Fighting a fish on a good day is not an easy thing. Fighting a fish on a snotty, nasty day is even harder yet. to watch dee do it was a pleasure. it was just as exciting to see him fight the fish as it would have been for me to hook it myself. That’s what is great about fishing, it’s not about the pounds and inches; it’s about the camaraderie of the hunt and when it pays off man, it’s almost euphoric. When dee got the fish to the boat i had the net in hand. We had done this many, many times. There was no wasted motion or time, no getting things fouled up, just a nice smooth team. i have lost fish at the
boat many times, but i honestly can never remember messing up a fish on the boat when dee and i were fishing together. We landed this one just like we had landed many other fish. The fish hit the deck and we had our first striper of the evening. Fish bled and in the box, we got ready for our next fight. it was pretty dark by then and i turned on the lights in the boat so we could see the rod tips; the wind had picked up and it was blowing pretty good. i let out some more rode to settle the boat down a little. i asked dee if he thought we should pull the hook and head for safer water. He said no he thought we would be fine. Well, not too much longer went by and dee’s rod went off again. okay, this was not as exciting as the first catch, because after all he had already caught one and it should have been my turn to catch one. alas, it was not to be and he put the second fish in the boat. “Good going!, i shouted. He smiled laughed put the fish in the box. We took care of the fish reset the gear and began our patient wait again. By now, it was about 10:00 p.m. and the weather was just miserable. The boat was having a hard time staying stable. it was bucking the anchor line it was hard to get comfortable the rods were bouncing mercilessly. i asked dee if he thought now was the time to pull the hook and head for home. He didn’t think so and thought we were safer just staying put. i said, “what makes you think so?” He said, “Well boy, we are not going to be able to pull the anchor in this.” i said, “Hell dee, let’s just cut the anchor rode and head in.” He said, “Yeah boy, that’s a great idea; out in the middle of Suisun, no way to see the waves, no way to see the shore, no way to judge distance and you want to get rid of the anchor ... You got rocks in your head?” Well, when he put it that way maybe that wasn’t a very good idea.
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