In the Fog

Saturday, May 15

I overslept. I did. I knew I would, and I did. I was pretty tired from a long week and the plan to meet at Matt. Ct. at 5 AM didn’t sit well with me. Not only did I forget to set the alarm, I also managed to silence the phone so that Joel’s call at 5:10 never had the chance of waking me. But my right arm woke me at 5:12. It had “fallen asleep” and while I began to pump blood back into my hand by making fists I realized that I was missing something important: a morning on the water with Don Gunster and Joel on Don’s boat. Holy shit! So I called Joel and he understood and they both allowed me the 15 minutes to scrape myself together and arrive at the waterfront, totally disheveled. Totally.

The fog was thick. It took a long time for us to get out to mackerel ground. The fog never burned off and the mackerel never showed up. But about 15 other boats did and it was a scene. Actually, hearing all the close calls in the fog was entertaining and frightening. Anyway, we bagged out on the mackerel after the only thing hitting the jigs were illegal herring (all released) and headed in a ways to some flounder ground. There we had fun in the fog, landing our limit of 24 flounder in just over an hour. Don crinkled our mojos with sounds of the 70s from his XM radio which allowed us to laugh and sing through the fog, aware that many others would hear us (but would never see us).

After the mackerel we visited only two spots that I felt would hold bass. Seeking them through the fog would be tough, especially with the 70s cheese stomping out the telltale chirps of the gulls and terns. Both spots produced many large, feisty stripers and we had a fun time catching them. It was awesome and Joel, in correct form, sputtered cuss-filled exclamations, when he experienced near misses, faster than shit through a goose. Some of them were great:

“Holy shit-on-toast!”
“Fuckin’ fucking fuck!!”
“Fucknuggets!!”
“Holy fucknuggets!!!”
"Fucknuts!"

…and a personal favorite:

“Holy fucking fucknuggets Daddio!!”

(I am sorry if you are under the age of 17…but this is an honest account)

And then there was Don Gunster, famous for his “rip-the-hook out of the fish’s mouth” style of fishing. His first “Gunster” was terrific. Fish was on, then Don ripped the lure out of its mouth with the force of 14,000 giga newtons, sending the lure inches from the hull and our cherished human flesh. Others followed, but he was quite cool about it and even provided the occasional announcement that he, in fact, had “Gunstered” the fish. But Don’s first time out for the season was quite productive and he landed several keepers among dozens of others that were healthy in size.

I was in a tired daze most of the morning and my mind was almost as foggy as the bay. We went in around noon and cleaned the fish under a mix of fog and sun (and fast moving, whispy, low clouds), my favorite weather. It was also getting hot. I watched Joel clean the fish. I also watched people moving stuff from the old Duxbury Bay Maritime School building to the new one. And I felt pretty good.

I forgot my camera...no pics.