07.24.06

Rite of Passage

Posted in All, Podcast at 6:21 pm by Rodfather

I went fishing with Brian on Saturday. It was crazy hot that day. Maybe around low 90′s which is pretty damn hot for Watsonville.
We took off to Pajaro Dunes around 4:30PM or so and by that time, the weather started cooling down. When we got there, there were still a gang of people chilling out.

High tide was suppose to be late, like around 9:00PM. So the tide was still fairly low when we started casting.

After just a few casts, I felt a nibble on my line and yanked quickly. The nibbling kept coming and right away, a huge smile formed on my face. Words can’t explain what I was feeling at that moment. Well, actually a lot of words came to mind:
‘Fuck ya!’
‘Wooo hoooo!’
‘Aw fresh! I finally caught one!’

I turned to Brian and started screaming passed the loud crashing of the waves. “Dude! I got one!” I yelled. He just laughed and started walking over to make sure.

I reeled in a tiny, little perch. It was maybe 5 inches long. I didn’t care. It was the first fish I caught since I started. All the struggles of going out each time without even a bite was forgotten. If there were any regrets of moving back up north, at that moment, those thoughts quickly washed away. I’m back and I just caught a fish in my hometown. Perch fishing. The generations of my family, fishing on the shores of Watsonville, has continued on to the next.

I just felt so happy. It was truly a momentous occasion as if I passed through a Rite of Passage.

Throughout the day, I ended up catching 4 more fish. They were all too small to bring back except for the last one.

It was getting late and I was going to cast a few more times before packing up. I felt a hard tug and could tell it was a lot bigger than the others. It wasn’t very hard to reel in actually but was so happy to find out it was big enough to bring home. Catching this one was definitely the icing on the cake. To be able to bring back home a fish is a great feeling. It’s like if the world was coming to an end and there wasn’t any electricity or any means to food, all I would need is a pole and some bait to provide food.

Fresh.