Just Angling For New Year's Eve 1998
by Donald Millus
Realistic New Year's Wishes For A Change
For those who fish but once a year, may the flounder be hungry, the tides gentle, and the weather sunny and mild if you venture forth in early spring. If your maiden and sole trip of the year is for king mackerel in May or June, may some twenty pounders be within a few miles of the beach or even right on it and big, slow, dark schools of menhaden easy targets for your host's net. May you limit out, but not too quickly, and enjoy succulent king mackerel steaks grilled to perfection on a late spring evening.
If friends talk you into an offshore headboat or charter trip as your only venture beyond the breakers, may the seas be one to two feet all day, with only the gentlest of breezes to ruffle the surface and give you a good drift for grouper or red snapper on bottom.
On that long trip of the year to the Georgetown Hole and a hundred fathoms of water, may your stomach be at peace in gentle seas. May the yellowfin tuna with a few wahoo thrown in hit those trolled ballyhoo hungrily and allow you to really prove that all those pushups and sit-ups have left you in good shape for 1999.
If some old friends who know the rivers ask you out for a morning, may the Waccamaw, Little Pee Dee, and Black rivers be down and clean, the hardheads, warmouth, and bream abundant, pulling down those day-glo floats and making your line whistle thought the water every time you offer them a cricket or fat worm. May gentle breezes, not cold winds, keep the bugs at bay. May the water skiers who go by slow their boats and not wash you with their waves, or if they do, may they find another stretch of water for their acrobatics.
If your only trip of the year is for largemouth bass, may your guide find a little cove alive with lunkers eager to teach a popping plug or spinner bait not to disturb the surface of their realm. May you or your son or daughter finally catch a trophy fish, despite the odds against the once-a-year angler.
If your only trip of the year is to the jetties for big redfish--make sure you call them "spottail bass"--may they be schooled in the mouth and eager to give your arms and wrists a real workout. May all your fish be hooked in the mouth, and only one or two small enough to keep for blackened redfish. And may the personal watercraft stay the hell away from where you are peacefully anchored.
May the Spanish mackerel be hungry the day you troll for them along the beach, making your light tackle bend and reels sing.
May your guide or host on your only trip of the year insist that you sip a tall cold drink, preferably sudsy, while he cleans your fish and ices them down for your trip home. For sheer serendipity, while we are wishing, may he grill them to perfection for you in a backyard boycotted by mosquitoes and nasty flies.
If your only trip is in the fall, may you find the winter trout, those magnificent silver and pink and almost blue with big spots "spotted sea trout" slamming even your MirrOlure or Reel Shrimp grub.
May the tackle your host provides be better than you deserve. In fact, may the New Year be far better than we all deserve, as it usually is, and may we do a pretty good job of keeping our New Year's resolutions, especially those about being nice to our family and neighbors.
That's not too much to wish, is it?