Jun 18 2006
Hank’s Big Bass
It’s high season for the striped bass (I like how the old timers pronounce it “stripe-ed”) on Cape Cod, so at a Friday night family cookout the cellphone call came from a buddy fishing at a UDL (undisclosed location) with the news that he had just landed a large fish and there were more where that one came from. After making social with the wives and kids, the men-folk went into stealth preparation mode, everyone running to garages to dust off fishing rods and dig out rusty lures.
My brother Henry, besieged father of a 10-month old who has the bewildered look of a man who wonders if diaper pails last forever, wanted to go, but needed to check for permission first. I swung into big brother duty and asked for him, secured the yard pass, and off we went, bouncing down a dirt road in a truck loaded with rods, beer and eels.
Henry was under-equipped, had ancient line on his reel, but made his way out into the darkness and out onto the end a stone jetty. The rest of us hung back at the truck, drinking beer and rigging up, telling fish stories and admiring our buddy’s first fish, the one which drew us there in the first place. It was a perfect night, lights winking on the horizon of Nantucket Sound, just enough wind to keep the no-see’ums away.
“Yee-haw!”
We stopped talking and looked out towards Henry. Another “yee-haw”. Then another.
I walked down to the waterside with my youngest son.
“Look at the size of this fish. I think it’s the biggest I’ve ever caught.”
Henry was bent over the fish on the beach beside the jetty. He had indeed caught himself a nice bass.
There was much posing for the camera and fish for the family dinner.
Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook
Delicious
Youtube
Flickr
GooglePlus
yee haw, that looks like a 38-inch fish. And you guys got two of them at night? Way to go. how far were these fish away from the shore, 100 yards, David?
No stripers down here. the nearest ones are out on the Colorado River.
Be well
Jim
The fish were at our feet, feeding on little green crabs tossed around by the surf. Close guess on the fish — 40″ I believe.
I don’t keep stripers. Too pretty and as the man said, “They fight like the Sunday Times and taste like ‘em too.”
holy crap that is some fish.
dear. lord.
but i take it this wasn’t caught by fly? i’m going to feel at least morally superior if it was not
Nah. No fly for Henry. Though he is a mean flycaster. We were lazy and went with spinning rods and bucktails. The bass were dining on green crabs.
There you go Stephen, the pattern is the green crabs.
beautiful fish..
the fishing gods are merciful towards new fathers, it seems. I catch more in the stolen half-hours I get now, than I did fishing all day long in the halcyon days of independence..
The Summer of a Thousand Fish Begins with a Single Catch
Landed the first striper of the year last night right off our dock. If I hadn’t, I don’t know what I would have done because the fish were jumping all around me. I had no luck whatsoever with either the…
We finally found Hank, but on a picture.
Old friends from Barcelona, Oriol and Karma, need to contact him as soon as possible.
Is he really a father?
Hank, we miss you! we want to know about you!
Write us!
[...] While my efforts to get David’s brother’s absurdly huge striper considered for Moldy Chum’s (a rather irreverent fishing blog) “Slab of the Year” contest were apparently successful, Hank’s Big Bass appears to be out of the running. No, I have no idea why – that’s the biggest striper I’ve ever seen – it just is. That’s the bad news. [...]
[...] And then I remembered David Churbuck’s brother’s fish, and I felt even worse. While I’m studiously trying to hold on to the moral high ground as I fish solely on fly rods rather than spin, the fact is that that fish is an order of magnitude larger than anything I’ve caught. It’s not even close. [...]