Last December, I went togging for the first time that year. Even though I didn't catch much, it was one of my best trips ever- in early November, I lost my son, Owen, to a heart defect 10 days after he was born. The entire month I lived life by in a trance and I constantly looked on the verge of tears.
In an effort to cheer me up, my friends took me togging out of Wildwood Crest. From the moment the boat left the inlet, I felt my son's presence on my shoulder. The boat slipped by Cold Spring and I thought of how my father taught me to fish there and I was going to teach my son there before he passed. I was close to tears, but a thought occurred to me- Owen was not alone in heaven. Not only could my father teach him up there, but my grandpappy could as well.
The rest of the day, I fished with a smile on my face as I had an angel on my shoulder.
I original posted this today under Marty's story request in his planer bridle post.
It was a warm August morning a number of summers ago. I walk the dock as I had 20 or 30 times before on a very similar morning where the smell of un-burnt diesel and carbon filled exhaust filled the air like the a feather on the tonsils. I had only been at this game for a two seasons, still a child learning its way in the world. I had recently been taunted on the past two trips by an allusive billed beast (dirty white boy as someone we know calls it) that played havoc on what I thought at the time was artwork in the form of perfectly rigged baits (Hah, what little did I know then about rigging). Flash back to the previous day: LSR-POP, RLR-POP, flash across the spread. This guy had me dancing in the cockpit trying to anticipate his next move. Each rigger or flat line pop was followed by a short zip of the 50w drag and immediately followed by the sigh of a frustrated captain. I just couldn’t get it right. I would do as previously instructed and drop back, count, point, drag, slack, set… The fish would mouth it and take drag long enough for me to believe this was the day, and slack teasing me calling me out. Saying “go home with that weak shit!! On a boat where the goal was tuna, tuna, tuna, a had wasted the last five or so shots at glory. Maybe today would be different. Maybe today I would become a real mate? Anyone could stick a tuna at the side of the boat I thought, but the art of rigging a bait presenting it to a billfish and then allowing him just the right amount of time to feel he was home free with a fresh meal, until kapow, u-turn. Now that, that’s a true mate. Today’s charter would be a make up from the marina, and after a little confusion (the make up was short two people) we were underway. Approximately two hours and twenty minutes latter we had arrived. Six ballys were immediately set, LRR, LSR, RLR, RSR, and two flats. Some naked, some dressed with a witch or a zuker. All diligently rigged on that days ride out. Getting ready to set a shotgun and while looking at the spread to figure where I was to place this bait, I saw it. Or did I? Was it the sun playing tricks on the waters reflection? There it was again. Someone is about to knock on the door, and by god I was ready. I would prove my worth! Out of my mouth with exuberance came RIGHT SHORT RIGGER. I had my hands on the rig the moment the clip snapped. The clip released in a subtle crack that I have since been able to a tune even before the drag screams. Free spool, thoughts racing, be careful not to nest it, point the rod tip, heart pounding, am I gonna screw this one up as I had in the past, count one, two, drums beating, real screaming!! Oh shit what number was I on, ok that should be long enough, or not, should I wait longer? Here goes, drag up, slack out and set, sET, BY GOD SET!!! Immediately some 70 yards back, a beautiful sight, out of the water like a trident being released from a silent war machine. And again, but am I tight? And Again!!! Hot dam!!! I hand the rig to the angler. The tug of war only lasted mere minutes. In short order I was wiring, and then billing (thumbs together of course) a petite 50-60 lb white. Looking eye to eye to my once elusive opponent, I removed the hook and held him there for pictures. A moment later I was pushing his head down into the turbulent abyss he came from. Thoughts poured in; Who hooked who? Released my grip, splashing of the tail, and gone.
The rest of the day continued as many have since, but to me that was a defining moment. It was on, I was in the game. No longer am I on the bench or looking from the sidelines on how it should be done, and with a subtle smirk from the caption, I knew this is for me. Have I had good days on the water sure (along with the bad), but I believe you asked for the most memorable moment on the water, and this one sir, I will take to the grave.
We ran for a couple of hours and pulled it back to troll from the chicken canyon to the hudson. Within minutes I saw some mahi near a pot we were approaching and slide down the ladder to stand next to the long rigger on that side - BAM mahi on! 20lb bull in the box - first ever mahi, first ever offshore fish.
We arrived at the elbow of the hudson and hour before dark and all hell was breaking loose. 15 boats trolling in the same tight spot all hooking up with 40-50lb LFT's. We got in on the action and bagged 4 before dark. First ever tuna, first ever fish over 20lbs wow!!!!!!
The owner and 3 more of the crew hit the bunks around 10pm and left me and my buddy to continue the chunk which we were extremely please with. We were chunking both butterfish and a 150qt cooler full of peanut bunker that we cast netted at the dock with little action. I actually fell asleep in the walkway of the express b/w the helm and the passenger setee when I awoke to crew flying over my head. It seemed as though the boat was sinking but when I finally shook my snooze there were four rods bent and the craziness was on!
We got three fish to the boat, while one hung up on the running gear and broke himself free. Then came my first time gaffing a fish (or three), my first ever glimpse of a YFT while I continued to throw chunks and re-rig the one rod that was broken off earlier. Followed by my first time bleeding a fish and the fist time I ever saw a fishbox that was as large as a grave!
Next up on the rod was me. First time fighting a fish that fought back, first ever YFT, first real butt-kicking! Over the gunwhale comes a 60lb yellowfin that felt to me as if it was 100lbs!!! Pretty fish, pretty tough! Fishbox getting full quickly!
A lull was a good time for a nap while the others were up from their slumber I cleaned up and heading into the hull for "an hour". I awoke to reels blazing again this time its almost first light and its LFT's again. We bag a couple of LFT's and the rod next to me goes down - MY turn again! I pick it up and start making pretty short work of what I estimated to be about a 30lb fish. I was working the fish on the starboard gunwhale when my rod went from 75 degrees to smacking the gunwhale about as hard as possible?????? Within a split second, the rest of the crew were on the port gunwhale screaming about something and so I look over my shoulder to see a HUGE mako 15-20 feet in the air doing summersaults end over end, over end. Someone finally notices that I am hooked up on the other side of the boat and comes to help.
That damn Mako took my tuna!!! And I was in for the most exciting 5 minutes of my life watching the shark leap after leap after leap. She burned off 3/4 of the spool, returned to the boat, but only to burn off another 1/2 spool on the next run. The crew readied the flying gaff and a shotgun, but by this time there was noway in the world I thought I could fight the fish much longer... finally snap - the mono leader (meant for tuna) was cut in two and there I was left with a gaping jaw, aching arms, and a memory that has fueled me for many years now.
I don't care if I win or not I really just like re-living that moment!
Here is my best recent memory altought each time I head out I have fun regardless if i catch fish or just a nice tan. I posted this exact report a few months ago but still this has been the most fun I have out on the water. Plus it was the first time breaking in the boat i just got.
Well my friend Ed never really has been a person who loves to fish. He dosent have the itch like I do. Waking up at 4am rain or shine. But ohh well I knew I could change him. Well looks like I finally have started to. I wake up monday morn and realize I cant waste this day knowing all the prep I have done. So after fueling up and heading out I decided to change where we are gonna start. Head out 7 miles from the harbor to a little cove to try to drift over a ledge (140-175ft) I saw on the charts. I say we going to try this out first I have a hunch.
The day is absolutely beautiful. Glass calm, sunny, and most importanly having fun.
We get out there and are about a mile from all the other boats. set up with some cod rigs I made up and wait about 10 mins. no action but we havn't hit the ledge yet then... bang a shortie cod, few mins later a nice 8-10 lb haddock finally right after the tide changes the cod start getting bigger, all nice 8-10 lbers. Perfect drift along the legde the entire time. Me and Ed are having a blast he's finally starting to realized the love I have for this. Ohh and my dogs sleeping in the bow. Not huge cod all nice keepers or so but plenty of action with all the shorts. Once this starts to slow down. I make another move 3 miles North east, now of course Ed wants to drive so i show him where to head, throttle down lines in. Bang a nice 15 lb cod, then eds like ohh i got something big. All i know is hes struggling, when look out and grab the gaff I see a nice fat cod, prob 20lbs. I gaff him and my buddies yelling and saying ohh my god. I give him high five, look up and finally see that he finally has the itch. On the way back in weather changes and starts to rain no time for stripers but ohh well we still had a blast. Get to the docks both soaking wet (forgot the rain gear) and 1 wet dog.
Well we limited out on cod and haddock and had the most fun I have had on the water in a long time. Hope this is just a start to a great fishing season.
I hope I can convert one person per year.
Thanks for letting me post this up hear, and thanks sportfisherman.com for the contest.
The best memory I have fishing is with my 3 boys when they were 8, 6, and 4. They have never fished before and I took them to Birch Grove Park. I rigged their poles and and they were all excited to catch fish. I was really surprised that they were so focused on catching fish, especially at that age. I'll always remember the excitement they showed when they started catching little sunnies. I put them into a bucket of water as they caught them and they all wanted to eat their catch. After about an hour and a half we had about 10 sunnies in the bucket. I took them home and they wanted to eat their catch. I told them that I had to take them over a friends to clean them and I would be right back with their fish. I took them back to the park and released them and went to the fish market and bought a pound of scallops. I told them this was the fish they caught and we cooked them up. They were so proud of their catch!! Now they wanted to go fishing all the time. This was their first experience fishing and they love to fish to this day. I have spent many good days hanging with them fishing. I really enjoy the quality time I have with them during our fishing trips together.
I am new to this site but I am sure lucky I found it. Sportfishing.com thanks for being here.
I'll submit this for my mate who has no computer...
A curlly tail Lizzard scampered out of the way as Nathaniel pulled the Van in front of the sundry shop. Three men got out and I knew it must be our party.
"Mr. Carwile?" Two of the guys looked at me in response.
The older one answered in a thick Tennessee Drawl, " Yeah I'm Jack, this is my brother Jerry and my son in law Lance. Are you Paul?"
"No sir I'm your mate, Colin."
We tossed the bags in their rooms and I walked them down to the boat where my Captain, Paul was busy cussing out a sailboater docked next to us. "Listen you Cannuck rag fag skunk, the next time you unplug my freezer to plug in your blow dryer, I'll snap a size ten top sider off in your ass! Got it? I'll kill stuff for a living and would love to hold you under this water here until the God Damn bubbles quit!"
He noticed us and changed his tone. "Hello guys. Lets go kill something before I slap this silly maple slinger around."
Jerry whispered to me when he saw the tee shirt Paul was wearing with a manatee on it and the words "speed bump" on it. "Kinda colorful, aint he?"
"All show. He's really a pussy cat at heart."
We hit the pocket and the wind was cooking comming off the bank. We started with a trio oof 30 lb mahis. As we hit the corner we got a small blue one. Jerry was in place in the rotation and was quick to get it to the transom for me to release.
No sooner did we get the baits back out when a sail came up and ate my flat. Lance had his fish after more fight than the local sails usually gave and soon we were back going around to the joulter side.
"Blue! Left rigger!" Paul hollered.
The fish piled on the bait and was gone in a blink. "Please come back!"
Paul hammered the same approach as he often does when he feels a fish. Then the left rigger went down behind awave so we couldn't see the hit. Line poured off the 50w and went down. No jump or anything but Paul wanted Jack to fight it in case it was the blue suit. About a half hour later we found it was a foul hooked 50lb wahoo. Jack was whipped but happy.
We put the bait spread back out while Jack caught his breath and Paul headed back to where we had the bite. Seconds later a big blue launched on the Masher we had on the inside rigger. It tore the skirt off and raced back to the rigger to devour our teardrop.
She launched and started a 400-500 yard run , staying in the air the whole way. Jack giggled the whole time as everyone was yelling "look at that S O B go!"
For the next fortyfive minutes the big fish stayed in the sky and was whipped by the time I could bill her. 400lbs maybe. Pretty, switching from silver to blue and back. God they are awesome. The day had been great already and ten minutes later it got better when we added a small white to round out our grand slam, our first of the season.
Back at the dock the boys had different plans about tradition and getting tossed in for first billfish. Instead they tossed Paul in! He took it well and exacted Paul revenge as he tossed each one in to rerturn the favor.
At dinner , Jack greased me a grand. My biggest tip ever. I could see tears welling in his eyes I asked him what was up.
"Boy, thanks to you and that grumpy skipper of yours, for a just a few hours today I was a young man again. I didn't have no aches and pains. I could see, hear and touch things I only thought they made believe of in Hollywood or wherever they make them TV shows. You're special people young feller and have a gift to make people like me whoel again and give me a memory that ain't ever gonna go away..."
That folks was my best day and exactly why I love this game we play...
Colin- Deep C Mate
I have a nephew who loves to fish. Connor is 13 years old now, but he had a tragic accident 5 years ago. The summer prior to his accident, we would fish almost every weekend down in Ocean City New Jersey. It didn't matter if it was from the dock, or from our boat, but we just had a great time fishing together. I didn't realize it at that time just how important those special times were, and how they would help give him the power to overcome a devastating accident that almost took his life.
Connor and I woke up one morning, and we noticed a school of snapper blues busting the surface on the bay. I grabbed a camera, a couple of spinning rods, and we jumped in our whaler and headed out. We must have caught and released 100 snapper blues that early August morning, and had a blast doing it. I was able to take a number of photos showing Connor grinning ear to ear while holding up snapper blues he had just caught. I'll never forgot the words he said that day to me while we were catching all those fish - " Uncle Greg, this is the happiest day of my life".
We talked about that one morning for the rest of the summer and it seemed whenever I would see him, he would bring up the topic " Uncle Greg, remember when we caught all those snappers this summer, that was the happiest day of my life". We would both grin ear to ear remembering that day, and I luckily had some great photos we would often look at.
Later that year, Connor went skiing in the Poconos. He lost control, and hit a tree head on, causing a massive skull fracture. While being airlifted to the hospital, he went into cardiac arrest twice.We arrived at the hospital shortly afterward, and the news was not good. Connor had a serious skull fracture in 4 places, bleeding on the brain, etc. He underwent brain surgery to relieve the pressure, and remained in a coma for the next two weeks. The doctors could not say if he would live, or even when he would come out of the coma, it was day by day. One thing they did encourage was for us to spend time talking to him.
I spent every moment I could with him during the next two weeks, and of course all I would talk to him about was the summer morning when we caught all those snapper blues. It was tough seeing him while he was in the coma - hooked up to all those machines, not knowing what the outcome would be. I had placed the photos of that special day around his hospital room, taping them to the walls. It helped me, seeing that grinnning kid holding up those snapper blues. I can remember telling him over and over, " Connor, please get better, I need you to go fishing with me again, remember that time we caught all those snapper blues, well that was the happiest day of my life".
I must have wispered this to him 10000 times during the next couple of weeks while sitting by his bedside.
After two weeks, Connor did eventually come out of the coma. It's not like you see on TV, it was a long slow process and due to his brain injury he had to relearn almost everything, he couldn't walk, move his arms, etc. He had lost most of his motor skills due to the injury of his brain. But he did retain his memory, and his smile. He did remember that special day, and as the days went by, and he got better we would talk about it, we would both smile while remembering that special day.
It was a long year following his injury, Connor underwent extensive rehabilitation, with many days of pain and fear not knowing what the next weeks or months would bring. I know the memory of that one special day we shared played a large part in his recovery, and most likely played a larger role by saving his life. A lot is unknown about the human mind, but I am convinced that the memory Connor had of that day gave him the willpower to live.
Its been 5 years now since the accident, Connor still has some paralysis with his right arm that makes it difficult for him to handle a reel. But he still goes fishing, and we make the best of it. I recently took him on his first "offshore" trip a few weeks ago, we went to the Cigar on the whaler hoping to catch some bluefin tuna. We did manage to catch a tuna, but it hit the largest reel/rod in the spread, one Connor would have had trouble with. Even though Connor could not reel it in, you would have thought he had - I looked over and he had a grin on his face.from ear to ear. After we had landed the fish, and got underway again, he said to me "Uncle Greg, this is the happiest day of my life".
Let me first state that I realize the stories need to be submitted by the 21st. It took me a while to put into words the memory you are about to read. I'm not the best writer but I wanted to finally share this with maybe a few guys that would understand it......here goes....
The story that I have to tell begins like most fishing trips - an invitation from a buddy to go out for a boat ride. A family friend of ours recently purchased a new boat and offered to take my father-in-law and me out for an afternoon of fishing. We were not Big-Game fishing, just a few guys heading out to the Fenwick Shoal to pick up some bluefish or maybe a few spanish mackerel. The wind was light and the seas were calm as we cleared the inlet with ease and headed past the Ocean City sea buoy.
The details of that day seem forever etched in my memory. After arriving at the shoal, we set out a simple spread with Clark spoons behind planers. A dive boat was anchored in the area, so we kept our distance as we trolled the spoons. As always the bluefish were more than willing to take a snap at our spoons and we quickly put a couple in the cooler.
I could see that Tom was enjoying himself. Although he had to pace himself, he was eager to pick up a rod as soon as the reel started to make that sweet singing sound that we all love to hear. The bluefish were not the big fish that run off the coast of Ocean City in the spring, but the few that Tom caught were wearing him out. The thing that I remember most about Tom was his eyes as he looked out over the trailing propwash waiting for the next boil, splash or sign of a fish. I'm sure you have seen it before, the way someone looks as if they are not seeing anything but really see everything, if that makes sense. We knew that the trip would be short which made me soak up every second that we were out there. I think that we both knew that this would be his last trip. I enjoyed every moment that I was ever on a boat with Tom and this trip was no different.
The oxygen tank and air supply tubing were frustrating Tom, so I made every effort to make sure that he had a clear path while moving around the boat. Unfortunately it was necessary to bring the tank and at this stage in his illness he was using the oxygen 24 hours a day. He stayed in what shade that the T-Top provided since too much heat made breathing difficult.
Tom was suffering from a condition known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Basically scar tissue was forming in his lungs and the doctors at Hopkins had no idea why. His lung capacity had diminished and the slightest exertion would cause him to lose his breath. This day however, Tom was a fisherman again not a patient. He would not be denied the simple pleasure of spending time on a boat with friends and reeling in some fish to throw in the box.
Tom fished in many places chasing fish of all species. The Keys, Mexico, Guatamala, and the Gulf of Mexico. It didn't matter if he was putting out a spread for white marlin or catching white perch in the Chesapeake Bay. Fishing was in his blood and he enjoyed every minute that he had a rod in his hand. Today would be the last time that he would catch a fish. I wish it could have been a white marlin, which he so loved to catch, especially off Ocean City, MD. But his health would prevent any sort of offshore trip like that. Still you could not tell that he was only reeling in some bluefish. I think it meant the world to him that he was able to make it out for this trip.
We certainly did not set the fishing world on fire that day, but it is my best fishing trip. Tom never boarded another boat nor did he make it back to Ocean City before he died. I hope to some day become the fisherman that he was. I thank God that he passed the love of the ocean on to me. There is not a day that goes by where I don't think about him and I know deep down in my soul he is with me on every trip that I make out to the bluewater. I feel him in the wind and see him in the reflections of the water as I make my way out to chase the fish that he chased. I know its crazy but everytime I come back from an offshore trip I thank him as we pass the O.C. sea bouy. And I joke with my son, Jake and tell him that Grand-dad said hello whenever I see a turtle offshore. I think it his way of checking on me and making sure everything is ok. I feel the calming presence of him when I'm running the boat and though I can't see him I know he is with me on every trip. Tight Lines Capt. Tom. I love you!
Thank you for allowing me to share this with you.
Will
Last edited by RUGGERDUDE; 08-25-2005 at 12:28 AM.
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