My Journal:

When I get a nibble on the end of my line, I get excited. I try to even guess what I've hooked. Striped bass bite, bite several times, then pull. Hard. Flukes bite and hang; but sometimes they are so light, you can barely feel the extra weight. Then there are bluefish. And of course, a million and one sea robins (ones you *don't* want...) It's fun to feel how each one bites, how each one pulls. It's like reaching your hand into a candy jar and groping for the Tootsie Roll (or whatever your favourite candy is) and trying to find it without looking into the jar.

NY Yankee vs. Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon. Bottom of the 9th inning, score's 5-3 favouring the Blue Jays. Jorje Posada is up to bat, bases loaded, he has the chance to win the game for the Yankees. Everybody in the stadium are on their feet. It comes down to ball 3 strike 2 (umm... I don't know how to talk baseball talk. *laughs*) The next pitch decides the game. Now isn't that why you love baseball??

We mised the goddamn party boat tonight. They changed their schedule and left at 3pm instead of 6.30pm since the stripers aren't biting anymore at night (is anybody getting tired of me talking about fish yet? I talk about it this much in real life at work too... ) so with the 3-9pm schedule they can go out for flukes and weakfish, I hear. Not that I know anything, of course, I'm just a beginner.

But do you know how much that blows? As is, getting out of work on Fridays is hard enough. I leave around 12pm and I get the "hmm" look sometimes. I mean, really, working half day... Hmm. By the time I get my stuff together, leave for Jersey, I get there around 2.30pm, then we have to pck the stuff into the car and get down the Jersey coast in an hour (slight traffic and it's 2 hours), and we barely have enogh time to secure a great spot on the boat (I know, picky about spots..) and the boat is off at 6.30pm.
And now it's 3pm!??! Argh. I'm maing sure my fall schedule doesn't have late clases on Friday because I am fishing through the fall season. Bet your horses on that.

I've been thinking about why I love fishing so much, and it's hard to cme up with an answer. I like the boat, I like the mates, I grew up by the sea, so I love the ocean air. It's easier on my lungs-- I find New York air to be stifling and terrible on my allergies. I like watching the waves, I like being away from the cacophony of a metropolitan city. I like time to think, quiet serene silence, I like staring at the tip of my fishing rod, concentrating and thinking of what is going on down there in the waters. I like standing in the seabreeze, I like being out with him, I like getting a bite, I love trying to reel in, I like feeling accomplished, I like the surprise when I feel a tug. I like the company of the regulars on the boat and I like watching the confused tanglers. I don't know if fishing would be the same without him, without the boat, without great guidance, without the sea (e.g. fishing from the shore? Hmm.. don't think that'd cut it for me), but whatever it is, I really enjoy fishing.

So instead of doing that tonight as we always do on Fridays, we decided to demolish the basement. :) Oh, what a great way to vent anger. Grab a hammer, smash up the panels on the ceiling, pull everything down, causing a massive mess of dust everywehre. I've gotten outfitted in those carpenter pants where you can hook the hammer on, Dardy (in tan.. *winks*) with thick boots and gloves too, all for DEMOLITION! Woohoo!!

I wish people took fishing more seriously as a sport. On Friday, when we went fishing, there were all the hooligans on the boat, beer drinking 20-somethings laughing hysterically, being loud and obnoxious. There were cigar-smoking men chomping on ham-and-cheese sandwiches, ignoring their fishing rods which have the wrong baits, baited incorrectly. I'm not expecting people to stand studiously by the edge of the boat, intensely concentrating on fishing. I understand people come out on the boat for fun, to get away, to have a good time. They believe that fishing is a game of luck, you throw the bait in and just wait. I'm sure they are the same group of people who obstinately believe that gambling is a game of luck. But as we know, it's about odds. Certain games have better odds, and if you pay attention to the cards, you play the game right, youll hve a bettert chance of hittign the jackpot. Same with fishing.

What would golfers say if I showed up on the course, wearing thew rong shoes so I scruff up the grass, hit my balls with a baseball bat instead of the 7 Iron, guzzle beer, laugh obnoxiously, yell "fore" and then "just kidding! Hahah!" and then scream and curse when I don't win the game? Fishing is a sport, somethign to be learnt and appreciated, and it's really annoying to be standing next to someone who tangles lines, cares more about his bottle of beer than his fishing rod, and en at the end of the day, wonders why he ddint' catch a single fish for the night.

He caught a striped bass and a fluke. I caught two striped bass that were too small, so had to be thrown back. But of the 44 people on the boat, I think only 6 or 7 people caught something. And there area lot of fish in the ocean. Wonder what people do on boats??? Certainly not fish.