I remember the excitement of being asked to go fishing, at
night, with my dad. In the steamy
days of late August, Striped Bass haunt the rip-rapped breachways of southern
Rhode Island. Sometimes they are
itinerants, moving their way ahead of the fall migration to winter homes in the
Hudson, Delaware or Chesapeake.
Some have been there since early spring and have found the routine of
predictably changing tides moving through a narrow channel to their benefit in
feeding.
My father had heard they were there and we had heard stories
of him catching a big one in Newport long ago. We were within a mile of the breachway on the edge of
Ninigret Salt Pond in our small month-long rental.
I was twelve. He
was then and has always been a giant in my eyes. A picture on my refrigerator now shows me at 2 looking up in
awe at his young, weathered face as we sit before a massive pile of split
wood. When he asked if I wanted to
go with him at 2 in the morning to the breachway by boat to fish for stripers I
leapt at the opportunity.
I remember a small dock and the beach next to it that we
laid the boat on. The boat was the
classic 12 foot “tinboat”. We had
two gray wooden oars and a small outboard that pushed us across the glassy pond
in the pitch dark. A long,
serpentine channel lead to the breach. I held a flashlight over the bow as we
traveled and I imagine he told me at some point to turn it off to conserve the
battery. Looking into water like
that at night with a light has always fascinated me. The water was rich with life and mystery. Our pullout was a sandy recess on
the West side of the channel, across from the state parking area. We could hear the crashing of the surf
in Block Island sound, only 200 yards over the barrier dune from our
landing. As he fished, I continued
to peer into the water. I remember great schools of Silversides and many green
crabs roaming the openings between the breachway’s slippery rocks. I remember Striped Killifish mating at
the very edge of the water at the top of the moon tide. I’m sure that he was a bit disappointed that I was more
interested in looking in the water than I was casting the Rebel plugs into the
middle on the incoming tide. I
can’t remember much about the fishing except that we didn’t catch any Stripers
and that the trip was cut short by an envelope of fog as the dawn
approached.
We packed out our gear with some urgency and raced (as best
the small engine could) through the turns of the channel to the pond. Once in the pond the fog settled completely
on us and we were lost. A thick
fog makes a mockery of sense of direction. The mind’s imaginings become confusing. Navigating is like walking through your
house with your eyes closed.
He seemed more concerned about me and how I felt. He told me that the best thing to do in
fog was to set the anchor and “hunker down” until the fog lifted, which it surely
would. Once we’d navigated back
out into what we thought was well out into the open pond, we set anchor. For three hours we tried to get sleep
on the hard, damp aluminum hull with little success. I spent some of the time peering through the water, with and
without the now useless light as the foggy darkness led to foggy light.
As the fog began to lift and we recognized where we were, we
laughed together. 100 yards to our
north was our dock and beach. We
had been within 300 yards of our beds the whole time. I remember sleeping well and him telling me that he didn’t
mind being stuck in the fog with me, or something to that effect.
Looking back, like all sons of good fathers I suppose, I
would love to be lost out there, alone with him for another three hours. Its not that bad being lost with your dad
in a boat. It sure as hell beats
being lost by yourself.
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