Contrails Across a Cloudless Sky

Location: facing eastward, Monmouth Beach, NJ (40.34°N, 73.99°W)

Air Temp/Speed: 38°F, 6mph W

Water Temp: 46.9°F

Surf Condition: 0ft. in height, 2^nd hr. of ebbing tide

Moon Phase: 85% waxing (visible) risen for 1hr.

Equipment: St. Croix Avid Surf ASRS100M2; Shimano Stradic 8000FI

(WHAMM!!)  Yessss, you’ve got to be kidding me!... I haven’t felt a strike like this in a looong time!  Ohhh, this is grrreat!  This has to be a Bass, the fish isn’t shaking its head madly like a Bluefish would be..    Just keep the line tight, you can’t lose this one!  Steady, steady…. maintain pressure, take in every inch of line you can… that-a-boy, pump, reel… pump, reel… Just concentrate, you’re doing great, she’s right here now, in a few feet of water swirling at the surface.. (mouth agape) WHOAA! loook at the SIZE of her!  (mouth remains agape, eyes now fixed wide-open at a 36” beached specimen)

Without hesitation, I systematically meld the cork-wrapped section of the ten-foot graphite rod to the underside of my right forearm for a desired sense of “oneness” with this finely-crafted tool, this essential accomplice of mine, a veritable slingshot, and by its own nature, an agile authenticator to Newton’s third law of motion (for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction), demonstrated as such with every loaded cast it rockets from the shore, like an arrow fired from a drawn bow.  Right now, I am poised in a very special place as a surfcaster, bound in a memorable moment that I initiated, that this fish instinctively reacted to as a result, and together we are forming the related experience thereof.  I feel as though I’m held paralyzed by the time-warping peculiarities within the epicenter of a spiraling vortex delivering finned-fortune and pulsating-prosperity to my clamping palms.  It is now my duty to make battle, to reel her in and free her of the embedded lure she mistook as prey, earning for myself an incalculable satisfaction all the while. 

When clenching this slim companion in my hands, it’s as if my right-arm has tripled in length, offering me a vicarious expansion to my tactile faculty, enabling me to sense and envision each of the fish’s thrusting, side-to-side dashes in movement, her rigorously yanking head-shakes, and in my mind, allow me to “see” the fish without ever laying eyes upon her, accurately imagining the zigzag, lateral courses of her tugging, impaired movements underwater as she hovers in a listing position along the striated, sandy bottom, perceiving these sensations of her writhing struggle as they’re delivered directly to my body under the straining, carbon-composite equalizer I hold, that which acts as an enlivened, hyper-sensitive extension to my piqued nervous system.

This is how I’ve always chosen to fight my fish.  I realize it’s not the most efficient method, as arm and shoulder muscles unnecessarily strain harder and fatigue quicker than employing stress-free leverage, as when gripping the rod higher up its spine, but it’s an adaptation I prefer for attaining a richer experience of connection to a hooked fish that I immediately follow and conform to, finding it as natural as riding a bicycle again for the first time after years of abandonment have concealed from sight the underlying glossy luster of its frame with a caked accumulation of dust and the oncoming rush of air glancing off  my face being the testament to rediscovered freedoms found as I pedal forward on two wheels with the rejuvenation of a bird released from its cage.  This time however, I’m compelled to react otherwise.  A steep hill lies ahead.  The rod is being pulled away forcefully from my attached, white-knuckle grasp and backward-leaning body balanced upon anchored feet.  She is commanding respect from me, peeling out line to no end like that of a one-thousand-pound Black Marlin on twenty-pound-test monofilament. 

On this chilly evening, I have been granted front-row, V.I.P. standing-room to the sweet-sound of symphonious, stripping line quickly disappearing from my reel’s rapidly revolving spool.  Its engraved inscriptions, blurring beyond any legible discernment, appear as linear, parallel striations, as its unrelenting rotation vies to challenge the physical limits of the finely-tuned drag system’s compressed washers.  The friction these tiny discs produce is all I have in hopes of turning her head shore-bound before the deeply-buried backing to my braided line becomes visible.  This fish, somewhere out of sight below the bluish-gray waterline, is demonstrating her unremitting might to me with respondent, surging downward shakes of my rod.  I clearly feel that this heavy-weight contestant is anatomically endowed with broad shoulders and a wide, fanning tail pumping and broadsiding powerfully through her life-sustaining environ, the very surrounding water she swims within, now exhibiting to me an entirely unnatural, extreme behavior of sorts, in that a survival instinct to escape, to regain her sense of free-will, has manifested from an unbridled ambition to unhook herself, urging to break-free from this imposturous plastic-ploy lodged into her mandible.  The resulting engagement in a tug-of-war with me, a veritable plea for her unrestrained freedom, her deeply-ingrained desire to continue living, yields this undertaking I know as fishing.  I have met with the likes of fish this size before, so judiciously, I prepare for a more disciplined, calculated approach to induce submission of this linesided-leviathan. 

From my perspective, the straining endurance and yanking ferocity of her runaway struggle is what makes this a fight.  Understandably, her evolutionary conditioning, her biologically-programmed fight-or-flight behavioral response, her very determination to live, initiates immediately with the unstoppable fury like that of a boulder tumbling down a mountain.  She will not stop swimming away from this shore-bound, pulling force until her uninhibited sense of freedom is regained.  In the meantime, as the man dressed in waders, as the fisherman I chose be on this evening, I alone act as the sole benefactor of this primitive entanglement, but unbeknownst to her, she is fortunate enough to be in such a compromising situation with a man who values a continued existence of her life immensely, more so than she is ever capable of cognitively weighing as a cold-blooded, aquatic member of a lower-level life-form than myself.     

She will fatigue eventually. For me to fully-command the reins of this engagement before she exhausts herself, I’m forced instead to utilize full-leverage by selectively seating the rod butt on the inside on my pelvis, tightly grasping the backbone of the rod higher above the singing reel in order to best prevent premature muscle fatigue in my arm.  If this battle must be a marathon of endurance, I will pace myself, knowing from experience that brains trump brawn during any long-distance race against fish tails.  Steady, continual pressure on a fish behaving like a runaway freight train will always result in triumph for the angler, sans any tackle failure or cunning maneuvers by a fish near structure, or worse, sudden maneuvering or rolling in such a manner as to agonizingly free a barbless, or simply poor, hook-set.  The resulting dead line, once an electrified, taut piano wire of hammering exhilaration becomes nothing more than a lifeless, limp tease, a sudden, blind-sided black-eye to the face, and a painfully-sharp, false-mark of victory stabbing at an otherwise invincible, high-flying, adrenaline-fueled episode feeding a starved manhood rumbling from an evolutionary, primal-past as hunter, becomes this vacuous void infecting the cavity of the fisherman’s chest. 

This fish feels to be anything but the size of a schoolie-Striper.  She is everything an ailed angler dreams about during his aching, terrestrially-based waking moments.  It’s the reason we rise hours before dawn, bathing ourselves with the reflected sunlight beaming from the argenteous-white surface of the moon as we fastidiously work a desired section of beach, intent on proving to ourselves that our gut-instinct knows fish are here.  It serves to make us want to try again.  I may have been completely surprised to feel the instantaneous hook-up that I have during this encroaching period of dusk, but I feel as though I’ve done everything as best I could to successfully lead myself to such a rewarding juncture set atop local sand framed by this uncommon instance of a placid, sleeping sea.

The inserted key held in my hand has turned to open a locked door, allowing me to freely step-through to a world rarely visited and in this case, never thought quite possible.  Holding the weighty, dripping-wet, slim-covered paragon of my endeavors and staring her in the eye is always an unparalleled breath of satisfaction, a unique gift, but at all times, I am the wayfaring fisherman casting much, much more than plastic swimming lures.  I am engrossed within a perennial pursuit of the mysterious allure associated with angling, with the red-blooded, invigorating challenges presented by my fundamental inability of never being quite capable of seeing directly the extensive world which exists below the enigmatic waterline marrying to the sandy stage which I set my sinking feet upon, with embarking upon courses of solitude, appointments with peace, where I may pronounce myself “as one” before the soft photonic surge of a new flaming sunrise or conversely, the dimming and dipping disappearance of the circular, orange-colored flood lamp below the western horizon.  I am at odds, constantly poising and repositioning myself along the shoreline, a knight on this chessboard seeking to exclaim “checkmate!” sometime during this match of determination, this guessing game where I never wish for a guarantee, but rather hope for an opportunity to prove myself capable.  This magnificently vast sea, uncontrolled in her daily actions, may be thought of as my world-class touring theatre company where I alone act as my own director responsible for every action I make, restlessly intent on drawing-forth a one-of-a-kind performance from her obscured, aqueous depths.  Tonight, I have been fortunate enough to do just that.  My cast of characters has gracefully performed on an unprecedented level of showmanship, inciting this audience of one to his feet in a roaring ovation.  Bravo!  This very special span of time is all mine.  I own it. 

Be ready to take-up any line she doesn’t strip off the spool, or you’ll lose her, these are barbless hooks, remember! I silently yell to myself.  My instructional words of advice are like those made to an exhausted boxer from his shouting, bulging-eyed trainer in-between late rounds of heated fighting.  As seriously-minded as I must remain in order to land this fish, I cannot help but to also embrace the flooding associations of joy harmonizing my spirit, derived from this yet unseen, temporary connection now bound on the other end of this carbon-fiber fulcrum I hold, pumping-in the prospects of scaled opportunity.  I find myself lost amongst the riveting, giddy-feelings awakening a not-so-distant, child-like euphoria where I’m lost in the moment, literally reeling-in the soul-satisfying pleasures of discovery wrought from an ancient, and to this very tense second, basic activity of leisure. 

I’m only fighting a fish, remember.  As surfcasters, it would be correct to say that each of our spirit’s teem with the unassailable gift of hope we carry packed into the tubes of our surf bags, where we seek to wade the fringes of the Atlantic, casting these plastic and metal-lipped testaments of our ambition deep into turbulent, foaming-white waves, waiting patiently for that shocking tug, our fifteen minutes of fame when we are called to wrangle with fish like this.  If you’re amongst the many who have achieved “veteran status,” having logged countless hours on the beach, season upon season, year after year, fishing steadfast through the most trying of times and unforgiving of challenges presented by weather, you will know that occurrences such as this one do not occur nearly often enough.  You may stare at the wide, nighttime sky for as long as you choose, but doing so will never guarantee you the opportunity of viewing the instantaneous, explosive finale of a meteor entering the earth’s upper atmosphere and tracing towards the horizon in a flash for the very last second of its existence, catching your eye in pale blue and white colors of illumination.  As a wide-eyed human, and on this evening in particular, a fisherman entangled with luck, I’m reminded that the bounties afforded by life are granted to those who are in the right place at the right time.  That’s exactly where I find myself standing right now.  I am more than grateful to be the only devotee standing on the beach with a heavily bend rod.  I say this, because I know to genuinely appreciate it for what it is, especially since at this time, the current state of fisheries is different today than what is was yesterday, which serves to reinforce my belief that whenever I’m fortunate enough to hook a three-foot Striper on a swimming plug in the surf, I’m in a really damn good place. 

Today, the stakes are higher, the incessant, mounting pressures on the living resources which some dastardly take for granted are greater than ever, the fishes environment, their home, is in a deteriorating state of flux, mostly at the physical and political mismanagement of mankind, stemming from his inappeasable, ravenous desires to crawl in the shameful footsteps of greed and at times, never allow an opportunity to pass without exhibiting his boasting egotism for a cheap cellphone picture (financial gains realized at the hand of Striper stock and forage base overharvesting, senseless kills discarded as by-catch, illegal poaching, freezer-filling mentalities, and trophy kill-tournaments), there are seasonally-recurring, multi-state harvests (inconsistent, individual state regulation mandates, bonus tag programs, and resultant overharvesting of large, female breeders season after season), habitat destruction to contend with (pollution of waterways, hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay estuaries and crucial breeding grounds), and ultimately mankind’s inherent desires to reign supreme over the natural environment (futile rounds of seashore beach replenishment projects, consequential underwater “sand-desert” creation, reef burials, and proposed groin notchings coupled with sand-fill interments). 

I’m not nearly as pessimistic as my bellyaching appears to sound, especially in that with the taut and bending, pulling sensations of things tonight, my distinction at this very second, I should have nothing to complain about.  It’s just that when I stop to really think about it, I’m taken aback that this stock of fish is hit from all angles, every day, around the clock.  This fish has evaded untold peril to grow to be this size.  I’ve fancied many times what it must have been like to surf-cast these same beaches in say, 1680, when the entire ecosystem was virtually as pristine as Nature allowed her to be.  It must have been outrageous.  Would the probability, or even the possibility, of catching up to twenty thirty-pound-plus fish every time I made an outing be as rewarding, or is this sport more of a psychological endeavor to the angler, where the hunt reigns supreme as we are lured deeper into its holding, salty entrapment, being sprinkled with just enough reward to fuel a fin-chasing addiction where we patiently wait-out the turning of another tide, impatiently restless for more?

Of course, there always exist rewarding rays of hope, although sometimes pale in comparison, muted in strength or even obscured beyond common recognition, but they’re out there, you just have to find them.  Fundamentally, this is the very reason we willingly choose to fish; the rationale behind every occasion where we find ourselves against all odds with Nature, a pawn in her commanding hand.  I know I’m fortunate enough to feel the shining of this light more so than often, this core characteristic which sets one angler apart from another.  It’s an intangible, self-defining sense of refinement I find myself stepping closer to with each passing season, as I’m always creeping about, seeking to emerge from the darkness, in search of this splendor, waiting for its familiar warmth to strike my bare, projecting cheeks.  And there’s absolutely no confusion whenever it’s found, I might add.  You will feel it, arresting your body, massaging your soul. 

When it’s all said and done, things could always be worse, right?  That’s why tonight, while standing within the wrapping blanket of ensuing darkness, I feel as though I was made fortuitously illuminated by a coruscating bath of personal fulfillment.  This is my time to bask in glory, for it will not last for long and there is no promise of its return.  There never is.  This needle pulled from the proverbial haystack, a defiant victory over the encompassing cold elements and the capricious nature of my quarry, is nothing more than a perceived moment of piscatorial-perfection ordained through good measure and wise judgments made on my behalf.  While lost in this state of stupor, an anesthetized reality, I smiled with a found joy like that of a man lost at sea finally becoming rescued, as his distressing sense of hopelessness is immediately overcome with a powerful-as-life, riveting vitality, a rebirth of spirit never considered imaginable, as the underside of his forearm is firmly clenched by the unifying grasp offered at the hand of his rescuer, a miraculous sensation thought never to enliven his godforsaken soul, as his life-threatening ordeal vanishes in an instant and a new lease on life immediately blossoms into existence.  Such was the happiness pervading this fisherman’s soul.  A striped fish has come to his rescue.

And so I stood as a man refreshed of vigor, straddled upon a sandy altar along the edge of the calm Atlantic, rolling my head backwards while laughing aloud to the silvery, waxing moon risen over the sea’s horizon, my voice drowning-out in the biting vastness of the thirty-eight-degree air before ever reaching an unseen audience, while looking skyward at the beautifully-impermanent arching of my rod’s upper-half contrast against the gradient of a cloudless, azure-blue sky subsiding with each minute into the advancing twilight.  It was in this very frame of reference where I came to notice a high-altitude, twin-engine jet aircraft at cruise, heading in a north-easterly direction, crossing above my bent rod, a pseudo-distraction of sorts reminding me that I am only temporarily escaping reality during these unfolding seconds while connected to the fish I am focusing dearly on to land, admire briefly with staring eyes and esteemed spirit, before returning her to the dark depths of the sea, submerging my hands above both wrists within the frigid water to feed water over her gills, wriggling her body lengthwise from the grip of her wide peduncle to ensure a proper resuscitation.  As I stood below this passing airplane on the cold November beach, glancing at these dissipating trails of vapor whose texture resembled puffy cotton-balls, illuminated by the sun’s dissolving light in a dull, off-white color, they reminded me that, for while I am alone here on this beach tonight, I am never completely alone.  Within my short-lived solitude, where silence was interrupted only by the cold breeze buffeting my exposed ears and the buzzing bursts of drag taken from my reel’s spool, where I was accompanied by only my thoughts and the darkened vista of an expansive ocean lapping ever so gently towards my feet, I knew I would be reclaimed by modernity the second I turned my back to the sea and my eyes fell upon the world which waited patiently over my shoulders.

To imagine, that this pressurized tube of aluminum and carbon-fiber composite engineering, an altogether taken-for-granted, marvel of modern civilization flying fellow members of mankind from somewhere on this planet to somewhere else could have been regarded an impetus bearing me to conceive these thoughts.  Chances are, I likely wouldn’t have even paid any mind to it being overhead, even if I concentrated haphazardly on spotting its movement, let alone while doing my best to maintain connectivity to a weighty, thrashing fish, but its large, billowing stream of condensation trails were anything but unnoticeable.  These contrails, otherwise known as vapor trails, or even specifically, Aviaticus clouds, are simply the result of water vapor being emitted as plumes from the engines exhaust flow, byproduct emissions from hydrocarbon fuel combustion which resultantly crystallize upon coming into contact with the ambient atmosphere when the air temperature is at least negative-forty-degrees-Fahrenheit, as the droplets raise the saturation point of the surrounding air, cool immediately, and then condense to form the streaks we see.  Very simply put, they are man-made clouds. 

I even think to myself, that this rod I am holding, the tool which initiated this entire plight, is constructed of the very same atomic elements of carbon and hydrogen which are also the primary molecules of the kerosene fuel combusting and vaporizing to propel those passengers along their journey through the sky.  They’re only arranged in different chemical chains, one of which allows me, a man organically composed of these same elements, to hold this staff of cylindrically-rolled carbon-fiber and applied epoxy resin now unified as a fishing rod, also composed of these same elements, and grants me the autonomy to connect with a living organism organically comprised of the very same various elements arranged in the form of a large, swirling fish.  We are each creations formed from these infinitesimal building-blocks of Nature.  We are all one and the same, but altogether different.  

It would be safe to assume that there were easily two-hundred passengers on-board that jet, travelling at over five-hundred miles-per-hour, all occupying seats in the sky, with each valuing a unique existence defining who they are, individuals all living a life entirely different from those seated a row ahead or behind, each guided by different principles and purposes, and each with a presumed reason for necessitating the inestimable benefit of travel offered only by modern aviation.  Where are they all going to?  Here I am, stationary at the foamy fringe of an ocean, more than thirty-thousand-feet below them, fortunate enough by my own estimation to be fighting a species of fish I spend all too much of my waking time preoccupied over.  If for a moment they could possibly see me through those Plexiglas windows, I cannot help but to wonder if any onboard would question my actions, upon viewing a man happier than most poising himself within the elements of a blustery, mid-thirty-degree November evening, hoping to lure a fish into striking a plastic presentation, a fish which may not be anywhere within hundreds of yards from the furthest reaches of his meager cast?  Why does he willingly choose to place himself out there?  Is there something which he feels he needs to prove to himself?  Or, is there some primitive motivation aching from his inside which he feels he must appease, a type of guiding principle or compelling instinct regulating his behaviors?

My counter would simply entreat said inquiries with the following: Have any of you ever connected so close with Nature, so as to stand alone, face-to-face with her, with only the brisk, restless air you breath-in separating your perceptions of reality from her raw, fundamental truths?  Have any of you ever stood before her, wide-eyed, allowing her arresting influence seize the entire core of your being, while succumbing to that unregulated feeling which beckons to draw you nearer to your native self, as you were meant to experience the delicate tenacity of life in this world?  You may very well have, and with that there is nothing more for me to plead.  You have seen the light.  You have felt its warming splendor.  If however, you have ever felt greater than a single grain of sand settled amongst the countless multitudes lying upon a wide, sandy beach stretching for miles, then you may not understand what it is I am hoping to communicate.  You have not yet searched hard enough.  You have not yet witnessed greatness.  On top of all that, I also happen to be a fisherman balancing a bent rod, immersed in a self-satisfying glory.

This life is ours for the taking, for each of us to explore robustly like pioneering adventurers who find themselves driven by insatiable appetites to continually learn from and understand to the best of their abilities this at times bewildering, but always most rewarding in promise, this endeavor known as life, to experience the endless riches of its limitless bounties, for at all times we are nothing more than essential ingredients to a greater whole, individuals bestowed to cast our altogether unique and indelible mark upon the world.  Rise forth! She is begging for your participation!  Breathe-in deeply this brilliance penetrating the deepest reaches of your chest’s expanding lungs!  The mysteries which lie unknown to us in this life, awaiting our discovery, constitute the very courses distinguishing how each of us chooses to define ourselves, which combination of colors we will select to paint our paths with like that of a quintessential masterpiece, illustrating each of our intimate revelations made to this world to proclaim just who we are.  And so at the moment I happen to be wielding a fishing rod, but it is here, in Nature’s guiding presence, where I am ever enlightened as her eager protégé, a student intently engaged in listening to every spoken word she whispers in my ears.  I come here to listen, so I am determined to listen well.

During this short, passing minute in time, others miles above are en route to a destination important to them, just as I stand submerged within a watery destination important to me.  And tonight especially, I had the unexpected company of two extraordinary specimens to ease my standing solitude through the dimming daylight of another slipping sunset, where another cold and blustery autumn afternoon spent casting for striped-dreams and a sense of soulful relief along the shoreline transformed into a type of season-closing demarcation of flopping, scaled-perfection.  After scores of outings had on beaches, I have hooked-into, fought, and successfully subdued not one, but two, personal-best Stripers from the New Jersey surf.  Who would have thought it was to occur at the heels of the third straight week of a relentless, west-wind onslaught, where fish were taken from a glass-smooth sea, with no baitfish present, during a lackluster (at best) fall-run of migratory fish, amidst a lunar-illuminated sky only days away from a full-moon.   As a welcomed reward, I was made benefactor of being in the right place, at the right time.  It was as if this date with destiny was orchestrated exclusively for me, for nobody else along the entire beachfront.  How else would you explain to me that the very spot I chose to fling my first cast from this beach, whereupon seconds of retrieving a plastic swimming plug, it was aggressively attacked by a 36” fish.  On my second cast of the evening, after reeling yet from the ecstatic aftermath of the finned-fortune I pulled from the infinite, unvarying Atlantic, my retrieve was stopped suddenly again as another keeper-sized Striper of 34” locked jaws onto my offering.  For me, this was a slime-laden, piscatorial present, ripened fruit snatched from the Fishing Gods cornucopia, imparted to me by means of the feverish, favonian winds, but ultimately, a found sense of freedom afforded by the hunger-pangs of apex predators stealthily cruising the shadowy shallows of a glass-smooth sea at dusk. 

With the falling water temperature, these fish are quickly on the move south, driven by a biologic instinct to migrate.  There is no stopping them.  The distinct changes occurring daily within this playground of the sea are just as apparent as those left in the wake of an aircraft painting streaks of contrails across a cloudless sky.  And much like the impermanence of vanishing vapor trails, one morning I will wake-up to learn the fish I chased all season-long are gone too, and all that which will remain in my wake are the expansive, trailing stream of memories, the byproduct of my high-flying passions for navigating the wide, blue unknown flowing before my feet.  Yet another season of surf fishing will have ended, and the sea’s boundlessly breaking waves rolling ashore the only haunting reminder that finned-life gliding under these waves is someday promised to return.

Billowing contrails, crystallized water vapor, streak the sky in the wake of a commercial aircraft.

This 36” Striper was taken from a glass-smooth surf, hooked in less than six-feet of water.

Tying the Knot

With the onset of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, so begins the elliptical orbit of this 23.5° tilted, terraqueous planet’s rotation back into the Sun’s intensifying bath of light, those rays which will warm her circulating bodies of water, encouraging the innate, irrepressible ambitions of sea-life to propagate and pursue their inherently biological desires to migrate north again along the east-coast.  This planetary perihelion, the observance of our first day of winter, marks the initiation of an unstoppable change which will consummate six-months later in the recognition of a summer solstice.  It may seem ironic, but within the freezing-cold reality of winter, the very nature of this permanent axial tilt promises the future birth of yet another nine-month season where I will poise myself somewhere before the frothy fringe of a wide-open sea in quest of Morone Saxatilis, where I may ceremoniously launch my plastic and rubber-bodied offerings during inseparable nighttime rendezvous’ with the sweeping tides.  This labor of love for a pleasing pastime, this hobby, the timeframe which governs this obsession to serially-stalk finning caudal tail, is motivated by pre-existing forces far beyond mankind’s control, on orders of climactic and physical magnitudes nearly inconceivable to fully-understand, but one thing is clearly certain – that with each season’s first, fresh tying of the knot, I am adamantly declaring myself ready, as an eager devotee waiting impatiently to participate, to proclaim my affiance as an avid angler engaged and waiting before the oceanfront, committed to confront the many unrealized enticements which lure my aspirations to angle the pitch-black fathoms of the giving sea.  

In a fanciful way, I may be likened to a single, square tessera tile held by the dry, rough-worked fingertips of the infinitely talented artisan I’ve come to know over decades of time as Nature, humbled in spirit as an integral ingredient of hers which she will decidedly allow to become plastered apart of her immeasurably grand mosaic portraying what the experienced eyes of life see as a rousing masterpiece of creation, the physical existence that surrounds us and that which we perceive in our mind, feel the touch of to our skin, and breathe the essence of into our lungs, ready to proclaim my unique color to the awaiting world, serving as one distinct part of a greater whole, and by default, declaring myself an individual constituent married to this experience’s far-reaching, vaulted ceiling of Moroccan-inspired architectural design as an idealistic fisherman who is longing to begin scribbling madly, filling the pages of his yet unwritten, unlived year of fin-chasing, those chronic confessions set aside as stacked piles of salty-inspired memories detailing his triumphs pulled from deep within rolling waves, grateful reflections and celebrations recounting the many tales of tails aplenty. Oh, the possibilities which await the surfcaster who has ached all-winter-long for familiar encounters with finned inhabitants of the flooding tide! 

And so as this recurrent pilgrimage of seaside wanderings inspired by the seduction of swimming, laterally-striped ambitions ensues, I am faithfully professing myself wed to yet another year of treading for untold miles at untold hours the sandy beaches of New Jersey, from this day forward, for better or for worse, until December do us part.  I am devoutly determined to claim no other beaches as my own, for I am happier beyond compare to know her sloped, sandy shores will flood my ambitious affections with a palpitating concordance, her frothy touch being the binding union to wash me over with soothing waves of serenity as I sink into and submit softly within her naturally-calming seductions.  I offer my solemn vow to be her faithful partner throughout the year, to honor and respect her splendor, to carefully cherish her natural beauty with each breath I make for as long as we both shall endure, united as one, in times of failure and in times of triumph, as I eagerly anticipate the many opportunities to bond and grow closer together in the hands of her foamy, brushing touch. 

I can do nothing greater than remain trustful of the many unknown and unpredictable piscatorial possibilities which will emerge from rising tides of the future.  With the formation of this tiny, but essential knot I tie today, I have in essence pronounced myself an angler, a sportsman, committed to wade knee-deep the sandy-framed shoreline of the Atlantic, eager to commence day-one of this saltwater-nourished, peripatetic journey amid the great outdoors, this inauguration of sorts now coiled as a tightly-drawn knot beckoning the mysteries manifold which will characterize a soon-to-unfold rod-wielding season and ultimately, the acquired inspirations impregnated from an adoration of aquatic pursuits afforded and garnered by the formidable, fertile sea.  I begin a man made afresh, shrugging-off the sobering sequestration of frozen, windswept winter months from my shoulders, enlivened by the warming renewal that is spring, restored in spirit and bound in unity once more as witness of her regenerative restorations blossoming on land as budding and sprouting pale-green vegetation and over oceanfront waters as her cold, salty life-blood, the very home of my elusive quarry, proceeds to warm in temperature, degree by degree, week after week, oftentimes suffocating the near-shore waterways with dense, hovering masses of fog during this metamorphic awakening in the month of May.  She may be subdued in vigor, but at all times she is very much alive.  The sun’s stirring rays and lengthier days spent crossing the sky awaken her from a frigid winter hibernation, enlivening her body from lethargy, as she then yawns a cool breath to the warming atmosphere, her exhalation condensing as the blanket of blinding fog we become obscured from sight within amongst this dampened air hanging atop the shore, as we find ourselves casting in solitude from the sandy altars we claim as our havens away from home.

As an angler anxious to participate, dying to steep my soul within her liveliness, to fully-immerse myself in her arena, I know I can only patiently wait, to remain at the ready, as all fishermen must do, and be prepared to intercept the initial influx of invading fish, those large female breeders which swim northward for hundreds of miles along the east-coast from their over-wintering grounds off the shores of North Carolina, destined for the brackish upper-reaches of the Hudson River to spawn.  Undoubtedly, there is an irrepressible transformation in the making, that of Nature maturing before our eyes from her winter slumber in a manner too gradual to witness any sudden, daily changes of, which may be likened to that of noticing the smallest ambassador of aging, a blemish or wrinkle perhaps, appear on the face of a life-long friend now advancing in years.  You know that you may not be attentive enough to recognize the formation of this rather insignificant facial feature from a day-to-day perspective, but when separated by the insensate distance of time, even the most subtle changes in appearance are easily evident upon your next scrutinizing glance.  And so with Nature too, these pressing, everyday changes, the frame-by-frame snapshots we keep in our minds, become the instinctive focus of our endeavors, and if one is vigilant and persistent enough, these visual and sensory cues which we clutter our mind with, splicing together all-season-long, saving, amassing, and editing for when the full-reel is finally released from the memory of our cutting-room floor and allowed to replay at length in our mind, this independent film we entitle Life As I’ve Lived, those singular moments in time discovered, preserved, and cherished to represent one’s own personal prosperity, only then is the significance of one’s persistence on the sand revealed in its entirety, climaxing in a glorious repose of thought and understanding, its meaning wrought with particular purpose in the impassioned eyes of the beholder, fortifying the foundation supporting the pillar of standards by which we live to define ourselves, the paths in life we follow to tread with our footsteps, the actions we adhere to guided by the words we live by, depicted in the closing credits honoring the names of littoral places we have admired and held dear all-year-long.  You will feel as though you have not breathed air to live, but lived to breathe air.  You may only be a surfcaster, but you are a surfcaster dedicated to experiencing the bounty of riches Nature serves for you to feast upon like that of a ravenous gourmand.  This may come to be what the perfectly-timed tide offers to aspire as she floods over my patiently awaiting feet.

It is my hope, perhaps early in December, before the first snowfall whitens my local beach’s tan-colored sands and crowns her neighboring granite jetty-tops above the spraying reaches of restless waves, shortly after the arctic-onset of yet another season-closing winter solstice, when I will come to stare-down my reflected soul in an awaiting mirror, observing the many truths discovered over the full-spectrum of a timeframe where my stamping, wandering footsteps were left impressed into soft and wet, dark sand as temporal proclamations attesting to the very nature of living three-quarters of the year on the hunt, but not entirely for yearned fish, for there also persisted incessant hunger-pangs seeking nourishment for the testosterone-fueled inner-self longing to be fed the myriad raw and all-embracing elements of Nature, for this wayfaring surfcaster to step closer to discovering a purposeful reason for allowing myself to become possessed with the crazed idolizations compelling the dusk-to-dawn pursuits of a striped fish, rationalizing a sound reason for allowing the bitter taste of the Atlantic’s salty water to drip from the lips of my wave-soaked face, having stood as a wide-eyed challenger to the churning surf, studying oncoming sets of waves, cautiously back-pedaling in a shifting, sinking sand in order to dodge another merciless drenching. 

To step forward boldly as an admiring angler, placing oneself face-to-face before the physical, yet oftentimes assaulting, elements of Nature, it is inevitable that such a man will find his experience heightened between the alternating and stirring emotions of unyielding frustration placated by calming joy, slumps of boredom interrupted by sudden, riveting bouts of excitement, occasions of upsetting loss forgotten in the wake of eye-opening discovery, as well as the most rewarding sensation to wash ashore from the breaking waves of the surf, that which is pure, heart-racing exhilaration, all of which provoke an idle mind when it is finally released from the civilized constraints of reality, finally being permitted to drift in an ebb and flood of thought, are these dreamy passions one perceives as real as the rush of water violently pushing and pulling at their readjusting legs and feet, which when altogether coalesce, yield the inescapable sensations, those distinctions of having stood resolutely as a saltwater angler, one who recognizes those guiding, primal reactions which will pinch one in the cheek to navigate the mind through a blackened night of isolation or serve to prevent the daring from the fate of being swept from a jetty whose rocks are pounded by loudly punishing and roiling waves.  From the perspective of a man who willingly introduces himself atop this oceanfront stage in settings which provoke such striking, yet altogether memorable emotional responses, it becomes clear that he is simply engaging himself within a self-prescribed test of sorts as challenger to the offences of Nature, and ultimately, is casting his heart out to the sea in an exchange for one solid-tugging response, all in the hope to liberate his undying spirit and satiate any rumbling hunger as he will grow saturated to the bone with a renewed zest which only she may resuscitate, much like a master chef who has grilled marinated, mouth-watering fillets to succulent, tender perfection, indulging all who invite themselves to dine at her charitable table of plenty.  

I know that this is exactly where I will find myself again, one-on-one, hungered, challenged, and at times confounded with the enigma of my elusive quarry and her ever-changing habitat.  This anticipation of mine, as tangible and just as life-sustaining as the rich, oxygenated blood coursing through my arteries, permits me to cast as an angler of the surf who is wrought with longing desires to explore and witness first-hand the many bountiful exhibits of both life and the inanimate, all in their respective variety of limitless representations, scales of size, and offerings of form awaiting discovery within the saltwater environ flourishing in a flood before my eyes.  I tell myself that I’ll work harder in succeeding at my chosen craft, learning how to become better, all so that I may allow peace, the greatest catch of all, to rise up and permeate through my submerged legs during each session the boots of my waders step to impress the wet, slick-looking sand smoothened at the daring edge of this sea of endless relief, reeling-in soulful enjoyment caught amidst the diversity of pleasures offered by the sport itself.  I will vow to push forward for more, to endeavor, and ultimately, triumph as a man humbled by his surroundings, fully-aware that if a fish happens to flop upon the bubbling sand of the surf, then all the better for me. 

As I see it, this act of harmonization cast between a mindful man and the natural world, fisherman to the ocean, will subsist to meld seamlessly as the year peels itself to the frozen core of December.  These prevailing testaments are the collective elements which, though my continued participation, will come to be unveiled as my unbridled ideology, my interwoven constitution set before Nature’s handiwork that, from my own perspective, only I can appreciate as the cool, cherished breaths of air I long to inhale at five o’clock in the morning, as I am the afflicted surfcaster in need of a saltwater remedy to purge my bloodstream of a terrestrial lifestyle lived within the excess of civilized comforts for months on end now, as I choose instead to embark forward, creeping about within the cool darkness under a star-studded nighttime canopy of pierced, flickering specks and acquainted constellations, those withstanding before false-dawn paints a fresh morning sky, embracing that which is my inner-wolf howling skyward under the accompanying light of a full-moon dropping steadily in the west, stoking the atavistic element suppressed within my being, as it claws to unleash itself from the accrued restraint of winter’s numbing desertions.

So here I begin anew, before the hopeful promises of yet another dawn’s captivating hues erupting in gradients of colorful combination overhead, emerging from below the distant horizon of a bluish-grey abyss, beginning each and every season before the water’s edge in the same manner as years prior.  I always have and I always will.  It is the month of April and I am not yet clothed in my fishing gear, wading the shallows of the surf below a setting moon and simultaneously rising sun.  I am completely dry, in the comfort of my home, pulling together between my two sprawling hands the many under and over-wrapping loops of a knot in the making.  I may be likened as a self-ordained pastor offering his blessings for a perfect marriage of faith, pronouncing a tight bond where two synthetic contenders are being drawn to join together in unison, to never falter or slip, whose embodiment represents the unification of  old and new, where the opposing pairing of nylon monofilament coils in a firmly-wrapped, knotted collusion to the polyethylene fibers of Dyneema-based braid, forming the essential unity which is the very physical link serving to connect this man to the faraway saltwater depths of my fevered passions.  This matrimony, secured to and buried deeply onto my reel’s spool, serves as the binding connection to a metaphysical extension of my perceived vision scanning under the water’s opaque, shimmering skin which I will rely on as much as the solid ground under my  feet, this hair-thin fiber sent cast afar and retrieved back attached to a diving, plastic presentation representing nothing more than an airbrushed, submersible embodiment of hope adorned with hooks, swam unseen in return to me under the swaying motion of  spirited, enigmatic waves, wobbling and rolling from side-to-side in an erratic manner in order to provoke a predatory attack, and if not, at least produce a faithful, v-shaped wiggling-wake emanating atop the water’s surface and stopping suddenly with the sound of a sharp, metallic clink at my rod’s ceramic-tipped eyelet.  Reeled-in rests a tiny barrel swivel encouraging me to recognize that nothing could be more importantly asked for from a fisherman, than a unified pairing of filaments proving to outlast as one, remaining true through a fashioned compatibility, faithful in purpose, and habituated to endure the repeated trials of retrieval.    

This union is far more than a cinched knot.  It represents the physical manifestation of my impatiently-sidelined, winter-long desires to begin fishing the cool-water tides of my local waterways, my soul’s thirst to reunite and immerse itself again as a parched-participant seeking hydration atop the surging white-water dousing the slippery lamination of mosses coating jetty-tops, and allow for a getaway where I may wander amongst soft, sloped sands seething in sound to the racing rush of a suffusing surf, to stalk eagerly, patiently, and silently under nighttime’s blackened veil from  the wide riverbanks of my favorite hideaways, are these meticulously laid twists, the winding loops I intently focus upon, drawing carefully around one another so as to leave no weakest point in my woven integration linking dissimilar kinds for a common, greater purpose.  

May Nature in her goodness strengthen my consent and fill me with her blessings. What I have joined together as one, may time and undo forces never divide.  With these words, and the entire faith of my heart, I bind my success to the fellowship of your continued strength.  I accept you as my partner.  I will care for you always, carry you in my travels, and share in experience with you the host of Nature’s adversities of sunlight and salt such that we may overcome any obstacle of engagement to reel-in the fruit of her rewards, from this day forward, and all the days remaining to this year in the surf, for thou are my tightly-coiled accompaniment, my lifeline empowering me on this perennial quest for peace.    

And so it is these truths that I do hold, that I carry warily by the nimble tips of my fingers, my guiding principles which will outlive time everlasting so long as I remain the rod-wielding surf-fisherman united in a harmony with his imbued spirit and the convivial nature of a briny ocean splashing upwards around my waist, fevered by a fanaticism for the vittae-marked fish furtively finning with the finest finesse beneath the scalloped ceiling of waves that is the only boundary to their expansive home, the natural confine of which I tie this knot so I may transcend the waterline to dare these inhabitants within their own world, a world of possibilities I found my daydreaming mind powerless to such sweeping tides of thought all-winter-long, as those piscatorial-promises now appeal to an awaiting reality, embodied in an allegiance of securely-clenched, encircling coils so that together as partners we may join in unison for another propitious season on the sand.  That is just what today’s first, freshly-tied knot symbolizes to me.

 Alright Albright, my faith is now bound to the allegiance of your tightly-wrapped coils so that as partners we may join together in unison for another propitious season on the sand.

In all walks of life we require sure footing to fall upon.  A fisherman standing in the mix of dangerously-slick, moss-covered jetty-tops knows he may find this stability when planted firmly on the spiked carbide-tip soles of his Korkers, but what’s more, he is nothing greater than an isolated, powerless man poised atop wet rocks without the presumed integrity of his firmly-drawn knots and the continual unity, strength, and durability of the retrieved line, which when cast asea, enables his passions to persist as if they were ambitiously alive and perfectly tangible to his touch.   

Wading, Waiting & Wondering

Where were you fishing on the morning of October 27^th, 2012?  I was standing knee-deep before a crashing, white-water stretch of heavenly beach blissfully being reminded how sweet and delicious the bountiful fruit from the Fishing Gods’ cornucopia can taste.  As luck had it, the entire week leading-up to this particularly climactic day was nothing short of fall-fishing at its finest along my local beaches.  Like clockwork, southbound migratory stripers and chopper bluefish corralled terrified pods of peanut bunker, driving them through the breaking waves of the surf and onto the backwash of the sand at the start of each morning.  Before my awestruck eyes and adrenaline-fueled casts, curling sets of waves, normally sea-green and slightly-transparent in color during this time of the season, became blackened as tightly-schooling masses of thousands of these helpless fish were faced with an imminent doom; that of splashing, thrashing, and leaping bodies, slapping tails, crushing jaws, and razor-sharp teeth bearing evidence to seemingly insatiable voraciousness, gorging on a feast of peanuts, distending the bellies of said predators in a frenzied, yet calculating, onslaught.  I was made witness to what is characterized as Nature, red in tooth and claw, or in this case, seawater, awash in the glistening scales of the devoured.

In typical autumn-fashion, the preceding week bestowed anglers with overcast ceilings, the handiwork of a sitting low-pressure system, suppressing and diffusing any direct penetration of sunlight through the atmosphere and the ocean’s water column.  This cyclic weather pattern was to continue, repeating on the morning of Saturday the twenty-seventh.  The air temperature was predicted to peak near sixty-degrees, as a ten-mph east wind was blowing directly at my face, building the surf to no more than four-feet in height, its aerated, white-water waves tumbled as set upon set broke and rolled towards the awaiting shoreline.  We surfcasters like to imagine these “fishy looking days” as “bonus time” on a beach after sun-up, as the ordinarily light-sensitive Stripers will invariably forage for more time in the shallower water of the surf-zone and even more aggressively when conditions such as these allow them to utilize inherent traits and habits as actively-feeding ambush predators, and especially while on the hunt during their fall migration.  If the one-hundred-pound Striped Bass of the ocean were to pen a how-to book for us entitled “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Stripers,” we would quickly learn that overcast skies hovering over a mild chop generated by east winds during the fall are preferred by bass, the unrivaled kings of white-water surf, and that such conditions have the tendency to elicit bolder feeding behavior on their half (all things being equal).  Needless to say, I felt confident that the weather conditions would encourage yet another rainbow of opportunity for local surfcasters to feast their pursuits on, having whet their appetites during the days prior after waiting in anticipation all year for developments such as these, days which finally relieve the hunger-pangs suffered by wader-clad shore-bound hunters thirsting for an elusive and highly-coveted specie of fish, afforded the welcomed company of feasting bass from the recent propitious influx of bait and predators prowling our nearshore waters.  The rolling freight train that was the season’s fall-run was in full-swing, barreling down the tracks of the coastline, bending the rods of fishermen fortunate enough to be waiting along her path as she came rumbling through, showcasing awe in her grandness, inspiring endless chatter and self-exaltation on the internet report forums, and depriving a full-night’s sleep for enraptured, die-hard anglers counties-over vying to capitalize on her ephemeral endowment and capricious presence.

Be that as it may, deciding where to fish, specifically, is the indispensable keystone unifying and supporting each angler’s towering arch of knowledge.  Without this proficiency, one is simply wetting a line, and worse yet, doing so at random, personifying the words of Steven Wright, who reminds us “there's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.”  To outsmart our quarry and remain at the forefront as triumphant anglers, we must become expert stalkers of our finned ambitions.  To do so, and do it well, we must repeatedly intercept the movement of fish via a quasi-prophetic prognostication, which for many, is akin to locating the Holy Grail or knowing winning lottery numbers in advance, but serves to reason as to why there are hooks dangling from our lures; our objective is to land fish!  Those seasoned in this sport we engage have covertly accrued coveted skillsets garnished over many years of practice, payoff, pain, and perseverance.  Rarely, if ever, will the specific location or whereabouts of a “hot spot” be shared with soliciting strangers.  However, a general heads-up from fellow anglers while working a stretch of sand, catching the scoop in a beach parking lot before or after a session in the wash, or somehow gaining the insight of daily feeding patterns and movements of fish, are customary (especially with the advent of online report forums), but there are no pro bono acts of kindness or free meal tickets placing one on breaking fish from surfcasters in-the-know.  Such divulgence of information is synonymous to blasphemy, and it is widely considered cheating to invite oneself to stand-in on productive locations where others have worked diligently to discover the presence of biting fish.  Like most other things held to a high regard in life, one must exert valuable time and effort to reach such achievement on their own.  The only freebie I know of is to be ever vigilant for any cluster of parked pick-up trucks equipped with rod racks, coolers, and hordes of fishing-themed bumper stickers, showcasing brand-specific fondness or names of popular east-coast meccas, veritable vehicular passport book stamps, if you will.  These types of fishermen are nearly always in the know, hot onto fish like bloodhounds.  Consider the conduct of their sometimes surreptitious, side-street congregations to be an illuminated neon-sign which reads “something’s probably going on here.”  As hunters of what is, for the most part, unseen to the observable eye, nothing is more important than learning the habits of our quarry, the gratifying manifestation of which is the fruition of reward and is the single-most determining element as to whether or not the enigmatic jig-saw puzzle of options presented before the surfcaster becomes successfully solved, arranged before the angler in the form of a flopping, beached Striper. 

In any case, the sometimes not-so-simple-to-find fish is all that separates the haves from the have-nots, the smiles of joy from the grimaces of exhaustion and unfound determination, the proud from the defeated, and is the sole determining variable which differentiates the monotonous act of casting from catching.  We have all been on the “wrong” beach throughout our seemingly countless endeavors of fishing the various seasons, and even when on the “right” beach, there is never a guarantee that fish will be landed by your hands.  Perhaps that’s where skill, technique, tackle, and experience play offensive amongst fellow anglers.  I have stood beside fishermen who couldn’t stop catching fish, while I couldn’t lure a single minnow to strike presentations for my life dependent!  Perhaps those in-the-know would have said I wasn’t “matching the hatch” or possibly retrieving too fast or using the wrong colored lure or fishing the wrong side of the tide or….  Thankfully, times have changed and I’ve surmounted more knowledge of the sport than I imagined possible, utilizing rewarding, hands-on experience and more importantly, foresight, to become a better fisherman each year, but there is hardly anything more frustrating and egotistically debasing than when the dreaded, rainy black cloud of bad luck singles you out.  I could have arrived on a beach five-minutes too late, missing a passing school of fish, or a wind-knot cluster the size of a golf ball develops on a pitch-black night atop a wet, moss-laden jetty, sidelining my undertaking or worst of all, an entire rig is lost due to mainline-fouling, wrapping around the rod tip, that resulting cast costing me thirty-something dollars and unnecessary heartache as it snaps off and rockets skyward out to sea, disappearing as fast as my optimistic outlook.  I always look before casting, so why didn’t I look then!, I may scream inside my head.  When it rains, it pours, but in an equalizing manner, even the most highly-respected surfcasters of our time, living-legends such as Alberto Knie or Tony Stetzko, have painfully admitted to inadvertently falling victim to haste or carelessness, walking face-first into a proverbial spider’s web, somehow jumbling their normally meticulous actions under the distraction of jaw-dropping, energetic fish, consequently becoming robbed of self-proclaimed prizes-of-a-lifetime.  Moments such as these divert me onto the perilous path of questioning my nearly two decade-long skillset, are the bruising reminders that the slightest lack of focus begets the best of us at times, but more importantly, forces me to mentally take a step backwards, to learn from a mishap, and realize that at times I am only casting a mere one-hundred feet from the edge of a four-thousand-mile-wide Atlantic Ocean, from a single point somewhere along the immediate twenty-mile sandy stretch of neighboring towns and their beaches I’ve come to know as my comfort-zone, essentially heaving a plastic-prayer with every cast that one of its inhabiting wild animals that I seek becomes tricked at my offering in related time and space.  As scientifically-minded as I may approach and justify my passions for this sport, I’m comforted and perennially humbled in that I am always in pursuit of the unknown, wielding an intangible sword of faith, honing my craft amid each encounter as I stand before the frontier of the sea.

  When fortunate strikes and one is in the right spot at the right time however, it immediately becomes flagrantly apparent to the surfcaster.  Imagine the rather simple, but powerfully stirring, five-letter word “blitz.”  If you’ve logged enough time on the sand, I’m sure the linguistic arrangement of these syllables trigger a series of Pavlovian-like knee-jerk reactions, your mind becoming flooded with fond memories forever replayed at-will, engaging episodes of total recall, those defiantly withstanding the tarnishing hands of time.  As fishermen, these represent many of the exalted occasions we hold dear, the laurels of victory worn proudly, moments in time when the stuff dreams are made of transcended into reality.  Whether fantasized in our minds on a blustery winter day amid everyday routine or zealously viewed on a computer screen among the universe of fishing videos waiting to be clicked on YouTube and Vimeo, we all know that the wind-burned skin and saltwater-stained reality of personal experience trumps any electronic comparison.  How can anything compare than to have actually been there?  The sweetest tasting are always the extraordinary cases where we are able to spark recollection of days past which unfolded exceedingly well before our wave-splashed feet, stirring and eliciting a beaming smile, inspiring a mighty, vociferous tale to share (or brag about) with friends, reminding them that you were a distinguished guest to glory and that they were absent for this spontaneously exclusive, marauding carnival of madness, as if we were actively invited to participate from the front-row seats of a boisterous, combative Gladiator-like event, to spectate the up-close inner-workings of Nature’s voracious predators-of-the-sea assiduously at work, a first-class ticket to a surfcaster’s paradise presumably never to be experienced any time soon. 

It is the real-life experience of these pampering moments revealed while wading the surf which resultantly become forever burned into one’s memory, unremittingly serving as the unbridled spirit of hope cradled before each of our encounters with the sea begins anew, the only remaining gift concealed within each surfcaster’s figurative, yet personally authentic, Pandora’s box.  I cherish this gift of hope.  Among all of the other fundamentals defining this sport, it is the most deeply-rooted, but easily overlooked seduction associated with fishing.  Essentially, hope is the most productive lure found within my surf bag.  It could always be my next cast which swims this lure before a foraging, committing, crushing mouth, hooking the fish of a lifetime in the process.  The realistically simple, yet insightful words of the late John Buchan condense my thoughts exactly, reminding us that “the charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.”  Indeed, there exists nothing more than an optimistic promise for reward with each cast we make, for what other purpose would we logically engage in the acts of surfcasting? 

Holding the reins on this continuum of hope, prior to sinking a single foot onto wet sand, my mind feverishly submits the soma to the bundled sensations of anticipation which I hail to on the inside, as the ocean remains obstructed from sight, when my hopes of grandeur are still brightest, and subliminal fantasies of striking a lottery of chosen locations are greatest.  Just as the discerning eye knows that there is a naturally-prescribed individuality embodied in a solitary snowflake, expressed as such in an infinitely variant uniqueness of combination through crystalline lattice composition, that no two are ever identical, we come to realize that in the snowstorm of a lifetime spent fishing the surf, every outing experienced on a beach is positively unique from those antecedent, possessing inherent beauty differentiating, for example, one sunrise, sunset, tidal state, or weather pattern from the untold previous witnessed along our littoral journey.  These observable characteristics aside, to understand the fish’s biologically-driven habits and how those interface within its environment, to understand the seasonally recurring, if not hourly, changes this seascape undergoes, perfecting when and how to fish, which conditions and tides to choose from, and extrapolate where future success may be found, are the variables distinguishing one fisherman’s chosen path from another, ordaining how a true course is maintained at intersecting junctions of choice, determining success at fishing or continued practice at casting.  While striking similarities exist all around us near the water, day-to-day redundancies do not.  We learn this, accepting the fact that change is inherent.  The fish we seek, endowed with undulating caudal tails, move onward.  The accumulations of these judgments we learn however, are what we personally hold dear, becoming cohesively known as each of our individual trials as surf fishermen. 

As each awakening day in the surf begins anew, it is my hopeful anticipation that thrives intolerably up until the very last second, the last blinking of my eyes, where the fleeting, fine threshold of the unknown still dwells in a blackened room, before the door which I crack open begins to flood this seemingly devoid expanse with blinding light, specifically, as the sand dune becomes crested, or the vegetative pathway fully walked through, will I finally become relieved when these eyes make view of the water I will be working to coax methodically like an alchemist, summoned to produce forth the finned, foraging eyes of gold from aqueous unseen realms of the sea.  Only then, will I know whether the box of hope which I carry with me to the edge of the sea, honored by way of the splashing splendor and swimming retrieval of my very-first cast, may awaken the opportunity to wrangle with yet another declaration of distinction discovered on the wave-pounded sands framing our shoreline.

These pensive thoughts of mine, realized, pondered, and refined over years of solitude on the sand, personal lessons acquired as a result of trial and error, are what compromise my values, hopes, and dreams as a surfcaster.  I deliberately stood within a gently-breaking surf once again, more so for nostalgia’s sake on a particular late-October day, realizing that it was exactly one year ago, on a Saturday morning where I tracked a path through Monmouth County’s jetty country, when I was engaged in battling a fat and frenzied thirty-five-inch Striped Bass, my tightly-grasped graphite rod being tested as it was magnificently arched over, seemingly to breaking-point, aimed eastward under a foaming white-water surf.  I can vividly remember the remarkable occurrences as though it were yesterday, when on that date I was fortunate enough to be among the first hand-full of anglers enthusiastically inviting ourselves to a magical free-for-all buffet materializing before our astonished eyes.  A culmination of understanding, fortuitous fall circumstances, and perhaps blind-luck were offering me a spectacular reward in the form of blitzing keeper-sized bass, the sea at my feet teeming with tens of thousands of terrorized, helpless peanut bunker pinned along a jetty and its beach pocket.  From where I stood, the roaring and deafening powers of immortalization answered each heaving cast of hope I launched into the deep, dark-blue-colored saltwater exposition of divinity.

In retrospect, I must admit that the experience was bittersweet.  Rapturously and obstinately focused on the fish-fighting task at hand, Nature would painfully remind me that good things can suddenly come to a crashing end.  Within thirty-hours from this point in time, I was packing my car with personal affects and clothing, abandoning my defenseless, seaside hometown in accordance to a mandatory coastal evacuation.  It was less than forty-eight hours from that delightful morning spent straining arm muscles and feverishly reeling back in stripped-line from large, powerfully-running fish in the surf, when the devastating fury of Hurricane Sandy made landfall along the very beaches I had been standing upon that morning, permanently disfiguring the face of the communities and their beachfronts I knew only days before.  The coastal towns which we knew so intimately and enjoyed the pleasures of fishing up until this point, were forever altered, devastated from near-category-two wind speeds, a deluge of roiling, inescapable floodwater, exacerbated by the gravitational effects of a full-moon, generating a twelve-foot tidal surge, while tsunami-like waves carved-away at a vulnerable oceanfront, obliterating entire beaches and annihilating accompanying properties.  Calamity struck overnight.  The ordinary-life taken for granted, which many thousands of people recognized, was instantly swept from under their feet, turned upside-down, and for some, never to regain normalcy. 

Would it be oxymoronic for me to call this experience of an outstanding morning in the surf my own calm before the storm, how the peaceful and rewarding yield from one final opportunity to battle southbound-swimming bass before years’ end was the prelude to an all-out hell on land?  Is it apropos to consider this unfolding morning a foreboding, microcosmic demonstration of the shear vicious potential which erupts about the playground of the tempestuous sea, whereby one eating results in another eaten?  How in one moment, life may proceed in its rhythms unscathed and uninhibited, until forces beyond any meaningful control mercilessly assail existing circumstances, introducing chaos, permanently altering fates believed to be ordained by free-will, savagely serving to remind those that life is a process with an established beginning and an unwritten ending.  It was Joseph Conrad, who prudently wrote that “the sea has never been friendly to man.  At most, it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.”  From the perspective of mankind living idyllically by the sea, this is certainly a truth, especially as the arrival of a powerful, Gulfstream-fueled hurricane could just as well promise death by the sea.  As for the schooling fish I observed last October, a similar interpretation of this statement may apply to their resulting struggles, since simply living in the sea is an accomplice to perpetual restlessness.  The ever-seeking, finned finality of death delivered by the gaping mouths and striped bodies of larger kin maintains the circuitous struggle of life, literally feeding upon itself in order to prevail as the resource, the stock of fish we covet and admire, the contestants we yearn for and dare to engage, as fishermen of the boundlessly churning surf.

Thankfully, many splendidly striped specimens have come between then and now.  I would be out-of-my-mind if I said I had anything but a spectacular year since the twenty-seventh, but I optimistically, if not defiantly, stand in the surf again, thirteen months later, wading, waiting, and wondering.  With the season now ebbing to a close, it will not be long before I sling my very-last cast, forcing myself to confront and reluctantly accept the inevitable, unavoidable hollow-feeling associated with every year’s completion, where the dotted period is struck to the concluding sentence of my chapter symbolizing a year-long serial in the surf, attentively watching for my lure to splash as it crashes atop the saltwater mystery of the unknown, hoping for one familiar, startling tug to interrupt the wobbling return representing my finality of effort.  With each unanswered retrieval of my presentation, cast with a burning desire, I cannot help but to ask myself why, as humans, do we often note the passage of time elapsed with a celebration or relive recollections, if only in our minds, in order to rejoice in such passing?  Why, as surfcasters, do we instinctively entrench ourselves for probable failure knowing the possibility of reliving the excitement of an identical encounter is close to impossible?  Why live in retrospect at all when the singular promise of a brighter future, the greatest gift of all, offers the potential to outshine any prior experience?  Are fond memories all we have to justify an existence as fishermen or is hope for a charitable future the grandest catch of all, hooking every one of us deep from within, penetrating to the core of our souls, beckoning for our participation, to appeal for our individual benefaction, guiding the cursive movement of the pen’s tip, writing the script that is a new day unfolding on the wave-soaked sands of a beach? Carry on and cast forth, say I!

When action develops, suddenly everyone comes out of the woodwork for a shot at rod-bending glory.

A fall feast for fishermen and Striped Bass alike is illustriously demonstrated atop waves rolling ashore.  Here, a keeper-sized Striper crashes the surface as members of the school working below entrap peanut bunker about the sea’s natural boundary, forming a ceiling of doom.