A Fish Story with a Fiery Ending

With most team sports on summer hiatus, I'll continue my theme of the summer activities that we share with our children (Or in this case, the activity that I pretend to enjoy with the Boy).

I am NOT a fisherman. I used to love it as a kid (at least I think I did) and spent many summer days at Pine Lake in Bristol tossing the bobber and hook (strung with corn) into the water while sitting and hoping that the abnormal creatures at the bottom were not fans of Green Giant canned veggies.

But the Boy has fallen in love with the sport (is it a sport?), so my duty as a dad is to also love it (or at least lie just enough so that he thinks I do).

Most of my adult friends love to fish and some of them will be reading this for the first time. I don't care. I don't care if they laugh and make fun of me (why stop now). I don't care if they think I'm wimpy. I hate worms ... and ... well ... I use non-latex surgical gloves to put them on the hook. There I said it! And I use gloves to pull the hook out of the poor fish's mouth. Is that so bad?

Wife is on vacation all week so we load up the car with a cooler, the Boy, his friend Double D., and a car full of fishing equipment. 

But before we arrive at our first fishing destination, we have to stop at a bait shop to find out what the fish are eating. Today it's something called "bunker." I only remember this because I can see the fake smile on the owner's face when I asked if we had a choice between Archie and Edith.

We also buy a box of sand worms. I'm quite sure that sand worms are the reason that I do not fish in the ocean. I remember many years ago when my father would take me to the same spot. The image that replays in my nightmares every so often is that of opening the box, picking up a worm, and seeing its mouth wide open as one hundred razor sharp teeth are waiting to bite my face off! Worms with teeth? Is it just me, or do these two things not go together?

So we buy the bait along with the hooks, weights, a knife to cut the bunker, and extra thick fishing line that would have cost half the price if we were 60 miles further inland. Everybody is excited now. We have two bunkers, twelve worms with teeth, and the salty smell of the ocean tickling our nostrils. 

We arrive at Old Saybrook Point, and it’s already 80 degrees. The old guys with the leather skin and no shirts have their poles set up on the concrete barrier so the Boy and DD sprint to an open area and quickly lay claim to an area of wall where they set up their tools and equipment. The bunker is laid out, and the Boy slices it into chunks with surgeon-like precision.

Almost immediately one of the leather-skins catches a huge bluefish. It’s black but they continue to call it blue. Instead of arguing, I offer them a squirt of sunscreen. 

A moment later the Boy yells, “I got one!” He does. I see it just as it breaks the surface of the water. It is a beautiful striped bass. Beautiful and smart because as he pulls it up, the fish finishes his bunker, gives a little wink, and jumps back into the water.

Having little luck, we decide to head to Hammonasset and fish at Meigs Point off the rocks. As someone with a very bad right ankle, I’ll go on record as saying that something needs to be done with those rocks. I don’t care that little barefoot kids sprint back and forth like it’s a high school track. Can we get a Pergo walkway installed?

The Boy and DD enjoy the adventure even if they don’t catch any fish. Maybe the bunker is too funky or the worms too scary … one can only guess. But they do discover another popular activity out on the dangerous rocks — crabbing. Have you seen this? It involves tying a fish head or chicken leg to fishing line and dunking it into the water until a crab climbs on!

Having seen about all that my stomach could handle, I flee to the pavilion where Wife is reading and I can relax and answer some emails.

By now I am the crab and ready to leave. We pack up and head for a DQ soft-serve before taking the long way home courtesy of the GPS.

Our day could end perfectly if not for a metal pipe in the right lane of Route 9 in Berlin. While the truck in front of me swerves enough to avoid it, my tire catches the tip of it, but I think I’ve avoided any issues until we are flagged down by other drivers. Do I have a flat tire? Nope, but apparently the pipe was launched into my gas tank like a javelin, causing the gas to gush out behind us as we drive.

I imagine an exciting ending would be to write that the four of us made it out of the car just seconds before it blew up in a fiery ball of steel and fishing equipment. But that would be one big fish story now wouldn’t it?