BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE-CHARLEY SOARES 

Bad things happen to good people, that's a fact of life, however there is a great deal we can do to control our destiny. If you ask certain fisherman they might just try to convince you their sport is all about luck but that is only true in a very few highly publicized instances. Your success' and failures are largely dependent on your skills and experience with luck playing only a very limited role in the overall scheme of things. When decisions are based on experience and factual data the outcome is apt to be much more predictable and favorable than indiscriminate choices based on frustration and emotion. (I.e.) It's Saturday and my only day to fish. The weather is horrible but I'm going anyway. From time to time my clients have talked me into fishing when I believed the weather or conditions would not be in our favor. Recently after rescheduling three dates and listening to the marine weather the night before our fourth attempt I allowed myself to be talked into making the trip. The mitigating factor was the angler was hauling his boat that weekend and moving back to Florida until the following spring. The marine forecast turned out to be a bad dream come true. Early morning fog and a heavy mist were predicted to give way to afternoon winds of small craft proportions. I reluctantly agreed to fish as long as the weather did not pose any danger but insisted our efforts would be limited to the north shore of Buzzards Bay and Rhode Island Sound. The first few ledges on my bass routes produced four blues in the 3 to 5-pound class and one teen size chopper that leaped free of the hook before the net could be deployed. These same productive bass haunts, that had been consistently providing us with some handsome bass, had dried up after the last cold snap and bluefish with an appetite for John's huge sea worms, had taken up residence. You know something is amiss when you and two much larger lobster boats are the only craft afloat on an early autumn morning. Here we were in plain view of the Buzzards Bay weather station suffering from a case of Buzzards Luck. We couldn't kill anything and nothing would die. My clients weren't complaining. They were out on the water, had a few blues knocking around in the fish box and had smuggled aboard two bags of food and snacks that their wives would never permit them to eat at home. Despite their apparent satisfaction I felt we could do much better. On the high slack we broke to discuss our options over a nutritious meal of nachos, grinders, potato salad and a one pound bag of cashew nuts. My fares washed this down with cold imported brew while I sipped on tepid coffee before we began chewing the Gaviscon tablets. There is a knob between West Island and Mishaum that is hardly noticeable on the chart and in over 30 years of fishing these waters I've never seen a lobster pot on it or another boat fishing it. Although that jagged piece of ledge has a section of illegal dragger net snagged onto it that piece of bottom has saved me from a skunking on more than one occasion. I'm not talking schoolies here, I'm referring to the kind of fish that pull the last two colors of leadline off the spool so fast the bead chain sounds like a ricochet going through the guides as they head for the netting or the edge of the ledge to scrape off your tube, jig or eelskin. I've donated a lot of tackle as well as shed a few tears here but it's been worth every breath-taking minute of those experiences. Steering an approximate course to our destination I strained my eyes to identify the ranges that would put me over the outcrop. When I picked up the first of three ranges necessary to position me I became aware of a very disturbing factor. It was apparent I would have to select new targets before the next season. In the years that I've been fishing here the trees have grown to heights that almost totally obscure a tower, a distinctive roofline and the original building on the beach was recently torn down. Calling for four colors of leadline to be slipped through the guides I began to make a slow circle in the 35-foot depths, heading for the edge of the roofline where it intersects with a prominent boulder on the shore. As I locked the boat on the range the depth sounder showed the bottom climbing rapidly until it read 18 feet at the peak. Not a single fish icon showed on the screen but I knew there would be a fish there. One hundred feet from the peak I called for both anglers to take in half a color of line to prevent the tubes from hanging up on the bottom. They didn't get a chance to recover more than a few feet of line when the sudden movement of their tubes caused both rod tips to buck in unison. "Keep the rods tips up and pointed toward the side and keep your hands off the drags" I warned before the excitement of the double-hookup turned into a fiasco. There is a god and I felt the warmth of his benevolent smile warm us through the veil of the cold damp overcast. It was difficult to determine who had the bigger fish but it didn't matter because from the arch in the rods and the difficulty my clients had in recovering line I knew both fish were keepers. The starboard fish came to boat first and looked to be in the 20-pound class. You should have seen the look I got when I asked the angler if he wanted to keep this one or wait to see if we could come up with something larger. "Are you kidding, of course I want to keep it? This is the biggest bass I've ever hooked." The bass was gaffed and deposited on the foredeck clearing the cockpit for the second angler. Despite my assurances that we would have the opportunity to catch a larger fish he also elected to keep his fish and the 20 pound striper was dispatched with a quick jab of the long handled Pompanette. We drifted several hundred yards off the knob while the fish were marked and my clients posed for photographs. I can't begin to describe the relief of finally putting the first bass of the day in the cooler. The pressure was off and I could finally relax a bit. There is a one fish a day bag limit in Massachusetts waters so I cautioned my deckmates that any and all stripers to come alongside hereafter had to be released. "How about your fish, aren't you entitled to a fish" they inquired? I told them I was allowed a fish but I planned to take it later that evening tossing live eels along a nearby section of coastline with a friend so we could take a few more slides for my surf fishing show. We motored back to the ledge and baited up with two huge seaworms. Successive passes produced another bass of similar proportions which was released and a blue which was destined for the smoker. On the fourth pass we had another double hook-up. The angler on the port side unnecessarily set the hook and eventually lost the fish but the other man was really struggling with his fish, unable to regain the last color of leadline, which we could see at the waters edge. Turning the boat to angle away from the ledge he was finally able to recover all the backing. As the fish tired and its runs became less frequent the leadline was retrieved more efficiently. "Oh my god!!!, was his response as he saw the fish roll when it reluctantly gave up the bottom and began to came up from the depths. This bass was all of 45 inches and in the mid-30 pound range so I knew I was in for an argument. Leader in hand I called for the tagging envelope on the dash but the angler balked and said he wanted to keep the fish. The long and short of it was he sulked and didn't speak to me for the next hour after his fish swam away with a bright red Atlantic Bass Inoceanates tag in it's dorsal. Two smaller bass and another bluefish were sent on their way, little the worse for wear and perhaps a bit more cautious about the tempting worm affixed to the tip of those sharp Tru-Turn hooks. When the trip was over I began cutting fish on the way into the harbor when my sullen client walked over, put his arm around me and stuck a folded bill in my shirt. "I'm sorry about the way I acted, I guess we should have taken your advice". I assured him I've experienced those same misgivings on many occasions but it's part of the challenge and mystique of fishing. There have been trips when I've released the first keeper of the day never seen another legal fish for the rest of the outing. We had photographic proof of the larger fish we released and they had a story for their family and friends when they got back home. It's my guess the size of those fish will get bigger with every description of those releases. Don't be in such a hurry to bag the first legal fish of the day, there just might be a bigger one waiting for you on the next pass. Remember bad luck and pain are relative terms. If a relative is in pain you can't feel a damn thing. If the worst thing that happens to you is having to release a larger fish than the one you already have in the fish box that's the kind of bad luck we can all learn to live with.