantastic if I could steadily catch 40 lb plus kings on a consistent basis with them. I might have to run tandem flashers in front of these big boys to get enough action, kind of like when there are several locomotives used to haul a large number of train cars. If for some reason they don't work, I'll put little Christmas tree lights in them and string them on the tree. It would probably start a fad and there would be a big demand for them. Another business opportunity.
  I looked up the history of hoochies on the Internet, but it wasn't really very helpful. Most of the info was on the hoochie-koochie girls. I did discover that the hoochie koochie was a provocative belly dance that started at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876 and was later re-introduced at the Chicago worlds fair some years later. Needless to say, it was very popular with the men there. Later, hoochie-koochie girls or hoochies were used to describe prostitutes or ladies who dress provocatively. The dictionary went on to describe hooches, which is the nickname of huts in Southeast Asia,  and hooch is also a shortened name for hoochinoo, a Tlingit alcoholic beverage that was usually distilled illegally. Unfortunately I couldn't find out anything about the origins of hoochies, except what I have heard- that a downed pilot was drifting around in the Pacific and noticed that fish kept coming up and tugging on the bits of red thread that were hanging on his clothes,undulating with the movement of the waves.  He apparently got the idea to make small vinyl octopus and call them hoochies, after the movement of of the hoochie-koochie girls. Since then, there have been entire industries built around them and most commercial salmon fishermen are like myself and own umpteen dozens of packs in assorted colors and sizes. Some have red eyes and some don't, some glow in the dark, and some are ultra violet. They vary in size from the small plankton size to needle fish, 3 1/2 inch octopus,cuttlefish,   to the half grown octopus size that I just received. No doubt some enterprising fellow will develop a Giant Squid size to catch Sperm Whales with. Just a heads up kids, I probably won't need any of those. I wouldn't be able to land one if it bit, and no one would believe me if I said I had actually had one on the line.