1 note &
Catch of the day; a big salmon, and a bigger salmon
How appropriate that, as I approach the fateful climax of “Moby Dick” (I’m on page 1,061 of 1,358, my Nook tells me), I hook up with a Leviathan of my own.
Give a listen, me heartys …
I was trolling in about 15 fathoms of water Sunday evening (that’s 90 feet to you landlubbers), with one nice salmon already in the cooler, when the tip of my starboard-side rod took a sudden, violent bow. The reel screamed as it spooled out 20-pound-test line as fast as it could. I grabbed the rod and set the hook. The dance began.
I happened to be trolling into a fresh nor’easter when the fish hit; yet, with a battle on my hands, I had no choice but to abandon the helm.
The wind instantly began pushing the boat off course. Suddenly I was fighting the fish off the port side, than off the bow, then starboard, then off the stern again, just barely clearing the antenna of my ship-to-shore radio.
Of course the boat’s spinning caused my other two lines to tangle, which meant I had no hope of clearing a path for the fish - even if I could have kept the battle going with one hand as I reeled the other lines in, which I have done many times with lesser fish on the line.
There was no way I was going to “horse” this fish into my boat. My only hope was to play him into exhaustion, hoping, all the while, that I had tied good knots.
Thirty-five minutes later, with my arms feeling like Twizzlers, I managed to slip a net under him off the stern and hoist him into the cooler. The battery in my scale was dead, but my neighbor and I concurred that he he was at least 22 pounds. I’m now preparing the brine in which he’ll float for 12 hours, or so, before going in the smoker.
So, now the only question is this: Who should play me in the movie?
