Take a Kid Fishing

I had to stretch my steps to avoid the cracks between the greying planks. At each inch or so of space between the decking, my eyes would follow the white foam gathering at the tops of waves that ran beneath us to the beach. When my grandfather, Poppy, found a spot along the pier railing, usually just behind the breakers, I continued on while he got everything set up. My circuit to the end of the pier and back was an intelligence gathering mission. I stopped at every sea-water-filled bucket and ice-packed cooler to examine the contents: usually croaker, whiting, or red drum awaiting an evening fish fry, and I asked the leather-tanned fishermen, between long pulls on their beers or long drags on their cigarettes, what bait they were using.

The top of the railing was bloody when I got back to Poppy and two lines were already in the water. The blood was from the bait, aptly called bloodworms. After a bit of pocketknife surgery, one of the foot-long parasites easily filled the four hooks of my grandfather’s two rigs. I reported what I had seen on my recon mission, and my grandfather chewed over the information, working it in his mind like he worked the plug of Redman in his cheek, trying to determine whether or not we should add some cut shrimp to our arsenal of parasites. Most fishermen preferred shrimp, not necessarily because they are more productive at the end of the line, but because bloodworms are poisonous and can deliver a pretty nasty bite, much like a bee sting.

Poppy was all business. Most of the fishermen leaned their rods on the railing and reclined, soaking in the sun or stealing a glimpse at the stream of bikinis coming and going on the pier. My grandfather remained taut and attentive, and so did his line, a length of which he always kept pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Poised to set the hook, he felt every nibble and, consequently, we filled our bucket while our pier mates mostly fed the fish. I held the second rod and tried to emulate him, hoping not to show my youthful impatience by jerking the rod back when all that had disturbed the line was the swell of a wave. When I got something on the line he helped me reel it in, but I always hoped he would get hooked up first so that I might get to pull one in all by myself while he was busy landing his own.

I was six or seven years old and clad in an orange T-shirt with a Bugs Bunny decal ironed on. For luck, I wore it every time we went fishing. I can remember an old Polaroid. I’m grinning, holding up a string of bream from our freshwater pursuits that reaches from head to toe. Bugs is taking a chunk out of a carrot. I just about lost a chunk of my face that day on the pier. Despite good fishing, I had grown antsy like all little kids do, so I set out down the planks to chart the progress of our pier mates. I looked up from a spot-tail swishing water in a bucket in time to see Poppy pulling in another one. By the time I returned, plastic flip flops snapping at my heels at every quickened step, my efficient grandfather had already bucketed the catch, rebaited the hook and, unaware of my position behind him, hoisted the rod over his shoulder. I was too close. I got a mouth full of bloodworm, a hook snagging in my lower lip as my grandfather turned the lead weight around at the onset of his cast. The sensation of extra weight on the line signaled for him to stop. It’s better to rip off a Band-Aid than work it off slowly, and I think I might’ve preferred that he had continued with the cast no matter how much of my lower lip went to sea. Instead I tried to stay still while he worked the barb loose with red-stained fingers, the bait’s blood mixing with my own.

I cried through the lecture until he suggested that maybe it was time to go.

“No, one more fish, Poppy. I promise not to get near the hooks.”

* * *

Now when I walk down that pier I have to shorten my stride, making choppy steps to stay on the planks while Silas stretches his legs to keep pace, his Crocs settling safely between the cracks, at least until he catches a glimpse of the first bucket. Then, pier rules and mother’s backs be damned, the boy takes off, running over the cracks until he finds a bucket brimming with a bountiful catch. Cutting tight circles in their holding tank--their final resting place--the fish arrest Silas’s normally scattered attention. He wants to touch them, but thankfully always politely asks the angler for permission first. Squatting, he strokes their silver sides. Eating the fish never occurs to the boy; to him they are part pet and part playmate. And he must have some of his own.

Before the discovery of fish our beach time was spent erecting sand structures that never got very tall before boy Godzilla un-erected them with a stomp (or ten). We played with trucks. We gathered shells. We rolled around in the sand fighting over a little Nerf football. We threw sand; okay, he threw sand, usually at me, but sometimes karmic wind gave him a taste of his own sandy medicine. When we got hot we waged war with waves in the shallow water until we cooled off. We played a game called chase Silas to the horizon and carry him back, kicking and screaming. This fun game featured the boy marching down the beach to each little tourist settlement--an umbrella, coolers, beach bags, and beach chairs or towels positioned based on their occupant’s taste for the sun--to beg food or toys off total strangers. Admittedly, I didn’t mind this game so much when he employed his considerable cuteness to get an audience with attractive ladies. But for every beach beauty there were two or three Earls, peering down at us over their beer guts, wondering why this long-haired toddler was rifling through their stuff.

Fish put an end to his wandering. We started small. Really small. I found an old butterfly net under the beach house and learned to catch mud minnows, who were tossed so far up the beach by incoming waves that sometimes they had to swim back on their sides, riding the tide as they sought the safety of deeper surf. Even in such shallow water they weren’t easy pickings, and for every 50 stabs with the net I might collect one darting fish. That one shiny minnow, no bigger than my thumb nail, would buy time until I caught the next one. I soon learned to double my odds, stalking the shoreline until I found a school of minnows and waiting for the push of an incoming wave to force an unsuspecting fish into the waiting net. If I found the net empty, I would pivot in the divot the wave dug out beneath my feet and try to pick one off on the second leg of its round trip.

Sometimes we dug a deep hole near the water and waited for a wave to fill it. Silas sat in his sandy aquarium, harassing our catch as they circled their confines, plotting an escape that wouldn’t come until a strong wave caved the walls of the watery fortress. The boy developed his own minnow transport system, plunging his Tonka dump trunk into the shallows, letting water rush into the bed before following me down the shore. The net went in. A fish came out. He held it for a moment, admiring the bright shine the sun extracted, released it into the truck bed, then beep beeped the truck backwards to his makeshift aquarium. He dumped the entire contents into his pool and the cycle began anew: fill truck, find dad, wait for fish.

“It’s time for lunch.” “It’s time for more sunscreen.” “It’s time for dinner.” “It’s time for bed...” Anything I said or did that threatened to break the cycle was met with the same response: “One more fish, Dadda.”

Eventually we moved on to bigger and better fishing technology, a casting net that allowed me to ensnare finger mullet. Now I was bringing in several fish at a time and the boy’s aquarium looked like a display at the live bait shop, except there was a boy in the middle of the tank with a butterfly net scooping out the bait. He would trace a fingernail, softened by the surf, over the silver scales and pet the fish with pruny fingers until I coaxed him, finally, to return it to the water before it wasn’t live bait anymore.

***

Our strip of sand cut a path between the blue-green ocean and the brown, muddy waters of a crab and oyster-laden inlet. The sun was just starting to color low-hanging clouds over the inlet, its westward sinking signaling the dinner bell, when a father and two sons rose, backlight at the top of the dunes, poles in hand. Down they came, stepping quickly despite the encumberance of gear, racing the sun for supper. At the shoreline they shoveled sand away from the water and picked off unearthed mole crabs (or sand fleas, depending on how southern you are) on their dash back to the sea. The little armored crabs found new homes on hooks and, with the help of four-ounce lead weights, took a flight beyond the breakers. It didn’t take long for a rod to bend.

When Silas picked up on the excitement I knew it was going to be a late dinner for us. By the time the catch was flopping on the beach, he had splashed out of the mullet farm and rushed to the scene. Seized by a convulsion of pure glee, he stretched his arms straight down at his sides, fists balled, thin muscles taut, and bounced up and down, gradually rotating to face me as I caught up.

“It’s a shark, Dadda!” he squealed. “It’s a shark!”

The fishing family’s patriarch removed the offending species from the hook quickly and gave it a disgruntled heave back to whence it came. A foot-long sand shark is nobody’s idea of dinner. But that’s all they got--little sharks--one right after another, while Silas looked on with an unyielding sense of awe. Down the beach I dug a trench and herded the boy’s now forgotten pet mullet collection back to sea as the blue of the horizon faded to deeper and deeper shades. Soon there would be no horizon. The fishing family disappeared over the dunes at dark, and I finally got a hold of my prize catch, who asked, “Can you catch me a shark, Dadda? Please?” as we headed for the break in the sea oats that led to dinner and a long overdue rest. “Tomorrow,” I said.

It was a short night. As soon as dawn crept in through the blinds the boy wrestled free from our cuddle and jerked the covers off the bed, which is his not so subtle way of motivating me to get moving. I buried my face in a pillow, determined to return to slumber, but it was unburied by the whiplash from each boy bounce. Jumping up and down on the bed, he repeated two words: “You promised,” until I pulled on some clothes and we were off to the bait and tackle. I had dreamed of this milestone day--no minnows, no mullet, but a proper day fishing--since his conception, but after waiting years for the moment I could’ve happily pushed it back until the afternoon, or at least until eight a.m.

The bait shop was like our mullet farm on steroids. Bubbling tanks contained all manner of tempting treats for trophy fish, including our friends the finger mullet and mud minnow, as well as other small fish, fiddler crabs, and live shrimp. Silas stared while I shopped. I picked up an eight-foot pole for surf casting, a couple of rigs with specially shaped weights for keeping the bait anchored despite the steady onslaught of the surf, a bait knife and bait bucket, pliers (just in case something scary came back on a hook) and, with apologies to my grandfather, frozen shrimp rather than bloodworms.

Back at the beach house, I forced a bowl of cereal down Mr. Excited’s gullet and chased him around the porch until he was thoroughly lathered in zinc oxide, then I pack muled our haul from the bait and tackle shop to the beach. I worked a shrimp free from the frozen chunk, released some orange goo when I pinched its head off, shelled it, and cut it in two equal parts, one for each hook. I waded out and listened to the satisfying sound of monofilament leaving the spool after I launched the line over the breakers. I kept the reel open as I made my way to the shore so I didn’t pull the bait in with me. When I hit dry sand I snapped the reel closed and cranked it tight. I eyed the section of PVC pipe I had brought down as a rod holder, but then I thought of Poppy on the pier, forever watching the ocean, line pinched to feel every nibble. I would only use the PVC for baiting hooks. A rod belongs in your hands, so I rested the butt of it on my hip, took a length of line and felt it cut into my finger. I watched and waited, trying to resist the urge to jerk the rod tip back every time a wave pulled the line a little further into my flesh.

It wasn’t long before I felt the unmistakable back and forth signal of a bite and set the hook hard, pausing for a second to feel the satisfying vibrations of the darting prisoner before turning the crank. Fish on! Silas abandoned the dump truck and pastel plastic beach buckets and appeared at my side, sharing my excitement over solving the mystery at the end of the line. The mystery was partly solved before I cranked the fish to shore. It rose, clearing the water with a leap, tail surfing the green sea in a desperate attempt to spit the hook. Glimmering silver scales, and the fact that it jumped at all, meant that what we had was definitely not a shark. It turned out to be something more dangerous, a juvenile blue fish that maybe went a pound. After I worked the hook free I showed Silas the blue’s impressive rows of razor-sharp teeth, and we both agreed that it would be better for him not to handle this aggressive predator. I met a weathered fisherman once with a stub of a thumb: the culprit, a big blue. Big or small, they make for great sport fish but not very good eating, so I waded out to my knees and set our first specimen free.

Blue fish “run,” meaning that they migrate in a large school that seems to morph into a veracious pack of feeders all at once. Find one and there are likely many more where it came from, so I worked quickly to rebait and return the rig to about the same spot. Silas was in my pocket as soon as I returned to dry land. He also anticipated a quick hook up. A minute is an eternity in the life of a child, and after 15 minutes of all quiet at the end of my rod I had resigned myself to the prospect that the run was over. And the boy had trailed off, back to his toys. I hoped that he was really ready for this, that he could stave off his demands for attention long enough to let me hook him what he really wanted. I felt a desperate pressure to catch something, so I started jerking the rod tip back and pulling in baited hooks at every tug from a wave. Or I’d reel in the rig to find that I had given a crab or pinfish a free meal. Silas reappeared every time I started turning the crank, and, head down, turned back to his toys when the rig bounced up empty.

I tried to channel my grandfather, the man who used a .22 to pick off squirrels and rabbits that dared infiltrate his garden, and ate them. The man who came home with a deer strapped to the hood of his Buick after a successful hunting trip. The man whose quiet patience always yielded a stringer of fish. I resolved to quit freaking out over every tug of the sea. I’d plant myself, gentle, foamy waves lapping at my ankles, line in hand, until I felt the sure tug of a fish. And, finally, I did. This is no fish story; the rod did not double over and I never had any energy sucking battles. But, as the sun moved behind me and scoured my neck a bright red, the bites came. Maybe the smell of the bait had finally gotten around. One little shark, two little sharks, three little sharks...we never waited more than five minutes before I was taking back line.

The little scavengers were exhausted by the tug of war and fell limp in my hand as I worked out the hook. They had jaws full of teeth, but they were too small to do any damage. I even ran my finger over the teeth and let one gnaw on me a bit to make sure it was safe for Silas to handle. He took them with outstretched hands and no fear, though curious beachcombers were a bit more weary when he ran up to them and shoved the captives into their personal space. To save the sharks, and the old ladies with their grocery bags full of shells from heart attacks, I urged him to take them back to water so they could grow up. “We’ll catch them again some day when they’re bigger,” I promised.

We did catch one decent-sized shark, a scalloped hammerhead of about three feet with a nasty disposition. Silas chose to let me put this one back. When I turned him loose in waist-high water he turned to face me rather than dart back to sea, circling menacingly a few times before I plowed through the water to the safety of shore. I walked down the beach a bit before wading in for the next cast.

By the time darkness arrived to put an end to our day we had landed 18 sharks along with an assorted oddity of sea dwellers, including a sea robin, puffer fish and, believe it or not, a starfish who had sucked a bit of shrimp into its hole. The starfish rode the line all the way in despite not having been pierced by the hook. We managed to snare a few careless bait-stealing pinfish and some red drum, both good eats, but I wasn’t confident that we would get enough to make a meal so I threw them back. And, unlike my grandfather, I didin’t have a wife waiting to tackle the always pleasant job of cleaning them.

After we reached double digit sharks I told the boy we were done for the day. “It’s getting late; it’s time for dinner. Maybe if we hurry we can play with trains before it gets too late.” But he wasn’t satisfied, so I kept pulling them in until it was too dark to be fumbling with hooks.

“One more shark, Dadda,” was his new refrain.

We were back at the bait shop first thing in the morning for more shrimp.