In the past I have written about my mishaps and setbacks while fishing, and today is another such case. Many times these stories are centered around my truck like the time my alternator died in the middle of the night, or the time I discovered a blown brake line after shredding my cast net while netting bunker for a night’s chunking session. Then there was the time I spent a few hours in a jail cell while fully dressed in my wetsuit after a long night of fishing the surf, but I’ll save that one for a special day. Hopefully by now you’ve already hit the surf for striped bass, and better yet hopefully you have a few good fish under your belt. Unfortunately as I type this my surf gear remains packed and ready to go, but bone dry as it has been for several months. This story takes place a full two-and-a-half weeks earlier.
The spring had been somewhat warm, and local water temperatures had been increasing at a pretty good rate. This is when I usually begin monitoring the daily updates on the NOAA water temperature map of the Northern Atlantic Coast, and when I see the temperature in a few spots regularly exceed 45 degrees, I get excited. Such was the case on the afternoon of April 8, so I mounted my VS150 on a Tsunami Trophy II 1002DM rod, tied up some 30-pound leaders and packed my usual spring surf bag with a few 9-inch soft plastics, original Pichney Danny plug and several 7-inch Red Fins. My plan was to watch a little TV after my son went to bed, and then head to three spots that are in close proximity to herring runs. I pulled my boots, waders and dry top out from storage, grabbed two headlamps out of my truck and set to making dinner for my family. Everything was ready, or so I thought.
Fast-forward a few hours and I was close enough to high tide that it was time to start gearing up, so I picked up my headlamps and headed for my dining room to get dressed. Before putting on my waders, I had an urge to test my headlamps as I couldn’t remember when I last put in new batteries. Simultaneously I remembered that back in the late fall when I finally gave up on the surf season, I had forgotten to take my headlights out of my truck to clean, inspect for water intrusion and re-grease the moving parts as I usually do at the end of a season. Instead they sat hanging over the truck’s shifter for several months, a major mistake as I would soon learn.
I clicked the button on the first light, but nothing happened. “Ok, no big deal,” I said aloud to no one as this is why I have two lights. I clicked the other light on and it worked, sort-of. The light flickered for a moment, then went out, and then turned back on again. I clicked the button a second time to turn it off, but the light stayed on. I repeatedly clicked it on and off, but the light remained on, only dimming at random. This was a sure sign that there was water inside the case when I put it away a few months ago, and had I taken the time to clean it as I usually do I would not be dealing with this. Oh well, back to the first lights as hopefully it was just a dead battery.
As this was supposed to be the first trip of the season, I didn’t have a package of batteries on hand yet, so I began inspecting my son’s toy for AAA-powered gadgets. Finding a remote-control truck with the required three AAA’s in it, I verified it had power and swapped them out—the light still wouldn’t start. I looked at the control panel inside the light and found there was some corrosion, and inspection of the first light provided similar results. I was dead in the water with two headlamps that were little more than paperweights, and at this late hour I had no motivation to try finding an open store with a waterproof headlamp that also featured a red lens in order to purchase a replacement.
I chalked this up as a learning experience/reminder to properly attend to all of my surf gear at season’s end, and figured I could just go tomorrow after tracking down a suitable light. As fate would have it the weather turned windy for several days, I lost the tide I wanted, and a string of excuses surfaced that delayed my inaugural trip of the 2020 surf fishing season for at least two more weeks—or so I thought.
Check back next week to see how my second attempt at hitting the surf went. (Spoiler alert, it wasn’t good.)
