It's Pocket-Cod's world and we're all just paying rent

With Tre-Cool and Pocket-Cod just having finished school for the summer, I thought that it would be nice to take them out fishing along with Daddy-Cod. Well, we couldn't exactly do it without Daddy-Cod seeing as how he is the one with the boat. Those usually come in handy.

The conversations usually go like this....

Me- Hey DC, want to go fishing?

DC- sure

Me- Ok, you go hook up the boat and I'll be down there in an hour.

DC- oh, ok.....so, we're using my boat?

Me- well, yeah.....why do you think that I always invite...well, since you have the nicest boat around, I figured that you wouldn't want to use anyone else's

DC- well, it is nice

Me- The best! So, you go back up the truck to the....

DC- wait, we're using my truck too?

Me- well, yeah....you need a nice truck to tow that beautiful boat of yours and you have the best one!

DC- well, I guess you're right...it is a nice truck....

Me- Damn right it is! Anyways, after you hook the boat up make sure that you swing by the gas station and fill it up on the way to pick me up

DC- I have to pick you up now?

Me- well, yeah....after all, I did buy a dozen worms just for you....Jesus, you're ungrateful

And so on, and so on....

So, with DC on board (no pun intended) all I had to do was convince the boys to come as well. After some great deliberation and self-reflection (he hesitated for about .09 seconds), Tre-Cool declined. That's ok, all he does is bitch about how bored that he is while fishing anyways. Another casualty of the computer age. Oh, well.

It ended up being just DC, Pocket-Cod and myself.

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Pocket-Cod and I headed down to DC's pad around 11:45 or so. That was after I finished cleaning up the mess that I made while making breakfast in bed for the Cod Gal this morning. That's right.....the Cod Gal lives large in this man's palace. Sorry ladies and Wheel Gun Bob, I'm already taken.


Back to the trip....

In fine DC fashion, he had absolutely nothing ready when we showed up at his house. It wasn't like this was a last minute thing either. We had planned on it for a few days and I even showed up about a half-hour late on purpose just so he would get his shit together. I shouldn't even be surprised at this point, but I am.

After PC and I loaded our stuff in the boat, we stood around for several minutes wondering if this man in front of us was not DC, but an escaped lunatic from the local psych-ward. He just kept stumbling around tripping over everything while muttering to himself like Rainman. What I failed to notice with all the stumbling and swearing was that he kept on going to the back of the garage and bringing out armloads of stuff which he would then unceremoniously plop in front of me.

It was after the 4th or 5th of these loads that I had to remind him that we were not boarding a Cruise Ship for a week long excursion, but only going out for a few hours in a 22 foot boat (that he built from scratch, I might add). Maybe he had just been watching Gilligan's Island before we showed up and wanted to stock up for the storm that was-a-brewin'.

After some brief "discussion" and a huge compromise on my part, I convinced him to bring only the bare necessities....You know, 3 rods, 3000 yards of line, approximately 200 hooks, 50 pounds of sinkers and 75 lures.

After the flatbed truck and the forklift left, we hopped in his truck and started the long and arduous trek to the boat launch. You can actually see his house from the boat ramp, but judging by the way that he strapped everything down, there are a lot of hurricanes this time of year on that lonely half- mile stretch of Rte 1 this time of year. It took longer to put all the tie downs on than it did to drive the damn boat there!

After surviving Hurricane Alley and making it to the ramp alive, Pocket-Cod and I hopped into the boat to await DC backing us down into the river. But, before we could do that we had to take the tie-downs off. I took off the ones assigned to me ok, but....well, he left one on. Not only that, but he also forgot to remove the large metal pole-like bracket that holds the motor in position while you travel.

So, while backing down I heard a loud clang followed by two crunches. One crunch was the pole falling off and being squished by the truck. The second crunch was after half of the ratcheting tie-down fell off and becoming smashed equally as well. Hey, if anyone needs half of a ratcheting tie-down, there is one at the bottom of the Hampton River by the Depot Road boat launch. Just thought that I'd pass that along. I am a full-service blog after all. Just ask any of the transients at the bus station.

After (ahem) successfully launching the boat, Pocket-Cod and I picked up DC after he parked his truck and off we went heading into the unknown.

During a brief stop at the local tackle shop for some sea worms, I saw a boat that I used to work on. While I was talking to the dude that owns it, he gave PC some sound advice. He said "If you don't catch anything, you tell your Dad to get some nets and bury the place! You'll catch something. Of course, PC immediately wanted to set 1000 nets all over the place but I convinced him to try it with a rod and reel to start. The boy is definitely mine.

After casting off ....god, I can't believe that I just used "casting off" in a sentence. I sound like such a blow-boater, with the emphasis on blow.

Let's try that again....

After "letting go" (it's a commercial fishing thing),we headed out for the mouth of the river. Apparently DC had some "hot spot" around there that he used to catch flounder at all the time. Little did I know (at the time) that it was 20 years ago when he last fished there, but we had to start somewhere.

When we got there DC informed me that he had an anchor stored up in the forward compartment and asked me if I would get it for him. I crawled under there, found some rusty piece of shit that resembled something that some hallucinating-epileptic-dry heaving artist might create while going through detox. I hadn't seen an "anchor" like that since I saw a painting of the Mayflower back in grade school. Hell, it probably was the same anchor.

After trying to set the anchor 5 times....and then hauling the anchor back 5 times (during which he almost pulled me over the side 3 times because he didn't realize that the boat was in gear), I told him that the tide was running too hard to anchor and we had to try a drift. (I only told him that the tide was running hard so he wouldn't feel bad about the way that he was handling the boat...lots of circles, side to side, running over the anchor line, going forwards when I asked to go in reverse, those type of things....he drives the boat like an arthritic kangaroo with cataracts)

Unfortunately, we learned quite quickly that the drift was too fast so we had to run out a little bit further away from the river where the tide wasn't running so hard. I was starting to be a bit concerned that Pocket-Cod would become bored and want to go home soon. After all, we had been dubbing around with the anchor for the better part of 30 mins at that point.

Once we got away from the river a bit, we found a nice looking spot and dropped the hook (anchor). Luckily, it fetched up right away. Success!! Finally, we were going to be fishing!!

PC got comfy in his chair, and dropped his sea worm to the bottom. I did the same towards the stern of the boat and settled in for what I thought would be a long wait.

Within two minutes, I hooked up to a nice fish and started to reel it in. While I was fighting it (and secretly hoping that it wasn't a sea robin or a skate), PC hooked up to a nice fish as well. Hell, the only way that I even knew that he was hooked up to a fish is by hearing his reel as he was winding the fish in.

Upon getting my fish close to the surface, I was psyched to see that it was a flounder. While unhooking it and straining my arm while patting myself on the back, PC got his fish to the surface. Not only did he have a flounder as well, it was twice the size of mine! Good for PC! His first flounder! Hopefully he'll be having some fun now.

After hooting and hollering for a minute, I unhooked his fish, gave him a huge hug and put on another sea worm for him. He dropped his line back to the bottom and before I could even rebait my line, he had another fish on. A few seconds later, he had flounder #2 flopping around on deck.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

The fishing was hot over the next ten minutes, but as is the nature of flounder fishing it stopped as quick as it had started. When it was all said and done, he had 3 keeper flounder in the boat (one of which was HUGE!), 2 throwbacks, he lost two more, and also landed one skate and one stone crab.

Not bad for an 8-year old kid who had never fished for flounder before.

I ended up with 2 keeper flounder, 2 throwbacks, and I lost 2. I have never been so happy to not catch as much fish as the "man" next to me.

Forget about Daddy-Cod? Well, I did while all this was going on. He somehow tangled himself up 3 times, then caught a deformed skate after PC and I had pulled up our lines to move to the next spot.

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On my urging, we had to try one more spot. But while on the way to said spot, we had a bit of an incident. We were headed up river when we started to pass a commercial fisherman that was a friend of Daddy-Cod's. He had his door open to the wheelhouse, so DC started bellowing to him about something or rather. I wasn't paying too much attention to what he was saying, I was paying more attention to the 90-foot party boat headed our way. DC yapping and not paying attention + Party boat with a 5' wake behind it = not good for us.

DC-(blabbing to other boat)

Me- Dad, do you see that boat?

DC- yeah, I see it (back to yelling)

Me- Dad, watch the boat....

DC- (blah blah blah)

Me- (grabbing PC and holding him) he's throwing a big wake!

DC- (Charlie Brown's teachers voice....wah wah, wah wah, wah wah)

Me- DAD! DAD!!....WAKE!!

DC- (looking up) oh...

We took three hard shots from their wake dead on. Luckily, I was holding Pocket Cod in my arms and I bent us forwards at the last second. My head took the brunt of the impact against the edge of the windshield but that saved his face from getting smashed against the windshield. Hey, what’s three more lumps on my head at this point? To be fair to DC, the boat did accelerate and threw a wake when he shouldn't have been. Still, he should have paid more attention. The man ran party boats and is the Harbormaster, for chrissakes!

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My hotspot is right next to the bridge in a place where it quickly drops from 20 feet down to 45 feet. Not only that, but the tide runs like hell there as well, so it makes for a nice spot for fish to hang out.

To make a long story short, after we got there the anchor wouldn't catch, yet again. Luckily, after a few minutes of screwing around, she fetched up real solid. We then immediately went into a spin that Maverick (cheesy 80's movie reference) would've been proud of. The boat did circle after circle because, lucky us, we were perfectly situated in a giant eddy. After 5 minutes of catching nothing and 4-foot wakes from other boats, we had had enough and decided to head for the barn.

Easier said then done.

Apparently, the reason that the anchor fetched up so well this time was because it had hooked a trawl of lobster traps. Without hydraulic help to get it up (where is Wheel Gun Bob when you need him?) and the tide running like a river (imagine that, the tide running like a river in a river...whouda thunk it?), we had no choice but to cut it free. Now it's back with its ancestors that were laid to rest so long ago.

After that, we headed back towards the launch ramp and made it there without any major mishaps. When we got back, we filleted the fish, scrubbed up the boat and came back to the Cod Mansion no worse for the wear.

- PC and Cod