Feelzgood

The first thing that happened upon Joel’s arrival was the prompt breaking off of the last two inches of his Fenwick rod when his son, Trevor, slammed the car door on it. Good thing he packed two rods. After the curse words and histrionics subsided the two of us (Trevor ran upstairs in fear) got our tackle together and began packing what we needed for our first try of the season for dinner stripers.

We decided to take kayaks down to Buzzards Bay. Then I decided it would be easier to borrow my friend/neighbor Ned’s kayak because it was shorter than mine and therefore easier to lug around. But then the second mishap occurred. When I started to pull his kayak off his rack system (attached to his shed) the rack system failed and two kayaks fell on top of me. Ouch. But I survived, as I’ve survived all the major earthquakes, and soon Joel and I were speeding south to the fish.

The weather this afternoon was overcast and mild. The water on the bay was surprisingly warm. We put in on the coming tide and paddled out about 100 m and started casting our poppers. Within ten casts Joel was on. It measured out to 26. Then I was on, another in the mid twenties. Then we were both doubled up with near keeper fish. It was fun. Just about every cast resulted in a strike or a swirl and this lasted about 15 minutes. Then it stopped. The wind picked up out of the south and the bite just stopped. So we moved up into some salt marshes, explored several creeks, and enjoyed a small plane overhead doing acrobatics (wild stuff) and I envisioned it crashing somewhere. But it didn’t crash anywhere.

The marshes provided only tranquility. Then out to the open water where we had luck earlier. I hooked two fish that were about 26 inches long. Then the rain began and the wind picked up. We discussed heading in and eventually we decided to. I had forgotten how much my lower back hurts after a couple of hours fishing in a cramped kayak. So we started back across the bay toward the car. Then I heard a whine from Joel, then saw him fighting the fish, then heard him ask for the tape measure. We awkwardly measured the thing: 28.5 inches – dinner.

Back at home Brooke and Suzanne had the wine and cheese started and the fish was cooked in a fantastic tomato sauce and poured over ziti. It was an amazing dinner. The girls then hosted a beach party desert in the basement with beach boys and James Brown music….lots of whipped cream on Suzanne’s ginger cake.

Now a quiet house and I am full. We each landed about six nice fish this afternoon and lost twice as many. Feelzgood.