Just Angling for July 1, 2004

By Donald Millus

Three Generations Catch Trout and Flounder

Back in the mid-1970’s my oldest son, Chris, and I had great schedules. He went to kindergarten in the morning and I edited sports for the New Haven Journal-Courier at night. If the weather was right, we would have lunch together in a skiff on Long Island Sound.

One day as the boat rocked gently at anchor and we were enjoying out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Chris saw something that I didn’t. “Look, Dad, there’s a fish on that rod.” The line was baited with a whole bloodworm. The rod was bending almost in half.

Last week Chris told me he was about to grab that rod, but I beat him to it. This fish would be too big to trust to a five-year old. It was, in fact, a five-pound tautog, an Indian name, or blackfish, its New England name. Small mouth, ugly lips,strong teeth, thick skin, and wonderfully good eating. I occasionally traded tautog for lobster with the local lobster boats. We were on such a tight budget that sometimes all we had in the refrigerator was baby food and lobster.

Over the years, Chris always looked forward to taking his first son fishing. Cameron, age 3.6, was ready this year. Chris and wife, Missy, were staying at Garden City, on Murrells Inlet, with a dock on the creek. I filled two bait buckets with live finger mullet and shrimp before picking up my crew at nine in the morning last Wednesday. (He explained to his grandmother, “Moo,” that he made this face when something was not pleasing to him. By the way, I am known as “Mar,” a nickname given me by Chris and used by his stuffed animals when they were discussing his father’s idiosyncrasies.)

We anchored in the creek, out of the wind. I put a finger mullet on a flounder hook on a spinning outfit with only a big split shot for weight and stuck the rod in a holder. Cameron’s line had gone in first but he was busy dipping mullet, shrimp, and croaker from our live-bait buckets.

Thirty years after Long Island Sound, I spotted the rod bending, but Chris beat me to it. I thought he would give it to his son, but he, too, thought it was too big a fish to take a chance on. I assumed it was a big spottail or a bluefish the way it was running. At one point two lines crossed and I cut the hook off the second line. Chris was standing and he was the first to see the fish: “It’s a trout!”

Everything went well. He slid the fish toward the net, I slid the net under our first fish of the day, a 22-inch spotted sea trout. High And low fives were exchanged all around. Of course, now we’ve spoiled the kid, as I did with my son. He’ll expect 4-pound trout every trip now.

The fish kept biting. Cameron boated his first flounder, a fatty that didn’t quite qualify for the table. He was happy releasing it to grow. Another flounder, this one a keeper, and a big croaker that made that familiar croaker pooting sound, much to Cameron’s delight, topped off our morning’s catch.

Time for lunch and a nap and a swim in the ocean. Later that week we would trap blue claw and stone crabs—yummy!—from the dock. Nothing like a nice nap in the shade on a deck overlooking the Inlet. If I can find a place with its own launching ramp, I may buy a place at the beach.

(Note: A recent front-page story in the Myrtle Beach press announced a one-week study to determine if changes in the beach bottom contributed to the deadly rip tides that drowned two people. Hint: consider the thousands of tons of sand dumped on our beaches at taxpayers’ expense for Ohio tourists to sit upon. How much of this sand has covered great fishing cover, rocks and holes in the surf that would normally break up currents? Try greasing your kitchen floor and see how it speeds up visitors!)