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About 15 years ago there was a run of incredible nocturnal fly fishing along Lobsterville beach on MV in early June. Night after night thousands of 30"-36+" bass would wallow on sandeel soup at your feet. They were VERY hard to fool, however. After a lot of tortured nights of frustrated fishing and hours of obsessed fly tying, I finally learned how to catch them and greedily guarded that knowledge.
A night, soon thereafter, a young guy in shorts approached me while I was unhooking a nice fish and asked advice. He was visiting from the west coast, had an 8 wt fly rod and a Loop reel (the earliest wide spool reel that had no drag except your hand pressure on the spool), and little else for tackle. I covered my fly with my hand, gave him some useless pleasant brush off and smiled smugly as he walked off.
A short distance away he met an older man walking off the beach. The older guy I think was named Souza and worked in a lumber yard on the Vineyard. He had been flyfishing there as his primary mode of fishing for 30+ years. The young guy asked him for advice and I listened while he freely explained how to time the tide, what retrieve to use, and then cut the fly off his line and gave it to the young guy.
The young guy set up shop nearby and began catching fish as efficiently as I. Eventually he hooked a freight train of a fish that took him up and down Dogfish bar several times until he landed a 46" fork length striped bass that must have weighed 35-40 pounds.
Fought and caught in 3 feet of water with a 3oz rod, and a reel with no drag. An incredibly skilled angling feat. All possible because of the kindness and generosity of experienced fisherman. I, in comparison, felt ashamed, petty, and small.
I learned something that night. I learned that freely helping someone less experienced than you is the real measure of your worth as a fisherman, and as a person. Ultimately, that is what we are fishing for. If you are out there still, Mr Souza, thank you, you helped me too.
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