I awoke to the sound of Woody dry heaving in the upstairs bathroom, it had been a good night...a few hours later we were on the coast. The sand seemed softer than usual, that or it had just been too long since I laid tire to that particular piece of real estate. As we bounced and slid and growled through the fluffy beige powder of Matty, sloshing beer all across the inside and outside of the truck, I came to the realization that it had been too long. Memories of coast trips of yore came to mind, the first 10 minutes past civilization on the sand can give you an idea of how the fishing will work, the rest is always good. I guess I reflected a bit too long and bogged down in the sand, stuck…momentarily. Wood and I stepped out to survey the stuckness. I could not help but marvel at the lack of weed, both in the surf and on the beach. Oh there was some on the beach, but nowhere near as bad as trips of times gone by. I kept this to myself; last thing I wanted to do was to jinks the whole gig by opening my damn fool mouth. A quick peeing on the ground in front of a tire seemed to be all it took to get us backing motion, this time I refused to slow down till we found a Tom Dixon.
Tom was poking a fire and mumbling something about “brunch”…nobody eats brunch on the coast, that’s far too uppity, every meal is called food. “Hey yall want some food?, or is someone gonna make some food?, or who ate all the food?” I think it was Steve who coined this phrase. It is the subtleties of the vernacular that allow you to mentally escape society while your body is already away. They say win the mind and the body will follow, the trouble is; the body goes easy, but the mind must be coaxed from time to time. Location changes are straightforward and twenty minutes past society on the sand lets the problems of life and the chains of the social order fade into a fishing trip.
Tom had chosen an excellent spot 8mi past the riffraff and ruffians on the first mile of hard packed sand. The breakers revealed a blown out bar, not a rip, but the terminus of the second sand bar. The retreating tide showed we were truly in a dynamic area. We exchanged pleasantries while readying rods and checking leaders. I worked myself into a hard sweat catching bait only to loose the bait bucket to the harsh rip current. We had a big horse mullet to work with and figured it would be best to get lines wet before attempting more net time. I figured on wading out to the second bar and slinging one into the third gut, wrong. Walking out, the water quickly dropped off to five feet and kept going, I figured with the way the long shore current was ripping, I’d just throw from there. No sense in drowning on the first cast.
Two lines wet and we figured on sitting around in the shade next to Dixons truck. That was all it took…Feesh-on. I made the sprint, thumbed the spool and hammered home the hook. The rod doubled and I hesitated to take my thumb off the spool fearful of the impending backlash, this was no hardhead. I blistered my thumb on the spool as the beast realized we were connected. I spit on the reel, all the spit I had to offer, and managed to adjust the drag with my left hand. 75-100yds burned off quickly, but the drag was set at a no slouch position, this was just a matter of time now. Woody was doe-eyeing me so I handed off to him for the fight. I needed to wrap my thumb around a cold beer anyway. The fight ran for 40mins into the shallow water when everyone’s suspicions were confirmed: shark, blacktip, over 5. Ended up going between 5’6” and 5’8”, we called it 5’7” so everyone was happy. Weight was estimated at approximately the same as a feed bag, a common frame of reference with this crowd. That night the surf gave up several bulls up to 44” and another shark on a similar frame but pushing the 70# mark…tasty. This dude became “food” the belly meat was filleted out and grilled on the skin after Dixon laid hands on it with a magical garlic oil rub.
The fishing had its share of highs and lows. Friday, the word of the day was “Fishon!” Sunday was similar with a big heartbreaker at the end of it. Saturday was a day of leisure, not by choice but due to a lack of cooperation by the ocean, it refused to give up the steady bounty of the other days. Fish were caught, but by no means steady. And the crabs moved in. Time was spent shooting the breeze in the breeze while basking in the shade below the blue rejuvenator, what a glorious invention: portable shade that can be set up in less than 5 minutes. Tom Dixon got his usual 16 hours of sleep each day and woke up long enough to mumble something about his grand scheme of spanking slot reds in the bay flats on a fly…yea sure. But I’ll be damned if he didn’t actually pull it off this time. Sunday morning I awoke to a slight rustling as Tom was gathering his gear at 5:30 in the AM to go lay the steel to those tailing slots.
Brian and Kasey hammered into a few bulls and a sharp nose hovering around the 3’ mark. It was nice to finally out fish those salty bastards without compromising my self imposed “coastal tear down’ standards. I suppose we all burned the carbon out of our engines; some engines just take more coaxing.
But the heart breaker…Sunday morning, around the third beer, I guess it was 9:30 or 10. A nice bait was yacked out to about the 300yd mark (the last 100yds of my reel is a different color of line, and this was where it sat). Things went mellow for a while then the big rod swayed in the middle and let out a terrible whine. We had another big run in progress. I saw the metal of the spool twice and the big give and take of coastal fishing was on. We witnessed a tremendous explosion at the surface, Woody saw it first, I saw the splash, but it was a magnificent breech. Time passed and we wore each other down, it seemed as though I was winning. We saw the beast in the shallow surf and pandolerium broke out, everyone was in the surf. I tried to bring it in on the waves, like you should, but we were all too excited. I guess I may have been horsing more than I should with a mono leader. There was absolutely no sense of what was supposed to happen happening. Folks were yelling “GRAB THE LEADER” and folks were yelling “DON’T GRAB THE LEADER” and “I’M GONNA BRING IT IN ON THE NEXT SET”. In all honesty it all sounded like background noise, only louder. Woody grabbed the leader as I yelled “NO, NO, NO” which was misconstrued to sound like “GO, GO, GO”. The set rolled in as the leader broke; Woody ran with a busted leader in his hand, the look on his face was priceless. I’m sure he thought that bastard was right on his heals as he high stepped through the knee deep water with slack line in his hand, probably figuring the shark had made a surge with an angle on getting a big chunk of calf for his troubles. The fish turned in the wave and Kasey made an attempt to grab the tail, but thought better of it at the last moment. We all stood in place frozen, someone said “Bye”, I managed to wave. This is the way of the coast, we were lucky enough to see the magnificent beast but not fortunate enough to taste him. I was the farthest away but estimate it to be better than four and a half foot from dorsal to tail, my two solid frames of reference. Everyone seemed to have a sunken heart for a few moments but then realized the good fortune we had in setting eyes the beast, often times this same turn of events happens in deeper water and all are left wondering what kind of critter and how big. We were lucky enough to know.
Seems like we may have a new record for the largest expense by a single person on a single coast trip. Apparently the 1K barrier was broken, but I’ll leave that story alone as I don’t have solid numbers to back the narrative, Woody, you wanna fill us in with an exact and to the decimal value?
We also had three stucks, tying our record for most stucks on a coast trip. However none were as bad as some of the single stucks of past trips. Soft sand and sober drivers has never trumped a drunk in deep mud with a “can do” attitude. Next time lets try harder to rally the entire crew, you know who you are.
