Take a Break
This past week we took a break and went on vacation with Jenelle's family, celebrating my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary. It was supposed to happen last year but because of the pandemic it was bumped to this year.
Last year or this year, a trip to the outer banks is always a good one. And celebrating with our parents is a big deal and we are so thankful for their commitment, to each other and to the family!
Taking a break isn’t always an easy thing to do, even when it’s the right thing to do. At times I find it hard to get going. But then when I do get going and I’m in the middle of something exciting, it’s hard to stop. So, anyways, I did the right thing and shut the door on my gloryhole project for the week, loaded up the canoe and the boogie boards and the kids and headed south.
The waves were great and we had a lot of fun family times, playing in the ocean and soaking in the sun and watching the dolphins. I’m generally a morning person and so I had the luxury of taking my canoe to the Pamlico Sound almost every morning. I love paddling and fishing. My fishing efforts in the coastal waters have never been very successful and this year wasn’t much different.
My fishing excursion went like this;
I go to the local bait shop and ask the fisherman behind the counter if the fish are biting this week. Since he runs a charter boat business, he knows everything there is to know about catching fish and fishermen too, for that matter. He shows pictures of some recent catches.
“Speckled trout are really biting right now, let me show you what you’ll need to catch them.”
He shows me some $10 jerk poppers, the right size jig heads, the right color jigs, and “oh, you might want to throw in some of these rigs and try for puppy drum”.
“If you have any trouble finding the fish we run a charter out of here, 6AM to 10 for $450, bring your family”.
I go for the jerk poppers and jigs but pass on the charter.
The next morning finds me out on the sound, one of the first ones there. It’s a beautiful morning. The sound is huge and my comfort zone isn’t super far from the shore so I stay close. The fishing boats start heading out. They head out into the horizon until they are no longer visible. Just maybe I’ll get lucky and a fish will swim my way, even though I’m feeling like I’m not out far enough. Cast after cast, no luck.
At 9:50 AM I see a charter boat coming my way, probably heading back to port.
At 9:55AM the boat stops about 150 yards from my canoe. I can faintly hear the captain say, “you still have 5 minutes left, this might be a good spot.” The guys on board start casting except for one. “Hey aren’t you going to cast, someone asks”. The guy responds, “not unless someone catches one bigger than the 26” one I caught earlier”
Five minutes go by. Not a single bite.
“Time to head in” says the captain.
I’m thinking, “probably the only fish in that spot that he was going after was me”.
I didn’t bite.
There are lots of people that fish from kayaks and are successful. Even then, I like to blame my unsuccessful attempts on the fact that we are there in mid summer and the fact that I’m not getting out into the deeper water. Thankfully, I was lucky enough to catch two sting rays. That was an exciting first for me.
One of these years I’ll figure out how to wrangle enough money together to charter a boat and go after the big ones. Or maybe I’ll talk Jenelle and the kids into going to the beach in October when the swimming is not so good, but the Red Drum are coming in the shallows. Most likely I’ll continue fishing in the off season, enjoying the warm water, swimming in the ocean, paddling in the sound and enjoying time with the family.
Fishing aside, our vacation was a really fun one! Lots of swimming, laughing, eating, and just being together. We capped it off by stopping in Washington DC on the way home where the older kids joined up with some of their friends and competed in an intense ultimate frisbee tournament.
Maybe I’ll share more about that next time. In the meanwhile, I better get back to building my gloryhole!
