1014 and Sloshua
Venue:
Somewhere along the San Mateo Shoreline
Technology:
11’4” Team Daiwa Surf Rod/Newell C-220-5 (Unknown 20# Test)
10’ Daiwa Sealine (Gold)/Frankenstein 6500C3 (Tectan 18.9#)
Variable Parts:
A sweet concoction of squid/herring/mackerel/grass shrimp
Quarry:
9 Leopard Sharks ranging in size from not legal to legal
Prologue: Could a ho-hum sharaying report actually be this long? I do apologize for its length. I ran amuck with a pretty mundane storyline (no discernable climax), hopefully interjecting some substance into the usual sharaying report. Truth be told, I was tentative about posting this due to its volume(I did post it on my work blog), but since I made mention of some institutions on this board, I thought I’d bore you some. If you have the time and patience, I hope you enjoy.
I've never been much of a freshwater fisherman or a skiff-based fisherman, but my more and more frequent jaunts to Southern California, namely Orange County, to visit my in-laws, seemed to have indoctrinated me into a world I always felt out of reach and, more precisely, out of luck. It truly helps when there is someone, my brother-in-law, who is willing to mentor you in the finer rules of such. (Not that my cohorts here haven’t offered their services!) And with that spirit of rejuvenation upon my return, it was made more pleasant with the news that:
1. Coyote Lake had recently been planted with trout resulting in an active bass bite and
2. Slosh's aluminum boat may finally be ready to make its maiden voyage.
With such stars aligned, including a sale at the local b&t shop, Ly's, I stocked up on tackle and gear, once considered kapu in the 1014 household: freshwater tackle with the intent to be fished in freshwater and *gasp* a spinning trout set up! I was ready and friday night, I spent the better part of the evening, organizing my plastic boxes with an assortment of tubes, senkos, dropshots, spinnerbaits and jigheads. I was set: tackle was pre-rigged and worms were shaking in the fridge.
Well, obviously, since you're reading this on the main board, as Marcia Brady would say to Charlie, "something unfortunately came up." and our date with the lake was cancelled. Not surprising, since I’ve accepted that I’m cursed in regards to Northern California freshwater fishing. At the least, I am in high spirits at the fact that I’ve narrowed the blight geographically.
No real Plan B had been in the works, which is surprisingly odd. Slosh has had his boat for some time now (HS graduation gift), but it has yet to spend any time in the water. For one reason or another, each potential trip seemingly ended in a last minute cancellation – smoking motor, problem with the hitch, cold weather, etc. – leaving us scrambling for a back up session. After the first couple of short circuits, we had begun to devise a series of shore based back up plans – all salt water based, with bait and tackle easily at our disposal. It was repeated situations like these that my resistance to freshwater fishing was born. Someone’s gotta be telling me something.
Maybe this time my judgment was so clouded from recent success that I unequivocally put all my chips in. Were we really going to make our maiden voyage? Unfortunately, this time was, yet again, no different. With no plan B scheduled, no real “drive” to drive farther than necessary, and no more adrenaline to respond to an alarm for an early morning session, our default decision became simple: night time sharaying.
Judging by the recent success of the South Bay crew, including skunk breakers by both Raidersfan1 and SS23, we, as the title of this piece suggests, hit up an out of the way spot along the San Mateo County Shoreline. The tides, seemingly, worked for and against us. According to http://www.saltwatertides.com/, Coyote Point read:
Day High Tide Height Sunrise Moon Time % Moon /Low Time Feet Sunset Visible Sa 17 High 12:09 AM 6.7 7:17 AM Rise 6:33 AM 6 17 Low 5:47 AM 1.7 7:18 PM Set 6:00 PM 17 High 11:32 AM 7.9 17 Low 6:17 PM -0.4 Su 18 High 12:38 AM 7.1 7:16 AM Rise 7:01 AM 2 18 Low 6:33 AM 1.0 7:19 PM Set 7:15 PM 18 High 12:26 PM 7.9 18 Low 6:55 PM -0.1
The night brought a nice fast moving tidal swing sure to stir up the pot. Unfortunately, the night (or the day, as in St. Patrick’s Day) also has a strong affinity for alcohol, but in order to partake in this revelry, we needed to fish the night. Out-of-the-way spots, such as this one, are magnets for the afterparty running the gamut of emotions -- happy, sad, jealous and mad—as well as those who try to enforce and maintain such. Thankfully, on this night, it was our own personal moment in solitude with the only black and white visit, being a peculiar cat with a white stripe along its backside that sauntered between the shoreline rockwall and the brush to our backside. He kept his distance, though, not even a glance in our direction, and we made a point to never cross his path in fear of repercussion.
Now to the fishing… sort of.
Fishing is a game of calculations and with an ever-so-slight negative tide at 6:30-ish, it meant tinkering with the abacus, timing our arrival to maximize our fishing experience. Actually, well, we had to time it to have actual water out there. The (new) plan was to get out of rather mundane and landlocked south San Jose by 7:30pm and make it to the shoreline by 8:30pm, providing two hours of bay water to sufficiently blanket the typical mudflats of the bay. Despite our feening, it was understood by us both, the Slosh and I, that we weren’t performing a rush job on this one, and that any additional time meant we would not be casting into puddles. Not +10, not even +5, we were going to go right lane speed limit.
Fortunately, my blood pressure had understood this serene moment, because rather than go moke on Slosh for making us turn back twice – forgotten license and then bait – I casually laughed it off. Thankfully (for Slosh), all of our u-turns were pre-Freeway or he’d be walkin’.
And yet, with minor detours and a general pedestrian travel, we still managed to beat the water in: 8:30pm and just moist. Sure, it allowed us the opportunity to scout the area for potential snags – not much in mud – and potential structure – not much in mud –, but it was still way too early to fish. (In a bit of an arrogant tone) Release would be near impossible! Rather, we took a drive to a nearby McDonald’s and partook in their dollar menu.
We killed Double Cheese Burgers like no tomorrow. Actually, Slosh did (I had some fries), slowly, for an hour of fast food delight, enough time (we hope) for the South Bay to add some layers. Unfortunately, the feast also allowed ample time for the wind to make up the lag time, greeting us with a firm kiss on the cheek on our way out the door.
It was 9:30pm, ka makani in our face, clouds on the horizon and the waterline nipping at the toes of the rockwall. In the past, I’ve walked along the Bay Walk during super negative tides, where the mud invites you in with faux security, only for you to sink to your ankles and your shoes fill will grass shrimp. I’ve seen leopard sharks on the prowl in the shallows around islands of mud exposed yards off shore. They are there, but are they there now? Alas, the cold wind on an otherwise nice Bay night left us no alternative to kill time. It was now or never.
Orion, to the north, watched over us, the sea hunters, as we prepared our munitions for the quarry. LOL. I’m trying to create ambiance here albeit with mucho ineffectiveness. With the clear sky above, I seemingly always search out for the constellation Orion whose three starred belt reminds me of an old friend watching over us in our own pursuit. Especially on this night, any guardianship would be appreciated. Nighttime isn’t always the right time in the sense of learning the peculiar quirky personalities of new reels. I had recently replaced Slosh’s stainless steel ABEC7 bearings with a pair of ABEC5 ceramics in his Frankenstein Abu Garcia 6500C3.5 – a monster mash of part conversions that produce a fast spinning multi-clashing-colored reel. Conventional casting is as much feel as it is technique and sight, and this new reel felt different, much faster than in its previous form. And in the dark night sky, he won’t have that safety blanket sight line to gauge arc or splashdown. It’s all in the thumbs.
On my recent trip to Orange County, I was gifted by my brother-in-law’s brother a beat up Newell C 220-5, a reel that sat in a box of other used Newells (that sat next to boxes of other reels) that served their time and purpose and were laid to rest. Like the good salesman that he is, he gifted me one with the intent of luring me to purchasing others. Well, I’ve been building and rebuilding some reels lately, mainly Abu Garcias and still not to the expertise of Alan Tani, but I was attracted to the myth of Newell as a brilliant casting reel. I bit hook, line and sinker! I opted for the more manageable narrow spool of the 220 over its bigger brother the 229 (though I have already sent out feelers for the 229!). Holding 220 yards of 20 pound test, it fit in my rotation as a non-levelwind heaver that the 7500c3 (modified to a 5.3:1 retrieve), 7000c3ct (really a poor man’s CT), and BG 7000iHSN could not fill. I’m a man with a taste for precise fishing equipment, sort of. I actually took some time during the week breaking the reel down (courtesy of the breakdown provided by Alan in the resources page of the PFIC website), cleaning and relubing the entire reel including the stock bearings. The bearings weren’t that bad of shape for not being in use for nearly ten years. Actually, the whole reel was in very decent shape, notwithstanding a squeaking handle, minor boat rash and some hint of corrosion. The cleaning alleviated most of that leaving the reel spinning like its first year. I have to hand it to Mike, he fishes hard but the reels stay in great shape. Eventually, I’ll swap out the bearings and drag, and try to customize the handle.
You can’t “cheat” casting a Newell – no centrifugal brakes, no magnets, no spool tension knob. It truly is: all about the thumbs. Fortunately, the reel sits pretty close to the blank and the larger flange of the spool allows me to manage the reel quite easily. But as with Sloshua, it is truly all about feel and this was a new reel and a new sound. I had pre-rigged a fish finding rig sans leader/hook/bait prior to the trip, and sitting the reel on a Team Daiwa 11’4” surf rod, I bunkered down for a few test casts to wet the line. Aside from slight overruns, I managed to control the reel pretty well, looping some Overhead and Uni-Casts into the puddles of mud. Progressively digging deeper into the spool with more force added in each subsequent cast, it became more noticeable to me that thumbing the line back on the spool in the dark became more of the concern. The anxiety reared its ugly head as I neared emptying the reel half way, I uncovered poorly overlaid line – line under line, the near invisible virus capable of the dreaded break-off-during-cast disease. Short of cutting the line and uni-to-uni the appendages together, I decided to strip line by hand rather than risk the chance of the line breaking off. I figured the deeper in the spool the overlay is, the farther of a concern it would be to me for the session. I was in the firm belief that I couldn’t possibly reach ¼ of the spool. Point of information: I should have mentioned before but rather than re-spool for a sharaying session, I left the 10+ year old line on for the test session. It was, my belief a no-lose situation if I broke off and lose significant or any line. Fortunately, I wouldn’t on this night.
New-ell. Ne-il. Cosmic connection perhaps?
I had prepped squid/herring/mackerel/grass shrimp magic-thread-wrapped cocktails with wire leaders and 2/0 mutu light circle hooks prior to leaving home. About 3 rigs for the each of us, so initial fishing time would not be spent tying and we would get our lines in the water quicker. After our own impromptu casting session (which included a very bad bird’s nest by Slosh), the water finally started to make its way in, like a forceful line for a g-n-r concert, gaining nearly 2 steps on the rockwall in thirty minutes time. Despite the surge, 3oz held fine but we opted for 4oz to combat the head wind. Combined with the heavier bait and our propensity to attempt to fully load the rods, we decidedly played it safe rather than testing the full abilities of the rods. The TD has a rod rating of 4 to 7oz, but I tend to stick to within the self imposed rating equation: High + Low/2 = Average + Bait. Maybe, it’s to play it safe, but somehow my wife hints that it is a delusional attempt to explain tackle ho-ism.
Seclusion is nice. Seclusion with a foxhole is better. The spot itself is fronted by the rockwall shoreline and backed by a not so deep ditch filled with over brush following the length of the Bay Walk. Combined with the South Bay partying in some pub on St. Patrick’s night explaining the lack of human traffic (and parked cars), the spot is a perfect arena to practice a variety of powercasting: One on deck, one in the hole. Mind you, casting far won’t guarantee you the biggest or any fish, for that matter. Reading the waterways is a much better technique than a pendulum cast to have in your arsenal, but sometimes the human condition is unable to distinguish what’s more important: fish tally or machismo.
My line was in the water a full 20 minutes before Josh could reel in from his first practice cast. The first fishing cast, rather than prep cast, was a simple overhead cast towards a rocky structure I recalled exposed by the low tide. Not quite sure if I hit my target, but the trajectory of my line pointed in that direction and, in the dark, that’s all I can hope for – a belief fish like structure and I am in the vicinity. Truth be told, I was actually aiming perpendicularly out from the shoreline, but my OTG casts needs a lot of work. Too much initial speed and the resulting bait’s momentum caused the line to veer right. With that in mind, I’m still pretty sure I was close to the newly redefined target.
The first cast bird’s nest actually ruffled Josh’s feathers enough to concentrate less on distance and power, but to be more conscious of technique. This honestly became a good thing in that he was able to focus on fishing – reading the water ways, targeting, follow-thru. Josh’s actually only been on the conventional for a few months now and his natural instincts still kick in at times to “spinner snap” that cast off. Countless numbers of rigs have rocket-floated off to the East Bay or Hawai`i (dependent on fishing locale) and others have resulted in not-so-bad backlashes. But this one was bad. And again, this was a good thing. 10 minutes after my bait hits the water, I get my first pull. Actually, the bells rang and the rod tip nods in approval. Hanapa`a Fish on.
Despite the stiff nature of the graphite TD, the rod is swinging rapidly but quietly, as if a stool pigeon is secretly pointing out the guilty party trying not to reveal to the prey it has been nabbed. Shark. Small. Leopard. Didn’t pull drag. The first fish of the night was an easy call and an even easier release. No net necessary and definitely not video camera worthy. My headlamp went on and I hopped rock to rock down close to the waterline and, without worry of a true fight, I thumbed the line slowly and evenly in. The leopard, barely two feet, laid limp as if it knew the drill and because of this, it was not necessary to lift him much out of the water to get the hook out and send it on its way. Sharks, when allowed to recover from the fight rather than thrown back into the drink, leave beautifully smooth as they slither away. Even in the dark and nearing my mid-thirties, I was as excited as a child to see the creature swim away.
An essential shoreline fishing accessory? A bait threader and not for its primary purpose. As I busied myself releasing the leopard, Josh remained stationary near the lantern toting the rod and reel in one arm, a bait threader in the other hand, and a bouquet of mono hanging to his side. I had yelled him off the net when it became apparent his services wasn’t necessary so he resumed picking at his reel, this time employing the sharp point of the bait threader to dig and pull. It appeared that he was finally conquering the backlash demons and regaining some his sanity back. I, on the other hand, made my way back up to flat land and proceeded to switch the thoroughly beaten squid rig, easily snapping off and on the pre-baited riggings with ease. This time the bait found itself on a more direct and intended trajectory out to sea with a simpler overhead cast. I placed the rod back in the holder and quickly turned around to get the status on Josh’s ordeal. Quick hands of frustration made for a strobe light affect near the lantern and Josh seemed to be nearing his wit’s end. As his arms dropped to his side to release a sigh of mental exhaustion, I finally took it as my cue to come to his rescue. I made that initial step forward to begin a beeline to Slosh before I stopped dead in my tracks: the bells ring again.
Only the second fish, but it was already a routine: Shark, Small, Leopard, Didn’t pull drag, and released with ease. I was up two to none in the fish count and heading back up the rocks when Slosh sighs. Immediately, I interpret it as a sign of disillusionment and distress, and like a good older cousin should, I rush up the rocks to his aid. Well, not really. Like a real older cousin would do, I zing him when he’s down. Sure, I intended to help him out, but only after my line was back in the water, and the way it has gone so far, even that was no guarantee the sharks would allot the necessary time. So, instead, on my way up the rockwall, I zinged him again.
Luckily, it wasn’t a stormy night. The way Slosh held that bait threader in the air as a sign of triumph he would be an attractive lightning rod prepped and ready for the frying. Already two fish down in our friendly competition, which ultimately will end with wet feet, Slosh had, finally, undone the impossible. And as I finally made the slow rock hopping climb up to level ground, he snapped his bait rig on.
You could see the concentration in his eyes. You could feel the slow, deep breathing. You could sense the tensed nervousness. And you could laugh at the seriousness of it all. Josh casted and then smiled.
It’s been nearly fifteen minutes from my last cast, enough time to re-bait the two abused rigs, as well as, enough time for Josh to seemingly regain his casting confidence. One cast sans a backlash and he’s already forgotten. Oh to be young again!
Sixteen minutes past: a double hook up. The water was in full transition at this point and the sharks were in. My bells rang first. Ring, silence, then the circle hook got them good. Unfortunately, the wild dance of my fast graphite rod tip, accompanied by the ringing endorsement of the bells, still does not test the greased stock drags of the Newell. Thus, it’s no reason for me to hurry to retrieve my pole. I meander instead. Josh’s reel sings finally at this point a pretty good song at that, complete with the siren wail of new carbon drag. Its (Frankenstein’s) song rushes me at first, but it’s not my rod and in our brief time together I’ve conditioned myself to be very careful thumbing my line in to the Newell. Josh’s gonna have to land this one in on his own. Luckily, he’s positioned himself for just that: a flat rock hovering just over the waterline. Josh was silent through the fight, still in deep concentration, I suppose. By the time I looked up to see his status, he was knelt down tape measure in hand: just a fraction over 36”, a legal leopard about the size of Slosh’s smile at the moment.
We really did contemplate the keep. Our uncle had always pressured us to keep a shark or a ray with the promise he would prepare it and it would taste good. But we’ve never had the stomach to clean a shark or a ray and this time was no different. Citing the measure could be inaccurate – as opposed to my rather docile sharks, this one was pretty ornery – we slowly revived and released.
Rather than repeat a growing trend, the double hook ups occurred two more times, seemingly with a fifteen minute pause in between, and both in similar fashion to the first: my bells ring first and then Slosh’s reel sings on cue. And each subsequent time yielded the same result: Josh’s catches, though not legal these two following times, were visibly larger than my own pair.
At this point, I had only mentioned definite hits on the reel, but in reality, the bells were ringing quite frequently. We had yet to “jack up” to check bait or re-cast, instead I opted to wait for the sure hits. Though the winds could have possibly played a factor, these were forceful rings that only an inquisitive bite on a taut line could initiate. I can only imagine a circling of sharks around my hook and the last big bite was the owl that got the hook (not tootsie roll) center of my squid pop. Furthermore to illustrate a point, after each catch, we noticed both of our hooks completely stripped of the bait, full squid heads and torso cocktails. Whether the bait fell off during the fight (they were wrapped in with magic string) or were completely eaten remains a mystery, but what is apparent, on this night and time, the sharks were definitely ravenous and, possibly, moving in packs.
We had seen the clouds approaching from the northeast. They hovered over the Far East, and slowly made their way over to us on the western shores of the Bay. By the time we were blanketed and the night became a haunting indigo, it was nearing 11:30pm and…
… the bite shut off. Up to this point, our vigilant eyes and, what became a routine, catch and release session seemed to whisk our minds away from the cold, but ke ao `ele `ele put an end to that. They blocked the stars and its artificial guiding light and warmth. The slowly moving pack of wolves had engulfed us and we became mindful of our milieu and less attentive to fishing.
Did I mention that we were cold? And worse yet, the bite had turned off. We were, though, conscious that we were nearing the top of the tide and the plan was to sit on it: fish the incoming and two hours of the outgoing. Up to this point, the action was pretty steady, though none in the past half hour. I had resorted to jumping jacks at one point, but an active 1014 existed in kinetic form 5 years ago, but in my current potential state that motivation, though resulting in a brief moment of warmth, didn’t last long. Instead, I began to lay low near to the paved walk hoping for reprieve from the wind, staring at the now dark skies, praying for a bite. Dead bodies on the runway, a cold runway.
Slosh and I are like brothers. My first cousin’s eldest and the oldest of the “next generation” of kids, he was trapped -- not wanting to be the baby but still yet trying to fit in with the older kids – but he didn’t fight it. And in that struggle to find his place, he was also the most accepted of the new generation. He’s a good kid. Over a decade in age difference, yet he’s always been my partner in crime. When I towered over him, I brought him into surfing when I needed somebody to keep me company. I gave him my leftover boards, fins and wetsuits. Every time I had a new bodyboarding video, I picked him up and we’d watch the video getting stoked for the next session. Now that he towers above me, I bring him along fishing when I needed somebody to keep me company. And I still give him my hand-me-downs. He was one of my groom’s men. I was his sponsor for his Confirmation. Our talks are a mish mash of shallow and deep. I ask him how his classes are, and then I zing him. I ask him if he’s seeing see anyone, and then I zing him. But we talk fishing and we talk surfing. Lying down on the cold pavement staring at urban’s reflection in the clouds, trying to keep warm, I tell him stories about growing up in
Josh takes hard hook sets, a hard lesson learned from years of stalemated battles or, more precisely, lost battles. It isn’t so much that Yosh is slow to grasp concepts, it’s been force fed to him down into na`au, but in the heat of battle, and not just in any battle, but full fledge assaults, he’s more prone to lose focus. Time and time again, on big hits from definitely bit fish, he loses focus and, as a result, the fish.
Shhhh! Joshua can cast far but don’t tell him, we don’t want him to get a big head. Actually, even if we tell him, he probably won’t. It’s why we invite him fishing. I always secretly wonder to myself, with the right equipment, the potential Slosh could achieve. Yet with Frankenstein married to a gold Daiwa Sealine, Josh reaches big fish. This was no different. Landing it would be.
We knew right away it was a leopard; between long runs, she would stop and make quick horizontal slashes with her rapier in an attempt to keep Josh at a distance. But he persisted forward and down the rocks to a stable landing post we had scouted out in the dark. On this evening, this would be the only true “run,” making our chase more intent on the catch -- volleying backseat advice and in-game, in-pursuit commentary between both Slosh and I. My intent was not to have Josh stray from focus. And I played him as such, vicariously fighting the fish on my own. But it wasn’t really necessary; Josh was in capable hands, his own; thrashing on the surface a feline suckered by a ball of string. She measured out to 40”, though on the rocks, in the dark and a fiery disposition made an accurate measure impossible. Her constant bickering made it quite obvious to us, she didn’t want this date, so we obliged – and with no kiss goodbye, she splashed off much faster than she came.
The clicker on the Newell works; I tested it myself: switched the line out alarm on and physically pulled some, well, line out. I reassured myself that it’s loud alright, enough to waken the rats hibernating in the rock wall below us and, more importantly, it’s working. The drag works as well. Mind you, they are over ten years old, herky jerky, and stock, but it works.
We should have packed up a long time ago. The wind, though periodic, was cold; clearly reminding us that spring was still a few days away. Approaching 2am, most of the action, aside from Yosh’s popoki nui, had died more than an hour ago. Even the playful taps on my bait had subsided. Na I`a kū had left us.
It became an anti-climatic ending.
I really did hold out all hope for a nice drag testing run but even the idealist in me needed to wake up. I had finally taken the cue at 2am, nearly 2 ½ hours into the outgoing tide that being cold and having no action was simply not fun at all. Still the card carrying optimist, I opted to refrain from jacking up the rods, but began cleaning up our fishing site, loading all the gear minus the poles into my truck conveniently parked nearby, at the end of a nice dirt trail. I’d look at my pole between trips with short bursts of concentration trying to conjure up some sort of jedi mind trick to motivate either the rod to jump or the fish to bite. Not working, need to see Yoda.
Clackatackatackatackatackatacka…
The Team Daiwa didn’t even bounce. The bells made nary a peep falling off from its loose perch on the rod tip and thus swallowed into the rocks. The rod anchored into the rocks, arced in an effort to hold itself down whilst maintaining a stranglehold on the line being ripped from its grasp. Finally, as a conclusion on this night, a night train makes an appreciated but unexpected detour to tour the San Mateo Shoreline rocks.
It’s funny, I didn’t run to my pole, in fact I didn’t move much. I just stood there, in the dark, and admired its curvature, and the beautiful soundtrack of fishing. I admired how the clouds parted for a brief second, as if this was retribution for “waiting it out.” I admired my calmness in containing that joy of the “hanapa`a”, mimicking the coolness of my mentors: 2d, Kaleo, GrammarPolice, FakeFisherman, dkkim, the Slinger of Song, Mel and Redfish to name a few.
I finally picked up my pole, still in song, and lightly tilted my wrist back with the intent to embed the hook further, more so was unnecessary as I trying not to interrupt the performer in the process. We were an audience intent on catching glimpse of the temperamental starlet after the show, with the possibility a photograph for our own scrapbook. But, we knew, in order to do so, we needed to play this game right, to assure her receptiveness to our pleas. Pole at 45 degrees, any more or less, she may slink away in disgust and hide in her trailer. And she sang.
And she stopped. I still felt her imposing presence on the line, her steady flow and a reasonably tight drag pressure refrained from slacking much line.
And she held on tight. To the bay floor, she sat with a thump. I was bracing for another run, but her intermission allowed me to hop to a more stable, flatter rock to provide balance for the duration of the show and the facility for proper catch and release.
My line was tight, but my focus wasn’t. She eventually made that run and I was prepared for it. The drag sang in unison, and if I can recall correctly, didn’t stutter to keep up. Yet, my line slacks mid chorus: fish off. I was focused on release, and she did it for me. I hurriedly reeled in, not too mindful of thumbing my line in, rather self-contained on interrogating myself: technique, set drag pressure, equipment failure, slack line, broken line maybe? Answer: A straightened hook. An Owner 2/0 mutu light circle hook pulled out straight: too much pressure on an unusual weak link.
My spool is line right side heavy, so I release my energy on a pendulum cast. With ¾ths of the spool emptied, I reacquaint myself with the initial overlay. I say my hellos, and slowly climb down the rocks to forget and slowly retrieve, evenly laying the line back on to the spool. I eventually drag through roe of some kind. Clear, rubbery pellets the size of lint that clings to some seaweed and now to my swivel and weight.
When one loses a fish, we usually laugh at each other, but Slosh doesn’t know how to react right now. He doesn’t have a feel for me and my reaction at the moment. I’ve gotta be mad, no? Lost fish? It’s usually him and he knows it, too. So, to me, he says the first thing that comes to mind with a hesitant fear, “You know, at least your knots didn’t break.”
I snicker and then yell to remind him to stay awake for the trip back because I’m tired. And then we laughed the whole way home.
Epilogue: Frankenstein met its maker this night. A torch bearing mass cornered the manifestation along the Evergreen foothills of San Jose. A couple nights ago, with the wahine off to work, I spent the evening with Joshua educating him on the secrets of reel maintenance, cleaning and relubing. Though the reel showed no external evidence of internal damage (in fact, the reel was casting as smooth and far as ever at the local lake), the breakdown revealed a weathered, beaten veteran hiding the truth to keep its spot in the rotation: a bent gear shaft and gear sleeve. No Tommy John surgery is possible; we are going to have to replace the whole arm.
