Decisions

All fisherman make decisions.  Taking into account weather, bait and lure choices and the capacity of boat and engine all go into the calculus of success or failure on the water.  In most cases, "success" and "failure" are measured by the hard numbers of fish caught on the trip.  In rare cases, those measures become hazier and mix with "lessons learned", "lifetime memories" or "unfixable mistakes".

When I first moved to Rhode Island, one of my first jobs was helping to run an after-school club in the city.  As part of the club, we introduced children to the game of chess.  Several of the 10 to 13 year olds took to the game quickly.  The best young student was a boy who's family was originally from Laos.  I found out a week after starting the club that they lived next door to my new apartment.  Though his parents spoke very limited English, they made it clear to me that education of their children was a top concern.  The father had served with the South Vietnamese Army during the early 1970's.  He had hunted and fished for food for his family before emigrating.  Having a military background and a love of the outdoors in common, we became friends despite the differences of language and culture.

In August of the year, I invited him to come with his son to fish the south shore of RI with me.  He was committed to work but he said his son could come.  The boy was a hard worker and quick study and I agreed to take him.  The late afternoon run from Providence was full of questions about what we would be fishing for, what we'd use for bait and if it would be dangerous.  I assured Chan that we'd be safe, we would fish for Striped Bass and Bluefish using live eels.  We'd leave the dock in my 14-foot Boston Whaler and travel out Quonochontaug Breachway to fish along the Charlestown shoreline in Block Island Sound.  The weather was warm and clear and the wind was low.  I had been out the Breachway hundreds of times and we both would be wearing life preservers.

We arrived, parked, moved gear to the boat and were away from the dock in no time.  I wanted to get as much fishing time in as we could before dark. In the lowering late afternoon light, we picked up a big bluefish and snapped another fish off.  The boy clearly had his dad's hunter/gatherer gene.  As is my unfortunate habit, I stayed on the grounds a few minutes longer than I should have based on the light.  The sun had just dropped below the horizon when I finally resigned to moving the boat the 1/2 mile back to the Breachway mouth.  As is also my habit, as we started out, I instinctively reached back to lift the plastic  gas can to gauge the level.  My brain halted for a second when the plastic can came up from the deck so quickly.  Immediately, my astonishment turned into dread.  There was no way I had enough gas to get the boat back in.  Darkness was setting in, the wind was rising.  I had no phone. And, I had someone else's child with me.

Silently and slowly, I began pushing the boat to the west, into the now slowly building sea.  Staying within 200 yards of the beach I began calculating chances.  Anchor and use the gas can as float to kick in with the boy?  Leave the boy at anchor and go in for help?  Anchor and stay until morning, or until the coast guard was inevitably called?  Keep moving toward the darkening Breachway, now in mid-outgoing torrent, further hindering my progress?

None of these were good options but I was going to need to choose one, fast.  I decided to keep going toward the breach.  I listened carefully for a change in the engine's pace as we plodded into the wind and approached the sweep of the water pouring out of the pond.   The "rip" of the breach had risen with the tide and wind change and my whaler began to pitch through the 3 foot chop as I turned toward the opening.  I prepped Chan that I might need to "kedge" with the anchor if I had any engine trouble.  In my mind, I was seconds from that "trouble" as we passed the outer rocks of the breachway in the now almost complete dark.  Dark shapes of shorecasters stood like fenceposts at the end.  I'm sure they were shaking their heads,  knowing what an idiot I was as we chugged slowly uptide.  I knew that the bend in the breachway might be my best and last chance to stop the boat from falling back into that dark rip, making my set of earlier troubles almost insignificant in comparison.  As we hit the bend, I heard what I'd been waiting for; the engine began the high to low "cycling" that was the telltale of a dry tank.  Not knowing the oldtimer's trick of lifting the can for extra life, I jumped to the bow and threw the anchor as far toward the eastern shoreline as I could.  The hook caught and I strained against the tide to bring the boat over it before repeating several times.  Finally and breathlessly, we made the rip-rap in a slight eddy.  My relief was deep.  The boy asked "Did we run out of gas?" 

"Yeah, we did.  We'll have to wait the tide out here for a little while." 

The night was nowhere near over.  It was 9 PM.  The tide would ebb at 10:15.  My dock was a mile from the breachway.  His family would expect him around 9:30.  This was not good.  Luckily, it was a warm, clear night.  The boat secured, we sat on the edge of the breach and looked with the flashlight into the clear water.  We noticed lots of activity among the rocks. Cunner, green crabs, small eels and small lobsters were abundant.  Looking deeper, I saw a bigger lobster moving back and forth.  An idea popped to mind and, without knowing the law about shellfishing after dark, I cut the head off the big bluefish and put it in the extended net we had.  I lowered it into 4 feet of water near where I'd seen the lobster and we doused the light.  While we waited, we moved away from the boat and Chan began to try to catch a small lobster with his hands.  I used the light as he used a method he knew from catching crayfish.  I was amused but doubtful until he hoisted the 8-inch hardshell from the water.  I'd never seen or heard of anyone catching a wild lobster by hand from shore.  Releasing the little one, we moved back to the boat and checked the net.  Sure enough, a big lobster was nestled square in the middle of it chomping down on the Bluefish head.  I lifted quickly and we dumped the 2 pounder in the boat and reset our "trap".  By now, the tide was starting to slow and we could see big silversides at the surface toward the middle and we heard several big "plops" made by Stripers feeding.  We cast plugs with no luck. 

When the tide died fully and began to swing, we jumped in the boat and pushed off into the middle and I began to paddle with the lone oar.  The sky was now cloudless and the brilliance of the stars was amazing to the city boy.  He saw one shooting star, then another and then 8 more during the mile-long slog back. 

"I've never seen shooting stars before" he said after the first one. 

I've never run out of gas before, I thought to myself.   

After a quick tie-up and a run up to the house, I had him call his mom.  I told her that I was sorry and that we'd be back in an hour.  I dropped him off with the Bluefish and the Lobster.  I was embarrassed and apologetic.  His family was jovial and grateful.  They laughed when they heard I'd run out of gas.  In future trips, his mother would be sure to laugh when reminding me to "check the gas".  I haven't run out since and hope I never do again.  

Food Chain Fishing: The Snail's Revenge

I was in charge of my 7 and 9 year-old sons and their two pre-teen boy cousins for a day at the Cape last summer.  Wanting to avoid any chance that they would be zombied by an electronic screen for the day, I made a bold claim:  “We’re going Food Chain Fishing.”  When the boys asked what I was talking about, I explained. 

As the only present male members of the “tribe” around for this day, it was our job to catch food.  We would eat tonight only what we caught with our own hands.  And?  We would bring only three tools:  A sharp knife, fishing rods (with hooks) and a net.

They looked at me as if I had told them we were going to Mars to fish the afternoon tide. 

Quickly though, they started to take to the idea.  The importance of being the “sole” providers for our families brings out ancient instincts in kids.  Soon, they had taken the lead on packing up and we were off to a nearby tidal river, our mission firmly in mind.

The weather was very hot.  When we arrived at the trailhead, sand underfoot was already hot enough to force a running pace in bare feet.  The tide would be moving in for most of our hunting time and we got right to work. 

Step one, I explained to the little hunters, was to consider the possibilities of the menu. 

“Stripers!” the youngest one began, optimistically. 

“Maybe” I said, knowing the small likelihood of that happening in mid-day in mid-July. 

“Blue Crabs?” my 10 year-old asked. 

“Definitely.” I replied.  We had seen good numbers at the bridge a mile away the day before.  We noticed a fisherman in hip deep water pulling in good sized Scup not far down river and we had our second menu item targeted.  Snapper Bluefish was the decided third menu item and we set to it. 

Step two:  How to catch the Crabs, Snappers and Scup?  I remembered from my earliest days on the RI coastline, my father teaching us that you could use Periwinkles to pull Mummichogs from the marsh pools at Quonochontaug.  We crushed a few of the thousands of snails around us and tried our luck with good success.  The sport of yanking the three inch minnows from the water as their lips gripped the snail bodies was good stuff for the under 13 crowd and we probably could have spent most of the day doing just that if we didn’t refocus on “feeding the tribe“.

Step three:  Putting the Mummichogs on a hook is the early fisherman’s dilemma.  Most 7 year-olds are still sensitive enough to know that “hurting” other things isn’t good.  Luckily, they had me as a guide whose karma has been shattered enough by years of live-lining that I could teach the art of “fishing rationalization” – to catch big fish, you usually have to hurt little fish.  After the first cast produced a 12-inch Bluefish, everyone was pretty good with sacrificing the Mummichogs.  We set the 10 year old and one of the cousins on Bluefish duty.  They got to it with gusto.

Step four:  The Blue Crabs.  We had seen them cruising the shallows around us and we sacrificed the first Snapper Blue for bait.  One cousin and the 7 year old worked as a team baiting and netting with me as the “measurer”.  We began to gather the crabs with consistency and our feast was building. 

Step five:  Chasing Scup.  Watching the fisherman near us, we realized we’d need either live Mummichogs or pieces of Bluefish as bait for Scup.  We baited a double line with one of each and began Scupping.  After a few small keepers the 7 year old took over the duties as “Chief Scupper” and the rest of us wandered around hunting some of the other prey.  Soon, the fisherman (who had begun watching our crew amusedly) called out to me that the little guy might need some help.  Looking the 80 yards downstream to him, I saw him backing up on our little patch of sand lifting a large fluke from the water on his now tripled-over pole.  We all began sprinting up to him as he simple smiled broadly at all of us and said “I got a big one!”

The fluke measured 18” and, after proclaiming him “the Fluke Whisperer”, we promptly surveyed our total catch:  5 Scup, 8 good sized Snapper Blues, 6 Blue Crabs and the Fluke.  The boys beamed with pride as we hauled dinner back toward the car.  When we arrived back at the house, we surprised our families with dinner plans that none of them had known about.  There was much joy and pride from the successful “hunters”.  With a little corn and salad  (and Old Bay) tossed in, the meal was fit for kings,…or at least tribal chiefs.

The epilogue to the story involves the “Snail’s Revenge”.  A few nights after the big catch, my oldest awoke at midnight complaining of itchy ankles.  The next day, it looked like a good-sized spider had delivered a string of about 20 nasty bites on his ankles and feet.  We applied ointment and watched him struggle with the irritation for days.  I was angry at the spider but thought little of his pain, thinking that he needed to “toughen up” a bit, until I woke up at midnight with my own “pain”.  The “bites” had visited me.  Thinking little of coincidence, I called over to the cousins house.  The cousins were also reeling from the “bites”.  With a little more research we found our answer:  The Revenge of the Snail!  In very warm weather in some estuaries on the east coast, some species of Periwinkles spawn.  Their microscopic eggs take hold in anything they drift upon, including human ankle flesh.  We dealt with the pain for three solid weeks until the sores disappeared and we have not been back to “food chain fish” lately.