Went Fishing!!

It was about 7 o'clock in the morning on Labor Day Monday. I was all snuggled up next to the lump in the bed that I knew contained my wife somewhere, when the door to our room opened and my Mom's voice quietly said, "Nolan? They're going out on the ocean this morning. Do you want to go fishing?" I was up and moving even before she finished the sentence. All I needed to know was that somebody in the neighborhood was hitting the beach with their dory and I had the chance to go.

It was a great morning. The surf was relatively calm and the weather was great. Dad and I were going out with JJ on his boat. JJ is a neighbor at Pacific City, and one of my high school PE teachers. We were planning to fish for bottom fish. Me? I didn't care. I was going !

JJ still launches his boat old-school style. He drops it on the beach, but he rows out through the surf, rather than using his outboard motor to power through the surf. It was a great way to get out onto the ocean. Skillful. Elegant. Finesse.

We didn't go too far before we dropped in the lines to see if anything was biting. JJ worked the fish finder pretty actively. A few minutes near the rock turned up no fish moving, so we moved north.

Eventually, we got into some fish off Tiera Del Mar. It was a quiet day overall, with a lot of our compatriots fishing a half-day for three or four. By the time we headed in, after about four hours of fishing, we had eight in the boat and had put four or five back (the ones we put back were out of season)

As for me, I made a couple of really klutzy casts at first (to the embarrassment of my Dad, I'm sure!) and hooked rocks on the bottom much more often than I hooked fish. But it was fun.

We were motoring back in, all three of us standing abreast at the console. JJ turned to me and said, "how do you like the boat?"

I felt the delight rise up from my heart and said back, "this is a nice boat. What a great day." I guess there must have been a gleem in my eye or something, because he took me by the shoulder and scooted me over to the center.

"Take the wheel," he said. Aim us for between the Cape and the rock. I use that green meadow on the hill as my target. Squeeze the throttle lever to get it to move. You'll want to adjust the speed as you feel it. Go as fast as you can without slamming the bow on the swells."

I'd helmed a dory before, but this was the first time I'd ever been tall enough to see over the console! Of course, that meant it was the first time I'd ever run one; all the rest of my experience was trolling-speed but a little technical. This time I was running it in!

Once we got into the shelter of the Rock, JJ took over, and set up for hitting the beach. He radioed in to see if someone could do a surfer-check on the beach. Nobody answered back. So we worked to spot heads and blasted the horn to let people in the surf and on the beach know we were heading in.

Then, match your speed to sit on top of, or just behind, the top of a swell and follow the water right up the beach as far as possible. The wave rolls back, and the dory is landed.