Every now and then you hear a story about some crazy thing fishing that is hard to swallow. This is going to be one of those stories. The setting, is a beautiful summer morning down at Newport Beach where three anglers are fishing outside the harbor breakwater on the Corona Del Mar side of the inlet. The three anglers are fishing in what can be described as a 1960’s small turquoise colored fiberglass boat with an Evinrude outboard motor of that era. It has a curved windshield and looks to be in good condition for a vessel that is three decades old. Nostalgia is the word that best describes this vessel owned by my friend Allen, who lovingly has restored it back to working condition. On board the boat is his wife Marcy who is celebrating her birthday on this day.
Marcy loves to fish in the ocean and was really happy her husband decided to treat her to a day out on the water. Allen had made the day even more special for his betrothed, by presenting her with a new custom Sabre triple wrapped fishing rod in her favorite colors and added a new Shimano Baitrunner to complement the outfit. The rod truly was a labor of love, since Allen wrapped the rod himself. I complemented Marcy on her new setup and told her that I was very jealous. We anchored up along the outside of the breakwater and tossed our baits into the water hoping for whatever was biting that day. Marcy was seated in the back as was I, both of us just relaxing the morning away. She was using her new gift and asked Allen if he could reach in the cooler and grab her a beer. She then put down the fishing rod against the rear gunnel of the boat and turned Allen to accept the brew. Just then, the tip of the rod bent down hard, the rod lifted off the deck and flew over the side of the boat. Allen and myself cried out “Marcy, your rod” but it was too late, it was gone… Utter shock!
Marcy was speechless. Allen on the other hand, had a lot of choice words to say to which, I being stuck on the small craft, had nowhere to run and was unfortunately witnessing a husband giving his wife a verbal tongue lashing. It was a really uncomfortable place to be and swimming to the rock breakers and walking home wasn’t out of the question for me at that particular moment in time.
As the morning continued along there was not much spoken on board our tiny vessel. Fishing was on the really slow side and nothing but one small undersize calico bass came over the rail that morning and with not much prospects we decided to pull the anchor and move. Allen’s small boat was not cut out for prolonged ocean fishing so we didn’t venture too far and made our way south several hundred yards about ¼ mile from our previous location. The area had many large boiler rocks that we thought maybe holding some fish. It was choppy out and Allen stayed on the wheel of the boat to keep us out of harms way of the rocks. Marcy and I were tossing plastic swim baits with no luck when all of a sudden her rod took a bend. She set the hook and started reeling. After a few moments she could see her swimbait but she had caught a fishing line and let out a big sigh of disbelief. I grabbed her fishing line to help her untangle the mess. As I held the hooked line and unhooked her swimbait I could feel something pulling hard on the mystery line. I pulled in the loose line hand over hand and up over the side comes Marcy’s birthday fishing rod. We are all in shock and disbelief at the miracle that just occurred. I hand the fishing rod to Marcy and the drag starts screaming. There is still a fish on the line! She starts reeling and the tip of her fishing rod has a major bend in it. Allen and I are shouting words of encouragement to Marcy and after a great fight the fish comes to the boat. I grabbed the net and into the boat comes a Sheepshead in the 12-15 lb. range. It was huge and by all accounts a trophy Goat. It was no wonder that fishing rod flew over the gunnel that morning. The mood had drastically changed in the boat as we all could not get over Marcy’s good fortune that day. As if the day wasn’t strange enough, on the way back to the harbor we came across a commercial lobster fisherman checking his traps. He pulled his craft along side us and saw the large goat laying on the deck. “ Wow, you caught the bastard that’s been getting into my traps” he stated. Sheepshead are known to break open lobster traps for easy meals. He saw all of us drinking a victory brew and asked if we could sell him a couple. He still had a lot of traps to check that afternoon. Allen asked the man if he would trade beer for some lobsters and told him it was his wife’s birthday trying to soften the man up. “It will take a six pack and $10.00 and I’ll give you a couple of nice ones” he said. To which Allen agreed, and he reached into the cooler for a six pack and ten dollars from his wallet to give to the man.
The lobster fisherman true to his word, reached into his holding bin and carefully handed Allen two lobsters I thought each to be in the 2-3 lb. range in size. Allen and Marcy thanked the man and off he went. We headed into the harbor. The whole way back in I was shaking my head. Allen was curious as to why I was shaking my head to which I replied “ Nobody is going to believe what happened today, it’s just impossible to believe.”
