Charter fishing

                When I was a little kid, back in the kindergarten and first grade days, my three favorite things in the world were boats, trains, and trucks. So when my dad told me, one afternoon, that we were going on a charter boat to go fishing I was more excited than if we were going to Disney land. We spent the whole afternoon getting our fishing gear ready for the trip and pulling our “fishing clothes” out of the depths of the closet. Just as the sun was sinking behind the rolling California hills, we set off driving to the Ventura harbor where the boat awaited us.

                The drive was a short one only fifteen minutes. When we got to the harbor, we met up with my dad’s longtime friend Paul, who I had always referred to as Uncle Paul. At this point it was fairly dark and we decided to get some food from one of the restaurants on the harbor before the fishing boat left in an hour. I was so excited about getting on the boat that I hardly paid any mind to my dinner and quickly finished it. After finishing my fish ‘n’ chips, my dad said we were heading to the boat to get ready to cast off.

                When we arrived at the dock the boat was on, I could hardly hold in my excitement. The situation was only exacerbated by the fact that it was already well past my bed time and we hadn’t even hit the open ocean yet. The captain of the boat came onto the deck and told us we could board the ship. I was in awe I remember thinking I wanted to be just like him one day, a captain of a ship all my own. Once on deck he explained the safety rules but I was hardly listening. In fact, I only noticed when my dad pushed a life jacket over my head and buckled the straps around me. Then the members of our group started discussing the details of the rout we would take in the ocean and began collecting a pool for whoever could catch the biggest fish. After what seemed like an agonizingly long time we set of towards the mouth of the harbor and the open ocean.

                At the mouth of the harbor, the surf started to roll in and rock the boat back and forth in a rhythmic motion that was only interrupted by the occasional rouge wave interrupting the rhythm. I couldn’t believe it we were at sea. Soon we left the harbor far behind, heading out into the blackness of the ocean that was only interrupted by the glistening oil rigs in the distance and the white caps of the waves on the ocean. I remember it was a fairly calm night with little wind to pick up spray from the top of the waves. At about two miles out my dad set my line and pole and I started trolling for fish along with the other twenty people on the charter boat. I was convinced that I would catch something the minute my line hit the water but, sadly I was mistaken.

Over the course of the next few hours we trolled back and forth several miles out to sea. Many of the people on board the boat seemed to be getting lucky and reeling in some good sized fish. My dad caught two White Sea bass, which he informed me were good for eating. More exciting to me, however, was my “Uncle Paul’s” catch. He had managed to catch and reel in a small shark. I convinced him to let it go though because I told him the mom shark would get mad and come after him. However, in all this time I had yet to get so much as a bite on my line.

Finally three hours into the boat ride, I got my first bite. I felt my line jerk and instinctively looked at my pole. It was bending down towards the water and I knew this was the sign that I had caught a fish. I began to try and reel the line in but it was quite hard for me, being only a 65 pound 6 year old at the time. With some help from my dad we slowly reeled in my catch until we could see the fish alongside the bow of the boat. It was a big fish. My dad reached down with the net and brought it on board. I had caught a barracuda! My dad told me that a barracuda was a vicious fish that ate almost any fish smaller than it. I felt so proud at having captured such a predator. However my glory was short lived.

Only moments after catching my fish the rolling of the ocean finally got to me and I became seasick. I spent the next hour of the trip leaning over a bucket in the bathroom sick. I decided then that boats were not my favorite anymore; I liked trains and trucks much better.

When we got back to the dock, we all got off the boat and weighed our catches. My barracuda weighed in at 22lbs over 3lbs more than the next closest fish. My dad told me that because of my fish I had won the entire pool for the boat a total of $225. But I didn’t care about the money I only cared that I had caught the biggest fish on the trip.