In fishing, there’s almost nothing worse than a ‘sure thing’. Let me rephrase that, the only thing worse than being promised a sure thing is promising one to someone else. When we get on a great bite, and then we let someone in on it, the pressure is immediately on and the results are completely out of your control.
Nearly 20 years ago now, in October of 2007, I had been fishing – what I am sure will be – the best striper bite I ever seen in my life. For more than two months, every moon saw this school of massive stripers move into a particular small Massachusetts inlet and the fishing was utterly insane. The number of 35- to 48-pound stripers my friends Mike and Josh and I landed would stand up against any of the legendary bites of the golden years of surfcasting; the only thing missing was a true giant.
As the bite wore on, I started to suggest the idea that maybe I could let my uncle come out for one tide so he could catch his personal best. At first, my two compatriots were apprehensive, and I understood. As we flipped the calendar page to October, and being so far north, we knew the bite was soon to die and they agreed to allow it. So on a new moon night, I invited my uncle Jon to come fish and didn’t tell him anything else. When we left my home along the Buzzards Bay shoreline and headed north, he looked very confused. When we hit the Ted Williams Tunnel, he was even more perplexed. I just kept assuring him, “It will be worth it!”
We suited up in a supermarket parking lot and walked from there to our rocky destination. As we set up to make our first casts, the tide was still coming in. Within seconds, I felt a fish take my eel, and set up on the smallest fish I had seen in that spot since the bite began. Then another and another! I felt a cold sweat begin. Jon was landing some school bass as well and I began to worry that we’d traveled more than 2 hours to catch schoolies. The only saving grace was that the tail end of the incoming had been sporadic at best, so we kept at it.
As the tide neared its peak some bigger fish showed up, into the low 20-pound class, making the ride seem more ‘worth it’. As the tide turned and began to ebb, we had a real mixed bag; 20 inches to 20 pounds. Then I hooked a real one, high 30-pound range, and my uncle’s jaw dropped. A little while later I had another real one, pushing 40 pounds. Jon still had not hooked a big one. I had the experience in the spot and I knew just exactly how to drift the eel to get it down to the bigger fish. I had one more 30-pound class fish and then the bite started to deteriorate, and more small fish filtered back in.
We had landed some impressive overall numbers and I had a few really nice fish, but Jon was topped out well below his personal best of 25 pounds. We fished well past the midpoint of the dropping tide and found ourselves mired in schoolies. Then, I heard Jon call out his signature hookup announcement, “I’m on!” His drag slipped and then started to scream, I knew it was a different class of fish! Standing by his side, like he had done so many times for me in the past, (Jon is responsible for my obsession with fishing), I watched him battle in the darkness.
As the bass gained momentum in the tide, it rounded the tip of a submerged line of rocks, I warned Jon to keep his tip up and try to steer the fish back around the tip. The fish sawed the line on the reef, but the line held. Either by luck or by intervention, the fish ran hard to the left and cleared the reef. Jon leaned back and I could hear the grin on his face just by the sound of his adrenalin-laced breathing. With the rod clenched between his thighs and his hands cranking and pumping, the end drew closer and closer.
With my headlamp shining into the angry sea, I finally saw the big green back, and erect dorsal glide into the light. I scurried down between waves to land the fish. Jon was winded and ecstatic! It wasn’t the 40-pounder I hoped it might be, but at better than 35 pounds it registered as his personal best and still holds that designation to this day.
With Jon draped in my old waders and raincoat, my backup pair of Korkers lashed to an old pair of sneakers, I lit Jon up and saw immediately back 40 years to when he was just a little kid. That fire of excitement burst into an inferno in his eyes, the unbreakable smile of elation ignited his entire face. He laughed repeatedly, without even realizing it, he looked to the sky, his big striper clenched in his trembling hands. I pulled out my camera and, try as I might, I could not get a single shot of that fish where Jon didn’t blink! In a moment of perfectly timed self-assessment, I realized that I too, was laughing without control, just the two of us, doing what we had always done. We released the fish and headed home.
A night I will never forget.
