Beginners Luck?

November 1986

A surfcasting trip to Block Island for three friends – two are accomplished casters – the third has never caught a striped bass. The beginning of the night is slow and cold – no fish. They think of quitting but eventually decide to fish the tide out. After awhile the guy who has never caught a bass yells through the darkness that he’s got one on. He’s using what can best be described as a “Kmart special”. A rubber rod with matching reel loaded with 15 pound line. The rig is stressed to the limit but everything holds together. After 20 minutes he lands his first striped bass - a monster - when weighed a day and a half later it pulls the scale to 62.5 pounds. They bury her with sand and seaweed so that no other fishermen will see her as they walk by. Other casters unknowingly walk right by the fish as sand and weed twitch occasionally as she slowly expires.
A short time later the new guy hooks up again – his two friends have not yet had a strike.
He lands another bass – another 50 pound fish. They decide to put this one back. As they’re releasing it an unknown surfcaster happens upon them and says: "Geez, if I'd knowed you wuz gonna throw it back I'da axed yuh for it..."

True story – I’m working on a more detailed version of it for the future.

Happy New Year

DZ

but


and god forbid of course, as i knock on wood
before i type this next sentence....

the Lord is about to call him back home....

or he's always having something this lucky
happening to him

Dennis, here's one for the book also.
I'm fishing Deep Hole with 2 friends. We got in the water at about 2:00 AM and we had a slow pick of small fish.
So a little after dawn we quit and headed off the bar as the tide is dead low. Now there is a small hole on the right side (or there use to be) of the bar that hold some water, with dry land all around it, at dead low tide.
This old guy in his mid to late 70s is walking out onto the bar and headed for the hole. He has, no lie, a 5 foot freshwater rod with a Zebco close faced reel and a green Jitterbug on it.
First cast into what little water there is in this hole and there is a swirl the size of a bathtub. The guy is on big time! The reel disintergrates in front of us and Mike, who is one of the guys with me say, I got to go help this old bas#@*&ed. Long story short the fish weighted 39lbs 15ozs.
The worst part is the guys says to us "This is easy! This is the first time I ever went surfcasting."
Now this was probably 1987 so it was during the lean years. I told him that he would be dead before he got another fish that size.

Absolutely true story

Now I'm starting to smell fish stories.
First two girls in the back of the wagon and now a 40# fish on a zebco.
:grins:
but I believe

I'm telling ya, you can't make up stuff like this. 40 years in the surf, I have a ton of stories. I should write a book.

My dad and his buddies used to do an annual trip to Nantucket around Halloween. He always tells me the story about some young kid that had never surf casted before. As the story goes, it was late, people were getting decent fish (mid twenties) quite regularly on swimming type plugs. I know my dad and his friends were fishing wind cheaters as that was their go-to plug back in the 70's. They had there fair share of nice fish when my dad says he looks over and sees this kid, who I already said was a rookie, throwing tins at night, bouncing them slowly off of the bottom. To make a long story short, he heard the kid screaming, "I think my reel is broke!" He said after watching for about a half hour, the kid pulls a 54#cow, completely dead, onto the beach. That was biggest striper he said he has ever seen been caught.

Great story Dennis:kewl:

Any idea when we'll be seeing the book??? :soon:

I was going to tell the story of the tin on the bottom in Nantucket, but Mikey beat me to it.
I've never had this luck!
Although, my 85 year old grandfather did say at Thanksgiving this year...
"What happened to Rick, he used to be able to walk into a spot where nobody was catching anything, cast in and catch a whopper!"
Told "I don't know...maybe Mikey's been using my rod lately!"
Later,
Rick

Rick you kinda have to be able to go fishing to really catch fish

You can't catch fish from work

Beginners Luck?
.................................................. .................................................. .....
and says: "Geez, if I'd knowed you wuz gonna throw it back I'da axed yuh for it..."


Happy New Year

DZ
".......I'da axed yuh for it...." Was the guy JASON, from "Friday The 13th?" :eyes:

When I was about 11 or 12 or so(80-81) a French Canadian family lived in the neighborhood.That summer grandpa came to visit.In the garage there was a basic freshwater spinning outfit.They dug up some earthworms in the backyard and walked down to the beach.A couple of hours later there was a striper lying in the driveway that was almost as long as I was tall.Go figure.

You are absolutely right Bob!
That's why I quit Bugaboo and work in software now.
The office is right on the docks in Eastie, got lots of prime real estate and some fishy looking water all around my parking lot.
My entire office is extatic that come springtime, we will all got out fishing at lunch. That's pretty darn close to being able to catch fish at work (I just gotta catch one to prove it)!
Really good news is that I get out at six every night, so I think that if I'm not travelling, I'm gonna get on rt 1 and hit some shore spots every night on the way home!
This no restarant thing just keeps getting better and better.
I'm also excited that I'll be able to fish with some of the Cutty guys right after work.
Hint hint.
Later,
Rick

I got no luck, beginners or otherwise.

You are absolutely right Bob!
That's why I quit Bugaboo and work in software now.
The office is right on the docks in Eastie, got lots of prime real estate and some fishy looking water all around my parking lot.
My entire office is extatic that come springtime, we will all got out fishing at lunch. That's pretty darn close to being able to catch fish at work (I just gotta catch one to prove it)!
Really good news is that I get out at six every night, so I think that if I'm not travelling, I'm gonna get on rt 1 and hit some shore spots every night on the way home!
This no restarant thing just keeps getting better and better.
I'm also excited that I'll be able to fish with some of the Cutty guys right after work.
Hint hint.

Word of advice with the software gig is expect a lot of down time due to layoffs. Which is not a bad thing if you like to fish.
Later,
Rick

If it wasn't for beginners luck I wouldn't be in debt with all the gear I bought and out most free nights in the spring summer.....

Me and my ex were at the beach I had some fresh water gear in my trunk along with a cheap shore caster I got at a yard sale that day. we were bored and figured may as well wet a line. So the both of sitting on the jetty in Hampton using 6' fresh rods with 10# test and a 8 ft shore caster with ??# on it and some hooks and weights we got from the tackle shop near us we start chunking clams....

Not even a half hour out she pulls in this huge fluke on the fresh rod and about a half hour after I pulled a huge striped bass had no scale didn't even have a tape this fish went from my shoulder to past my knee.....

Caught a few more smaller ones that day but I can tell you this that was 8 years ago and since then I've been back to that jetty many times and only pulled crabs out.

so beginners luck got me hooked

i got one. i was about 12 which was only 14 yrs ago but me and my father were trolling tube & worm in buttermilk bay catching schoolie after schoolie. By younger cousin she was about 9/10 at the time wanted to try one. We set her up and began a pass when the rod was doubled over. and looked like it was going to pull her into the bay. When my dad realized there was a decent fish on the end he tried to help her and she began to yell at him! He laughed and then just held the top of the reel seat for some support while she cranked on the reel. Fish was landed and measured 48" and was released. We got back to the dock and no one believed us.