I think every small boy dreams of catching a big fish. I did.
It was too many days spent on the harbor breakwater watching others
catch fish and the mandatory high school readings of Hemingway, Zane Grey and
Steinbeck that drove me to that precipice.
I lived and breathed fish throughout my puberty, interrupted only by the
infrequent romance, the even rarer girlfriend and subsequent break up, complete
with resulting heartbreak--which was then naturally healed by more fishing. I
dreamed of marlin and sailfish and epic struggles in the hot sun as braided
line peeled off a reel the size of a blender.
Of course, it helps if one has a codependent or enabler and I had many. I'm also pretty sure that I fished because my father didn't. His dysfunction, his struggles with mental illness and the abuse that was heaped upon us at home must have shown on my face because the woodshop teacher at the high school reached out to me. He reached out to pretty much every at risk child he met--and he was a fisherman. More importantly, he surrounded himself with other fishermen. I'm sure there is some sort of Biblical inference one could make but none of these fishers of men were even remotely saintly. At best, they stayed out of jail and students thrived on their pranks and escapades. Interoffice memos were all too often used to send soiled panties in sizes that could be measured in feet instead of inches to another unsuspecting but hardly innocent teacher. Naturally, we adored them.
Taylor was part of that crew although he wasn't a teacher. In fact, he was an accountant for the county. That's not exactly the kind of occupation most of the group dreamed of but Taylor juggled his schedule and had enough seniority that he could work 4 days a week and fish three, leaving just about zero time for relationships. That suited Taylor just fine. Relationships--unless they were with other fishermen--interfered with one's God given right to fish.
Of course, it helps if one has a codependent or enabler and I had many. I'm also pretty sure that I fished because my father didn't. His dysfunction, his struggles with mental illness and the abuse that was heaped upon us at home must have shown on my face because the woodshop teacher at the high school reached out to me. He reached out to pretty much every at risk child he met--and he was a fisherman. More importantly, he surrounded himself with other fishermen. I'm sure there is some sort of Biblical inference one could make but none of these fishers of men were even remotely saintly. At best, they stayed out of jail and students thrived on their pranks and escapades. Interoffice memos were all too often used to send soiled panties in sizes that could be measured in feet instead of inches to another unsuspecting but hardly innocent teacher. Naturally, we adored them.
Taylor was part of that crew although he wasn't a teacher. In fact, he was an accountant for the county. That's not exactly the kind of occupation most of the group dreamed of but Taylor juggled his schedule and had enough seniority that he could work 4 days a week and fish three, leaving just about zero time for relationships. That suited Taylor just fine. Relationships--unless they were with other fishermen--interfered with one's God given right to fish.
In retrospect Taylor was socially awkward, more than a bit
stiff and an introvert--which meant he was the stuff legends were made of; and
Taylor fished for sharks. Taylor fished
for really big sharks--Threshers and Great Whites and the infrequent Mako or
Hammerhead. ...and Taylor had numerous
records for big sharks. He had one
extraordinarily ugly ass wooden skiff that the students in the woodshop class
had built for him. It floated. That was about it but he was happy with it. The rest of us, however, referred to it as
"the submarine". It was a
dull battleship gray--probably because gray was on sale somewhere and more
often than not, had a generous coating of guts of one sort or another and the
usual seagull droppings.
Now being single was a plus in Taylor's world. He would stop at nothing if it meant a shot at catching a world record shark. He would routinely fill his refrigerator with bait--not any old bait, though. Mackeral and bonito the size that most people would have been happy to catch spilled out of the refrigerator. The freezer was usually filled with 5 gallon buckets of blood and gore that he picked up from a local butcher to later use for a chum line, the slowly melting block of offal leaving a distinctive trail behind the submarine. It was the kind of thing that horrified a date, not that he ever had any -- and sent the sharks into a frenzy.
I suppose shark fishing is a lot like catfishing. The more disgusting the bait or the chum line, the better it seemed to work. Accordingly, one of Taylors favorite baits was road kill--although in Southern California that, more often than not, was somebody's missing pet. He traveled everywhere with a pair of rubber gloves, plastic bags and a pile of old newspapers on the odd chance that he would find some good road kill...which is how I first heard about Taylor. It seems he had been driving down an alley in town when he saw a dog sprawled out in the road. He, according to most versions of the story, slammed on the brakes of his old Chevy Blazer, jumped out, slipped on the gloves and proceeded to roll the dog up in the newspaper. Most of us might even view this as a public service but Taylor hadn't noticed that the dog wasn't dead--not until it bit him. It seems it wasn't hurt--or anything else-- just one lazy dog laying out in the sun. I never did figure out why he needed newspaper, though. I suppose it was less of a shock to open the freezer and see last weeks LA Times instead of the neighbors cat?
Anyways, this cemented Taylors stature amongst our little dysfunctional group of anglers and wanna-be anglers, not that his reputation actually needed any further embellishment. By that time, he had numerous state records and line class records. He had long ago obtained a commercial fishing license and sold almost everything he caught to subsidize his habit--which meant he routinely put some very big sharks in the submarine to either be weighed or sold.
...and were you wondering how the submarine came to be called the "submarine"? I suppose it was designed --if one can call it that--to fish the less than challenging waters of the Santa Monica Bay. Surfers got excited if they saw a three foot swell and sailors dreamed of 8 knot winds. Tame was an understatement--with a few exceptions--so the submarine had maybe 16 inches of freeboard. If the wind did blow, you were going to get wet and be bailing furiously. None of this ever stopped Taylor from filling the submarine with shark, though, and on one trip in particular he had landed a Thresher that was a rumored 385 pounds. That was dangerously close to another state record so in the submarine it went. Naturally, Taylor continued to fish and hooked and landed another Thresher that later weighed in at 425 pounds. In the submarine it went, shark sticking out of either end of the skiff and the boat sitting so low in the water that the slightest chop would have sunk it. Taylor couldn't swim either, not that it would have mattered. You see, he routinely shot the sharks before he put them in the boat. It made sense. These sharks were upwards of 14 feet long and the submarine was only 20 feet long so there just wasn't a lot of room for a shark to be flopping around. The problem was the slick of blood and gore trailing out behind the submarine--and the sharks that smelled the blood. On a good day, there was a constant posse of sharks tailing the submarine. On a bad day, there would be even more...
Needless to say, I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I finally got invited to go fishing with Taylor on the submarine. I was all of 17 and had never caught anything bigger than a red snapper. The bait was bigger than most of the fish I caught. I was ready to be transported to the world of Hemingway and Zane Grey --except it didn't actually happen quite like that. The submarine was fitted with a fighting chair but it was a budget model that looked an awful lot like a lawn chair. Taylor was frugal almost to the point of excess. In fact, he would sometimes shoot a shark just to get the stainless steel hook back. Not every shark was headed for the fish market to later be sold as swordfish. Some just weren't especially edible but Taylor couldn't abide the thought of having to replace a stainless leader and hook either.
Just the same, I was ready for whatever came my way. I was now part of this cadre of insanely intent fishermen who for the most part, lived and breathed fish. It was rumored some had gills instead of lungs and only a few were capable of maintaining relationships for any length of time. The shortest version is that I now wanted to prove that I was worthy and I dutifully hung on every word of instruction that Taylor uttered. He very carefully showed me how to bait the hook through the nose of the bonito, explaining that there was a reason it was sometimes called a bonehead... I baited the hook and proceeded to play line out behind the boat. Within minutes, I had a hook up. I braced myself and set the hook. My heart was racing, my feet were braced against the stern and I was praying that that tired fighting chair stayed together for at least one more fish. Line was beginning to peel off the reel...and then suddenly everything went slack! The silence was deafening. Disappointment hung like a tule fog over the submarine and I slowly reeled my line back in. I'll fast forward: The bait was virtually unscathed with the exception of a few teeth marks. It seems in my youthful enthusiasm and being somewhat muscle bound in those days, I wanted to show Taylor just how strong and clever I was--and buried the hook so deep in the skull of that bonito that there was some question if the shark had ever even felt the point of the hook. It had simply held on to the bait until it tired of our little game of tug of war.
Taylor really didn't need to say much. The look in his eyes said it all but he was willing to give me another chance although it seemed like an eternity before the next hook up. This time everything went right though, and once again, I was in the fighting chair, wondering just what was at the other end of that line. The reels we were using were the old Penn Senators, the size of coffee cans and the 125 pound braided line was peeling off the spool as if it were sewing thread. For those of you who have never fished big game, these were stout fiberglass rods, the butt sections as thick as the grip on a Louisville Slugger--and it was bent over as if it had all the backbone of an overcooked pasta.
This was the kind of fishing that adds a whole new meaning to the word "fear". The submarine, already questionable as far as how seaworthy it really was, was now slowly being towed backwards. One wake, one swell hitting us just right and we would have been just another snack item, another morsel for the other sharks trailing the submarine... Needless to say, everything--or almost everything went right and I lived to finish the story. I don't know how long I fought that shark. It wasn't epic by any means and didn't weigh much more than 175 pounds but that was 175 pounds of finely honed fighting muscle and 150 pounds bigger than anything I had ever caught before. Taylor, however was understandably unimpressed. He had no children so that look of Christmas morning in my eyes--the excitement and sense of accomplishment never registered. Instead he handed me a shotgun and in as dry and taciturn voice as any human could utter, simply warned me to not miss; not put a hole in the bottom of the boat--and don't hit the leader. I often wondered if he thought he had to pay for every word he used because he used them so sparingly...
Pride is a funny thing. I so desperately wanted to be part of this group of seasoned anglers and the last thing I wanted Taylor to know was that I had never even touched, much less fired a shotgun before. I'd been to a Boy Scout summer camp and fired a few .22 rounds at the gun range there but that was nothing like the kick of a shotgun. Granted, it was only a 20 gauge but I needed more than anything else to do this right. Naturally, that meant I did almost everything wrong. I practically touched the barrel of that shotgun to the head of the shark, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. The ocean erupted into a geyser of shark bits and spray; and in a moment that will forever define Taylor --a moment that will always be etched in my memory, he stood there wiping off shark from his glasses and without ever raising his voice, simply said "I think you got him".
Now being single was a plus in Taylor's world. He would stop at nothing if it meant a shot at catching a world record shark. He would routinely fill his refrigerator with bait--not any old bait, though. Mackeral and bonito the size that most people would have been happy to catch spilled out of the refrigerator. The freezer was usually filled with 5 gallon buckets of blood and gore that he picked up from a local butcher to later use for a chum line, the slowly melting block of offal leaving a distinctive trail behind the submarine. It was the kind of thing that horrified a date, not that he ever had any -- and sent the sharks into a frenzy.
I suppose shark fishing is a lot like catfishing. The more disgusting the bait or the chum line, the better it seemed to work. Accordingly, one of Taylors favorite baits was road kill--although in Southern California that, more often than not, was somebody's missing pet. He traveled everywhere with a pair of rubber gloves, plastic bags and a pile of old newspapers on the odd chance that he would find some good road kill...which is how I first heard about Taylor. It seems he had been driving down an alley in town when he saw a dog sprawled out in the road. He, according to most versions of the story, slammed on the brakes of his old Chevy Blazer, jumped out, slipped on the gloves and proceeded to roll the dog up in the newspaper. Most of us might even view this as a public service but Taylor hadn't noticed that the dog wasn't dead--not until it bit him. It seems it wasn't hurt--or anything else-- just one lazy dog laying out in the sun. I never did figure out why he needed newspaper, though. I suppose it was less of a shock to open the freezer and see last weeks LA Times instead of the neighbors cat?
Anyways, this cemented Taylors stature amongst our little dysfunctional group of anglers and wanna-be anglers, not that his reputation actually needed any further embellishment. By that time, he had numerous state records and line class records. He had long ago obtained a commercial fishing license and sold almost everything he caught to subsidize his habit--which meant he routinely put some very big sharks in the submarine to either be weighed or sold.
...and were you wondering how the submarine came to be called the "submarine"? I suppose it was designed --if one can call it that--to fish the less than challenging waters of the Santa Monica Bay. Surfers got excited if they saw a three foot swell and sailors dreamed of 8 knot winds. Tame was an understatement--with a few exceptions--so the submarine had maybe 16 inches of freeboard. If the wind did blow, you were going to get wet and be bailing furiously. None of this ever stopped Taylor from filling the submarine with shark, though, and on one trip in particular he had landed a Thresher that was a rumored 385 pounds. That was dangerously close to another state record so in the submarine it went. Naturally, Taylor continued to fish and hooked and landed another Thresher that later weighed in at 425 pounds. In the submarine it went, shark sticking out of either end of the skiff and the boat sitting so low in the water that the slightest chop would have sunk it. Taylor couldn't swim either, not that it would have mattered. You see, he routinely shot the sharks before he put them in the boat. It made sense. These sharks were upwards of 14 feet long and the submarine was only 20 feet long so there just wasn't a lot of room for a shark to be flopping around. The problem was the slick of blood and gore trailing out behind the submarine--and the sharks that smelled the blood. On a good day, there was a constant posse of sharks tailing the submarine. On a bad day, there would be even more...
Needless to say, I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I finally got invited to go fishing with Taylor on the submarine. I was all of 17 and had never caught anything bigger than a red snapper. The bait was bigger than most of the fish I caught. I was ready to be transported to the world of Hemingway and Zane Grey --except it didn't actually happen quite like that. The submarine was fitted with a fighting chair but it was a budget model that looked an awful lot like a lawn chair. Taylor was frugal almost to the point of excess. In fact, he would sometimes shoot a shark just to get the stainless steel hook back. Not every shark was headed for the fish market to later be sold as swordfish. Some just weren't especially edible but Taylor couldn't abide the thought of having to replace a stainless leader and hook either.
Just the same, I was ready for whatever came my way. I was now part of this cadre of insanely intent fishermen who for the most part, lived and breathed fish. It was rumored some had gills instead of lungs and only a few were capable of maintaining relationships for any length of time. The shortest version is that I now wanted to prove that I was worthy and I dutifully hung on every word of instruction that Taylor uttered. He very carefully showed me how to bait the hook through the nose of the bonito, explaining that there was a reason it was sometimes called a bonehead... I baited the hook and proceeded to play line out behind the boat. Within minutes, I had a hook up. I braced myself and set the hook. My heart was racing, my feet were braced against the stern and I was praying that that tired fighting chair stayed together for at least one more fish. Line was beginning to peel off the reel...and then suddenly everything went slack! The silence was deafening. Disappointment hung like a tule fog over the submarine and I slowly reeled my line back in. I'll fast forward: The bait was virtually unscathed with the exception of a few teeth marks. It seems in my youthful enthusiasm and being somewhat muscle bound in those days, I wanted to show Taylor just how strong and clever I was--and buried the hook so deep in the skull of that bonito that there was some question if the shark had ever even felt the point of the hook. It had simply held on to the bait until it tired of our little game of tug of war.
Taylor really didn't need to say much. The look in his eyes said it all but he was willing to give me another chance although it seemed like an eternity before the next hook up. This time everything went right though, and once again, I was in the fighting chair, wondering just what was at the other end of that line. The reels we were using were the old Penn Senators, the size of coffee cans and the 125 pound braided line was peeling off the spool as if it were sewing thread. For those of you who have never fished big game, these were stout fiberglass rods, the butt sections as thick as the grip on a Louisville Slugger--and it was bent over as if it had all the backbone of an overcooked pasta.
This was the kind of fishing that adds a whole new meaning to the word "fear". The submarine, already questionable as far as how seaworthy it really was, was now slowly being towed backwards. One wake, one swell hitting us just right and we would have been just another snack item, another morsel for the other sharks trailing the submarine... Needless to say, everything--or almost everything went right and I lived to finish the story. I don't know how long I fought that shark. It wasn't epic by any means and didn't weigh much more than 175 pounds but that was 175 pounds of finely honed fighting muscle and 150 pounds bigger than anything I had ever caught before. Taylor, however was understandably unimpressed. He had no children so that look of Christmas morning in my eyes--the excitement and sense of accomplishment never registered. Instead he handed me a shotgun and in as dry and taciturn voice as any human could utter, simply warned me to not miss; not put a hole in the bottom of the boat--and don't hit the leader. I often wondered if he thought he had to pay for every word he used because he used them so sparingly...
Pride is a funny thing. I so desperately wanted to be part of this group of seasoned anglers and the last thing I wanted Taylor to know was that I had never even touched, much less fired a shotgun before. I'd been to a Boy Scout summer camp and fired a few .22 rounds at the gun range there but that was nothing like the kick of a shotgun. Granted, it was only a 20 gauge but I needed more than anything else to do this right. Naturally, that meant I did almost everything wrong. I practically touched the barrel of that shotgun to the head of the shark, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. The ocean erupted into a geyser of shark bits and spray; and in a moment that will forever define Taylor --a moment that will always be etched in my memory, he stood there wiping off shark from his glasses and without ever raising his voice, simply said "I think you got him".
No comments:
Post a Comment