A Bad day Fishing

They say that a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. I'm not so sure about that. Recently, I went deep sea fishing with some pals. I know what you are thinking: Isn't it rushing the season? But, the weather forecast was Sunny 55 degrees 15 knot wind.
As it turned out, this might have been the correct forecast for Miami. But off the coast of Boston's North Shore the conditions were slightly less balmy. It was more like 38 degrees, cloudy and 25 knot wind.

We left the dock at 7am. Hoping for warm, calm seas. But the seas outside the harbor were as rough as I have ever experienced. Rough indeed - as attested to by the numbers of experienced fishermen leaning over the side tossing their breakfast donuts into the roiling waves. "We have chum!" yelled one guy as his buddy lurched to the rail and launched his breakfast into the 4 foot swells. A lot of people - who had paid $70 to come on this trip - were sitting or lying on benches in the cabin, sincerely regretting that decision. I felt compassion for them - sick as a dog on the way out. There is no turning back, so they had a miserable day to look forward to.

After plowing through the gray water for an hour or so, we - those of us who were not heaving our guts - finally got our gear - thick deep sea rods with 60 pound line and 3lb sinkers to hold the bait down on the swirling ocean floor. There is no casting involved. Thirty or forty guys arrange themselves around the rail and wait for the captian to yell "Ok, drop your lines."

The bait is sea clams. The crew hands out small buckets of the raw clam pieces that have been cut up. On this particular morning the bait was still frozen. Some guys had the foresight to wear fishing gloves. I was unprepared and had to bait my hook with bare hands. Funny how you can stick the hook into your freezing thumb and not realize it until you notice your own blood dripping on the deck. You start to lose consciousness as your life force squirts into the scuppers. Your childhood passes by in your mind's eye. Death by rusty hook and clam guts is imminent. Then someone gives you a band-aid and you pull yourself together and keep fishing.

Something nibbles on your line. You reel-in 200 feet of nylon to discover a very small cod fish, who looks annoyed. Some of the guys laugh and want to take you picture with the minnow before you throw him back to whence he (or she) came. You ignore the jeers and mockery. You bait-up (carefully this time) and drop your line, again.

The day proceeds in this manner. Others nearby catch fish. Keepers. But you seem to have chosen a "dead spot" on the boat. Nothing nibbles again. And the sea remains cold and rough. From time to time no one is catching anything. The Captain orders everyone to reel-in, and he cranks up the engines and plows to a new spot. During these breaks we find time to quaff a few brewskies and eat lunch. Eating and drinking is important to keep from getting seasick with all the rolling around in the giant seas. We all admitted to feeling queasy, but the antidote is food and beer. Still, it is less than a cullinary delight to be munching your sandwich while one of the other pale and unhappy fisherman is spewing into a nearby garbage can.

Finally, around 3pm, the Captain declared that it was time to go in. Music to my ears. I had not caught anything, and in fact had given up the further pursuit of fish, and instead bobbed for beers in the cooler. I was much more successful in the beer department, and by the time we were again in sight of land, a comforting buzz had descended upon me. I think I napped during the return trip.

On the way home in the car, fishless, starting to worry about tetnus in my throbbing thumb, I summed up the day: I think I would rather have been sitting in a warm cube, documenting database attributes, not rocking the boat, on a project headed-up by a micromanaging nitpicker, getting paid.