Monday, July 23, 2012

"Go Fish"

We went fishing over the weekend with friends from out of town. Five of us went on a half-day charter out of Saquatucket Harbor with Bob Luce and his first mate Billy. Bob is 70-something and has been fishing the Cape for sixty years. Billy is "younger" and has been working with Bob on and off since he was 13. They were a sarcastic and sardonic pair, and it was a fun morning. Except...

They made me fish, even though I clearly said I was just there to take pictures. I caught one blue and one striper, and they made me hold my catch.

There I am squeeling, "Take it back! Take it back!" I'm really not that squeemish - I've raised three kids. I've baited my share of hooks down on the dock and taken scup off those same hooks. But there's something about sticking your fingers into the gills that made me scream. The rest of them laughed. At me. I didn't care as long as they took the fish back off my hand!

Lauren didn't even try holding her fish - but she did try to kiss it...
My husband has no issue with holding his catch - he loves to fish and was very happy with this morning trip.


We caught more than a few dozen stripers (you can only keep a certain amount though, so most went back into the ocean.) We caught even more blue fish, with their scary teeth and I didn't go near them, except to take pictures. We kept several for Charlie to take home and cook up in his new smoker.
The prize for biggest fish of the day goes to Ken - who was the happiest to be out on the water and then, ironically, the only one to get sea sick on the long ride back into shore. But he was a happy fisherman...
This big guy was "tagged" which means a little yellow twisty tag was attached to him, with an address in North Carolina and a "reward." We didn't keep him but released him back into the Atlantic unharmed, except for the bit about the trauma of being caught.

How was your weekend? Have you ever been out on the ocean fishing with light tackle? Have you ever held a big fish in your bare hands?







6 comments:

  1. Thinking about a rocking boat can make me seasick so that would be a great big NO to a fishing trip on the ocean. No thanks to sticking my hands in the gills either. But a nice fish dinner I could handle!

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    1. Hi, Vicki! The fish dinner is THE best part ;-) It doesn't get any fresher. Well, I guess if I ate sushi it could be fresher... I had to wait and cook it first ;-)

      And hey, I did the hold up the fish thing once. That's plenty for this lifetime!

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  2. i haven't been fishing in a long while--lovely pics and nice fish :)

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  3. I caught a trout once, and felt so badly I put him back in the stream. My husband was furious and told me it would just die because I touched it. End of fishing for me.

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    1. Hmm, I don't think your husband was correct about the fish dying - "catch and release" is a common thing in the sport. And that's how they tag the big fish to monitor their migration, too. The local sport fishing group my husband belongs to - the Cape Cod Salties - talks about c&r at their meetings all the time, that if you aren't going to eat the fish, throw it back.

      Although, when the guys on our boat were talking about it they said their favorite was was to catch the fish and release them onto their dinner plates ;-)

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