Friday, December 18, 2009

A Fish Tale




















Sitting in the lineup some mornings and watching all the mullet leap around you makes a person hungry sometimes. I get this urge to build a fire and smoke me some of 'em... It did spur me on to try my hand at fishing though. I had bought a rod and reel the last time we were out here in '05 and never got around to using it. It always seemed like when the fishing was good the surfing was good and I always opted for the latter. So this year I brought the rod and reel again, never been used and was determined to try my hand at it. Teri, my sister, is quite the fisherwoman and I've always admired her ability to rig her equipment, know what bait to use and never act squeamish as she slips the hook into the mouth of her bait and through other parts of their little bodies I can't bear to think about. She is so tough that she got a hook caught in her thumb and she pushed it through, cut off the barb and pulled it out as if it were just a matter of fact. Just the telling of that story makes my stomach roll.

They use lures to catch sierra (mackerel) and corbina (sea bass). I head out one morning with rod and reel, a container of weights and lures given to me by one of the surfers, a bucket and plastic bag to put my fish in, and a last-minute idea  to bring some toenail clippers in case I needed to cut the line instead of getting the hook out of the fish's mouth (sissy). As I head out Robert suggests I put on my spring suit in case I have to wade out in the water to get a good cast out so I don my wetsuit and off I go.

The first part of the trip is totally humbling as I have to actually walk past the fishermen in the village as they are heading out in their pangas, plus the tide is high so I can't walk wide away from the fishermen but instead have to slide by their boats within arm's length.  "Gringo el loco".  So, walking past that embarrassment, I head on down the beach to where I think fish like to live. I find a nook for the bucket and bag in the rocky cliff and head to the surf to throw out a line. My sister's teaching echoing in my head from prior sessions with her, "Use your whole body, go with the cast". Okay, so here I go ... bam and splash it lands five feet in front of me. Hmm, must have gotten snagged on something! I reel it back in.

 I've fished before as a child tomboy so I know how to cast the line out and the second try was a beauty!!! Wow, did I do that? Imitating the reeling in with the technique I understand skims the lure over the rocks I reel and pop and reel and pop and am feeling rather proficient ... for a moment and then I noticed that all the line I was reeling in wasn't reeling in anything. Something was wrong with the reel. Extremely thankful I had the foresight of bringing those toenail clippers I walk back to my bucket, clip the line, put down my rod and start following the line out to where my lure is hung up on some rocks. Intent on getting my lure back I pull in the line and walk into the sea, much like Gretel following her breadcrumbs back home. So absorbed in this mission I didn't see the surge of a wave come swooshing in toward me knocking me down on my bootie and rolling me around in the surf like a log. Glad I wore the wetsuit ... thank you, Bobby, I pick up my drenched body and just about this time a gathering of seagulls behind me on the cliffs began to laugh, seriously, they were laughing their heads off, as were the fishermen by the fishing village and probably God Himself. I did give up the ghost on the lure but sat on some rocks and tried to fix the reel. After five minutes of that, I picked up my bucket and bag that felt emptier than when I started out and headed home. Upon dismantling the reel that evening, we found that it was broken. Never used it and when I did it broke. Wonder where it was made???
So until next year .... I'll be watching those mullet jump.

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