It’s Fishing Time on Friday night
At 5:30, I packed up what little I needed to begin my weekend and headed out to Wonder Bar for a beer. Caught up with some friends for a bit about what happened during the week and then paid my tab and headed home to pick up my fishing gear. Now the real relaxing begins. I get home by 7 pm change out of my work clothes and proceed to load up the pick-up truck, (1) cooler, (1) pier landing net, (2) fishing poles, (1) sweat shirt, (1) soft sided tackle box. And then I forget the coffee thermos and minnow bucket with the bubbler, but I don’t realize this till I am well on my way, too late to turn back. Oh, well I’ll just stop at 7-11 for coffee, a 24 oz. should help me get through the night.
I arrive at Ron’s house early, but he’s not ready cause he didn’t expect me for another 30 minutes. So he run’s around getting ready and I help myself to a slice of pizza and a glass of sweet tea from the fridge. Ron makes the best sweet tea, he adds the sugar while the tea is hot and he adds enough to make it oooh so sweet. I drink a glass almost every time I go to Kelly’s parents house. Ron put’s all his stuff into the truck and with the truck loaded up we are now headed for the bridge tunnel. As we are headed up North Hampton blvd. towards the Chesapeake Bridge Tunnel the sun is setting and we’re going to get there just in time to get a good spot on the pier and watch the sun set over the water. This is one of the things I think I like about fishing. You often end up with a great view of the sunset over the water.
When we arrive at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel Fishing Pier parking lot we see that it is crowded, extremely crowded. There are fisher-men and women up and down the pier all the way to the end. This is not good. We get our stuff out of the truck and load it up into Ron’s pier fishing cart and head towards the pier to claim our spot on what is already a Pier beyond max capacity. There’s a nice spot near a light so we claim it. In the short time that I have been fishing on the piers I have come to the personal belief that you should fish the lights at night. Any spot on the pier where there is a light shining down on the water is much more likely to produce, because that is where the bait fish flock to. And so finding a spot where there was a light was pleasantly surprising.
We set up our gear and began throwing out our lines. We had both brought out two poles. One to cast out and leave sitting and the other to fiddle around with. For me fiddling means switching your rigs, casting it out, reeling it in, all sorts of activity might be covered by the term fiddling. The other pole you cast out and leave, it is usually set up with a bottom rig and some live or cut bait that you sort of throw it out there. Hoping that some fish will stop by take yor bait and hook himself. I have never caugh a fish on the pole I just cast out and leave, all the fish that I have caught have been on the pole that I am working. I think you have to be able to feel the fish biting and be involved in the whole process to catch a fish.
Well there we were fishing the night away sitting on the pier relaxing and watching “the circus.” That’s what Ron took to calling the people on the pier that night. And there were some characters on the pier that night. To our right for a good portion of the night there was an older guy (50’s) and what I took to be his parents. They were sort of half hearted fishing off the pier that night. Normally they said they go out on their boat but every now and again they take an off night and come out to the pier, cause it is $50 in gas each time they take the boat out. To our left was a family Mom, Dad, little kids. Oh, I love to see the little kids out there fishing, running around with fishing poles, swinging from the lamp poles late on Friday night. Later in the evening those people left and we’re replaced by a younger guy and an older asian women. I assumed they were together not sure in what way based on their behavior. But it was also obvious from their behavior that she was here to fish and he was here to be with her. She had three poles out there and kept working each one. Constantly checking and moving the rigs. On the other side of us now is a young guy and a young girl who showed up with this older lady. The older lady was definitely drunk, all night she kept telling us the same story; “she’s only ever fished here once before and the only thing she caught that night was a fishing pole.” “She normally fishes at Harrison fishing pier, which was washed away by the big hurricane last year.” Now imagine that same story every fifteen to 30 minutes. Eventually it became comical cause she would tell you the story like you had never heard it before, but you could interject and mess with her a bit. Which of course I did, her friends didn’t seem to care and were doing a bit of it themselves.
Well the night ended a little after midnight with the only people on the pier catching any fish were me, a little boy who was maybe 9 or 10 and an older lady that had been there since before we got there. It was a slow night, but I was feeling really chilled out by the end of it.
I arrive at Ron’s house early, but he’s not ready cause he didn’t expect me for another 30 minutes. So he run’s around getting ready and I help myself to a slice of pizza and a glass of sweet tea from the fridge. Ron makes the best sweet tea, he adds the sugar while the tea is hot and he adds enough to make it oooh so sweet. I drink a glass almost every time I go to Kelly’s parents house. Ron put’s all his stuff into the truck and with the truck loaded up we are now headed for the bridge tunnel. As we are headed up North Hampton blvd. towards the Chesapeake Bridge Tunnel the sun is setting and we’re going to get there just in time to get a good spot on the pier and watch the sun set over the water. This is one of the things I think I like about fishing. You often end up with a great view of the sunset over the water.
When we arrive at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel Fishing Pier parking lot we see that it is crowded, extremely crowded. There are fisher-men and women up and down the pier all the way to the end. This is not good. We get our stuff out of the truck and load it up into Ron’s pier fishing cart and head towards the pier to claim our spot on what is already a Pier beyond max capacity. There’s a nice spot near a light so we claim it. In the short time that I have been fishing on the piers I have come to the personal belief that you should fish the lights at night. Any spot on the pier where there is a light shining down on the water is much more likely to produce, because that is where the bait fish flock to. And so finding a spot where there was a light was pleasantly surprising.
We set up our gear and began throwing out our lines. We had both brought out two poles. One to cast out and leave sitting and the other to fiddle around with. For me fiddling means switching your rigs, casting it out, reeling it in, all sorts of activity might be covered by the term fiddling. The other pole you cast out and leave, it is usually set up with a bottom rig and some live or cut bait that you sort of throw it out there. Hoping that some fish will stop by take yor bait and hook himself. I have never caugh a fish on the pole I just cast out and leave, all the fish that I have caught have been on the pole that I am working. I think you have to be able to feel the fish biting and be involved in the whole process to catch a fish.
Well there we were fishing the night away sitting on the pier relaxing and watching “the circus.” That’s what Ron took to calling the people on the pier that night. And there were some characters on the pier that night. To our right for a good portion of the night there was an older guy (50’s) and what I took to be his parents. They were sort of half hearted fishing off the pier that night. Normally they said they go out on their boat but every now and again they take an off night and come out to the pier, cause it is $50 in gas each time they take the boat out. To our left was a family Mom, Dad, little kids. Oh, I love to see the little kids out there fishing, running around with fishing poles, swinging from the lamp poles late on Friday night. Later in the evening those people left and we’re replaced by a younger guy and an older asian women. I assumed they were together not sure in what way based on their behavior. But it was also obvious from their behavior that she was here to fish and he was here to be with her. She had three poles out there and kept working each one. Constantly checking and moving the rigs. On the other side of us now is a young guy and a young girl who showed up with this older lady. The older lady was definitely drunk, all night she kept telling us the same story; “she’s only ever fished here once before and the only thing she caught that night was a fishing pole.” “She normally fishes at Harrison fishing pier, which was washed away by the big hurricane last year.” Now imagine that same story every fifteen to 30 minutes. Eventually it became comical cause she would tell you the story like you had never heard it before, but you could interject and mess with her a bit. Which of course I did, her friends didn’t seem to care and were doing a bit of it themselves.
Well the night ended a little after midnight with the only people on the pier catching any fish were me, a little boy who was maybe 9 or 10 and an older lady that had been there since before we got there. It was a slow night, but I was feeling really chilled out by the end of it.
posted by The Information Officer at 7:38 AM
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