Less than two miles from my house is the Pacific Ocean. There are some rock jetties going out into the ocean and a long pier that we can fish off of.
I used to like going out onto the big rocks, I could run at full tilt across the top of them, no problem at all. Hell, it was damn near a half mile to the end, many times I stood right there at the very tip of it.
Getting out there where almost no one ever went was fun, I caught things so big they sometimes surprised even me. Big old Cabezon, Lingcod, the Sea bass and smaller fish we called Sea Trout were always there. A few times I even cast out in the fall for the big Silver Perch and ended up with a Salmon instead.
But time takes it's toll, years of hard work and age made the old muscles tired and sore, the joints ached.
Damn rocks got bigger and farther apart, too. One day I was struggling to get out onto the rocks and a big wave caught me, a couple of kids happened to be close by and dragged me out of the water.
"Hey, old timer, maybe you should not come out here, it can be dangerous." One of them told me.
I looked at the over muscled kid's wet suit and spear gun, and I thought about telling him to put me back in the goddamn water, I could take care of myself.
But I kept my mouth shut, just thanked them. They were right, I knew that.
I found myself ambling out onto the pier, sitting in a lawn chair and pitching a piece of sand shrimp out into the water.
Sometimes I even got a bite or two, mostly I just sat out there casting sidelong glances at the big rollers coming in off the ocean and hitting the rocks. They struck and often blasted 30 feet into the air. I could see that from the pier, smell the salt air, remember the times I had been out there, jumping from rock to rock to avoid the huge waves. Then I would dart down, drop a piece of bait into a likely crack in the rocks and almost always get a fish.
I sighed, life wasn't fair. Just when I got to the point where I had all of this time all day every day, my body had betrayed me and would not let me do all the things I wanted to do.
Hell, I even had to stop at the little market and buy bait, I used to just take a shovel and a bucket and dig clams and sand shrimp, even that made me hurt so bad I just couldn't do it.
The trouble with the damn pier was people. Families with kids, they ran screaming back and forth, throwing things into the water, it was noise all the time. Without fail a bunch would show up and throw crab pots over the side, yapping away in some foreign language, generally ruining what could be a peaceful day.
One day I decided to go back out onto the jetty. I checked the tide book, there was a series of shallow tides coming up. That meant a gentle current, and the weather report was good, little wind and no storms in sight.
By God I was going fishing! And I wasn't going to use that damned frozen shit for bait, so I got a shovel and my boots and off I went. The tide was out pretty good, I got down to the river bank where a rock shelf runs out, it is covered by about 6 inches of mud so the shrimp can't run.
It took me a half hour to dig a little trench, as it filled with water the shrimp slid out of their holes. I picked them up, in short order I had around 50 of them and a few clams. I put those into my little plastic bucket, went back to my truck and rested for a good hour or so.
Feeling up to it, I drove out onto the jetty to the sign and parked. The sign read danger, keep off, but nobody ever paid any attention to that.
I grabbed my fishing pole, a stout little five footer, my gunny sack I had clipped to my belt, and my bucket of bait. In my coat pocket I had some split shot leads and a package of fishhooks, all I really needed.
No point in any huge casting rig, all the fish were in the rocks anyway because if they weren't, they would end up in one of those ever present Seal's belly.
I started out across the rocks. I found myself sliding down one side on my fanny, on my hands and knees in other places. I just kept going, I knew that it would take me awhile but the tide was coming in and I wanted to be where I was headed at high slack tide.
The place I was heading was a huge flat rock that was well above the highest tide point. It had large rocks on each side, I could set my gear down and fish off that rock without much fear of falling in. It took me nearly two hours of starting and stopping to clamber my way out there, but by God I made it.
I put my gear down and sat down to rest, lighting up a smoke. I woke up a half hour later, looked down at the river. The tide was coming up on high slack.
I put a shrimp tail on my little number 4 hook, flipped in down into the gap between the two boulders. I tripped the reel and the pole bent double, out came a nice little Greenie a good 16" long. I caught three more of them back to back, all the same size. Then I went a long time without a bite. I did catch a couple of Red Rock Crabs, nice ones so I stuck those in my sack, too.
But still no more bites. I knew what that meant, a big fellow was around, the smaller fish all take off when big Cabezon or Lingcod slides in under the rocks. I put on a tiny bit of bait and cast out on the other side, there was a shallower area there that I knew had little ones. I instantly caught a little yellow perch about 3 inches long.
I carefully hooked the yellow Perch through it's fin on the back, dropped it down into the deep hole. It instantly darted for the cover of the rocks but didn't make it. I saw the huge shadow dart out, then turn back, and I set the hook.
It was huge. I had caught some very large fish out there but this one was right up there with the largest. It proceeded to wedge itself into the rocks and refused to budge. I just kept up the pressure, I knew that eventually it would begin to give and try something else.
"What do you have on, mister?" Said a voice from behind me.
I glanced back and there stood a pretty little brunette in a bikini that she might as well have not bothered with.
I damn near dropped the pole! How in the hell did she get out here, besides, she was barefoot?
"We were swimming on the South side, the waves are gentle there." She said, apparently reading the surprise on my face.
"We?" I asked, giving my line a tug. Just then the fish darted out of the rocks and across the hole into another spot, went back to sulking.
"Oh! You do have a fish on, what is it?" She started climbing down the rocks to where I was. Just what I needed was some tourists coming down and getting in my way, I was in a battle here. I was trying to keep my line off the rocks so it didn't cut through, at the same time I had to keep pressure on the fish or it would be gone.
The young woman managed to get to my rock, right on cue she stepped in front of me and looked down over the edge. The tail of the thing was sticking out into view, it was a big Cabezon, it's tail was a good six inches tall.
The trouble with big Cabezon is they will wrap their tails around a rock and hang on for dear life. The only way to get the really big ones is tire them and make them work.
Usually they win, to be honest.
"Excuse me, miss, please step back." I asked her.
"Sorry." She stepped back out of my way.
Just then another voice called out.
"Julie! Where the fuck are you?"
"I'm down here, Sandy! This man has a great big fish on!" Hell, she sounded as excited as I was. Another pretty light brown haired girl appeared, she was also in a bikini, if anything, it was even smaller. She climbed down and onto the same flat rock with us. It was getting a bit snug.
I would have yelled at them to go the hell away and leave me alone but to be honest I was enjoying the view.