Gone Fishing

I get to work with a bunch of great guys at my job.  Smart, down to earth and rudely hilarious, when they invited me on a deep sea fishing trip, I answered with a “Hell yes.”  It took a while, but we finally settled on a ship called the Bi-Op-Sea in Nagshead, North Carolina.  About a six hour drive from here, we decided to spend two nights at a campground right by the fishing center to save money.  Six guys went on the trip.  The crew:

Bryant:  The boss man at work, but really just one of the guys.  A tall, handsome, ridiculously built man who also coaches AAU basketball ad brews great beer in his spare time.  Yeah, I really wish I could hate him, but he’s way too nice.

Jason:  A Maryland alum who was a legend on our program well before I met him.  The dude has forgotten more than I may ever be lucky to forget when I inevitably contract Alzheimer’s.

Zach:     Smooth operator, great golfer and fighting to stay single.  The best way to explain Zach is that women come into our office to bring him food.  Not us, just him.  I won’t lie, I take notes.

Warren:   Your friendly neighborhood redneck, by his own admission.  He owns four tractors, seven chickens and I think a couple of horses.  He doesn’t really need any of them, just enjoys having them around.  He lives about 80 miles from work so he can have enough space to roam and fire his multiple guns in peace.  A guy after my own heart.

Ed:          The newest guy to the group at work and stupidly smart.  You mention pretty much anything and he knows a lot about it.  He and Jason spent a half hour figuring out how the Nintendo gun worked in Duck Hunt and Ed started applying physics equations I’d never heard of. 

It’s a humbling work environment

We headed out early Friday morning.  We timed our trip around a Chick-fil-A lunch and hit the campground by 1:30.  We set the camp up in 30 mile per hour gusts and settled in to enjoy the homebrew Bryant brought.  I cooked up some bacon wrapped filet mignons and corn on the cob and we dine like cavemen kings.

We woke up at 4:00 the next morning, or rather other people woke me up at 4:00; I was more than happy with waking up at 4:45, grabbing a bagel and jumping in the car.  After a great breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and a fire toasted bagel, I was grateful for the extra 45 minutes.  We made the 90 second drive to the marina, hauled our cooler full of beer and lunch meat onto the boat and got ready to make the two hour ride out to (hopefully) tuna infested waters.  It didn’t take long for the first person to get sick.  Even with two doses of Dramamine in his system, Jason found himself laying on the couch cast in a lovely shade of green.  After an hour-long nap he woke up feeling much better and just in time to see the first fish get caught...

We stopped , set our bait out in the water and about 90 seconds later, we had our first hit.  Bryant was closest to the fish fighting chair (necessary for the 60-80 lb tuna we were hoping to catch) and brought in a nice 40 lb Wahoo.  Almost simultaneously, the pole next to me got a hit.  As I went to grab it, it was gone.  I checked the line and the nasty sharp teeth from another Wahoo had snapped it clean off, hook and all.  Jason and Zach both got hits and between the two of them, Jason’s slipped off and Zach brought in a ten pound baby dolphin fish.  Finally my turn came and it was another dolphin fish, but a big one.  My arms were killing me towards the end of the fight and I could see the biggest fish we had seen so far just over the bow.  The first mate leaned over to pull it in and as he went for the grab....the fish slipped off.  Grrrr....next time.  

Overall, we waited about two and a half hours and we only had one Wahoo and five dolphin fish and three beers in my belly to show for it.  No tuna.

Our captain heard over the radio that other boats have had luck a few miles away.  I used this opportunity to make and eat my first sandwich.   At that point it was only 10:00 in the morning, but I did eat breakfast at 4:00.  Sandwich was awesome and as I finished the last bite, we settled in for some dolphin fishing (not actual dolphin Jules).  I reeled in my first fish, a 25 pound dolphin fish.  When I tell you this story in the future, pay no attention to these details.  However big I tell you the fish was: that’s the truth. 

By noon, it was getting hot and we were still short of what we’d been hoping for.  There was beer, meat and good company, so we didn’t complain too much.  We hit a big school of dolphin fish and immediately we had four hits.  We jumped up, grabbed a line and started trying to get them all in.  It got tricky because if a fish swam from one side of the boat to another, you had to keep with it, moving your pole over and under the other guys also trying to bring in their fish.  We had an incredibly intense three hours and found ourselves with 37 dolphin fish, one lone Wahoo and about four birds.

No, birds is not some fishing term for a type of fish or bait.  Sea gulls rolled in and kept stealing our bait from under the water.  Many times they got hooked and we had to reel them in, get the hook out of their mouth while they tried to bite and claw at us, then let them go to do it all over again.  One of my favorite moments happened when the first mate reeled in a bird, took the line--bird and all--and smacked it loudly against the boat’s side.  The hook dislodged and the bird flew off disoriented and into another stupid bird.  We were all so pissed at them, we had a good laugh.

Our captain wanted to try one more spot for tuna before we call it a day.  We all agreed having caught enough fish that we can hold our heads up high when we head home.  We saw pilot whales, a hammerhead shark and actual dolphins, but no tuna.  Our captain stayed out an extra hour trying to find some tuna, but despite everyone’s best attempts, we headed back to shore tuna-less.  All-in-all a pretty good haul and the final weight of fish caught that day was 212 pounds.  We dropped off the fish at the cleaning center to be picked up before we headed out the next morning.  We had a guy cut off the tail of the Wahoo so we could have some fresh sushi with dinner.

So after a night of 30 mile per hour wind gusts, we were initially glad that the night was much calmer.  This changed after a short rain brought out the mosquitos.  

A sidebar on mosquitoes.  I hate them.  I hate them a lot.  When I say I hate them, if I was ever to start a charity, I would start a charity for the complete eradication of the species.  I hate them.....did I say that?  Anyways, my unreasonable hatred for these f#*%ers started when I played deep right field during our mid-spring baseball season growing up in Houston, Texas.  None of the kids could hit it that far, so I spent the entire time in the field swatting mosquitoes and using the sort of swear words a seven year-old uses like “butt-munches” and “fart-heads.”  Twenty-five years later, I’m using slightly different swear words, but sharing the same immature thought I had when I was seven: I wish I could kill every mosquito in the whole world right now with a single thought.  I hate them. 

So anyways, we tried to enjoy our dinner of venison steaks, potatoes and sushi.  Yes, we had the Asian guy make our sushi, but we’re really not racist, it just worked out that way.  The chefs did a great job, but there’s something about losing a pint of blood to parasitic insects that took the fun out of a nice dinner.  We each grab a couple of beers, head to the tents and pass out early after a long day.

We woke up around 6:00, make a good breakfast, pack up camp and pick up our fish as soon as the place opens up at 8:00.  The drive home was pretty silent as everyone fought sleep (a fight I lost...twice).  There was a scary moment when Bryant’s car suddenly lost power and the check engine light came on.  But after we stopped for a few minutes, and restarted the car, the fault cleared and the engine sounded good so we hit the road again.  After that the rest of the trip was smooth sailing and we each went our separate ways with about 20 pounds of fish filets each.

The next morning, we got to work and immediately there were several things going wrong.  As we shook off the cobwebs of an exhaustingly fun weekend and started working through the issues, we were all sharing the same thought: I’d rather be fishing.