This story goes back to the mid-1980s. A head boat called The Sea King run by Capt. Joe Gallucio sailed for all-day fluke fishing out of Belmar, NJ. I was a newbie at head boat fluke fishing at the time, in my mid-20s, and frequenting this boat mostly on the weekends.
Capt. Joe had a nice deal going for the local old guys who fished his boat. He offered season boat passes that allowed them to fish at will all season long. There was a regular group of old crusties that would get to the boat early and post up spots at the rail with extra rods for all their friends that said they’d be going that day. They’d bring coolers with food and drinks for their group to share. The food was always some kind of specialty that one of them or their wives had fixed up for their day on the water.
These old guys could fish. They had years of experience and whittled it down to what worked well for them. There would be a couple of them tying snelled hook rigs for the group and hanging the finished hooks on a ring under the roof over the bench at the starboard stern corner. These ancient mariners had their system down from A to Z. There was always a constant chatter going. You could hear them bickering about how lucky Ol’ Joe got last Thursday when he caught that “whistle-fish” to win the pool at the Shrewsbury Rocks on the last drift right before returning to port. If one of them fell asleep on the boat ride back in they might tie his shoelaces together so that he’d trip when he woke up and got up to walk to start gathering his gear. They had their ways of making for some laughs with just about anything that was going on.
Little did I know that meant possible laughs at the expense of others on the boat, especially those young wannabe fluke hustlers.
I’d overslept and needed to race down to Belmar, about a 40-minute drive, in order to board for a day of fluke fishing. I pulled into the parking lot to find all of the spots close to the boat were full so I had to park a fair distance away. There was too little time to make two trips from my truck, carrying all of my gear, so I decided to muscle it up and do it all in one trip. That meant getting dressed in all my outer wear and boots, putting a rod in each hand and grabbing the ice-loaded cooler with both hands. I’d put my tackle box squarely on top of the cooler. To keep things stable, while trotting to the boat, I pressed my chin down on top of the tackle box. I was breathing heavy by the time I’d reached the spot at the dock where the Sea King was tied up.
These head boats had a peculiar way of boarding and exiting them. They’d have a wooden portable three-step walkway to climb up over the rear gunnel and another three-step platform to climb down onto the rear deck of the boat. The mates on the boat would help the old guys make their way up and down the steps onto the boat but pretty much left us young guys to fend for ourselves. Some of the boats at the dock had big wooden placard signs, with the boat name on it, hanging over the stern from posts attached to the dock. The key word in this instance though is that “some” boats had these signs, some did not.
So, with my face glued to the tackle box, trying my best to keep it from sliding off the cooler that it’s sitting on, I didn’t have that luxury of looking up to see the sign. The old guys knew that. They’d seen this routine umpteen times before and knew just what to do. Just as I got to the last step up over the stern gunnel, they all started yelling at me “watch ya’ head!” So, I ducked down, still holding onto everything I had in my hands and with my face pressing down on the tackle box, bent down pretty low. They continued to yell “watch ya’ head!” So, I squished down even lower and finally made my way down onto the rear boat deck.
I put the cooler down, stood straight up and turned to look back. There was absolutely nothing over my head when I’d climbed over the gunnel. The Sea King did not have a wooden placard sign hanging over its gunnel at the dock. Those guys saw their chance to make a young fishing fool squirm a little just for the hell of it. When I turned back to look at them, they were all laughing as loud as can be. The mate told me “Don’t worry, they get a lot of guys like that!”
I don’t recall how the fishing went on that trip or if I got even with them by getting a whistle-fish at the end of it. But I’ll never forget being the punchline of their biggest joke that day.
