Day 5: The Legend of COD-zilla

Not to give the ending away but today’s fishing adventure was EPIC.

They day started off slowly as we came up empty at the first five or six spots that we hit.  Crazy Ivan was mumbling not so under his breath, “Where the hell are these sons of beeches”.  I had pulled up 4-5 fishes already but they were either too small, ugly, or the wrong kind of cod (the kind with worms in it).  Peter and Ivan were bickering lovingly like an old married couple as to where the best place to find the fishes would be.

So I’m calling bullshit on the ‘fish finder’.  It just beeps all the time whether there is fish or not, and sometimes we find fish and it’s not even beeping. It does have nice, colour pictures though and lots of other gadgets you will probably never use.

So then, almost by accident we land in a “Honey Hole”.  In my dreams I see this is a place where you pull up in your boat and the fish just start jumping into your boat. In real life, not so much.

But anyway, it starts off like the rest, with me catching some fish that are too small to keep.  Then the other two get their Mackerel rods out. They pull in one each.  I’m still focused on cod.  But then I catch a Mackerel anyway!

Mackerels are beautiful fish.  They are this bright green on the top with black tiger stripes and a shimmery, pearly white on the bottom.  I don’t like them as sushi, but Chef Ivan says I’m going to love it dusted with flour and fried fresh. (He was right).

I feel like I’m in a Dr. Seuss book.  One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.  We pull in one mackerel after the other.  They are way more wiggly and crazy than the cod.  If normal people were cod, I would definitely be a mackerel.  They make this thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa sound as they bang against the boat.  When you throw them in the bucket it sounds like they are tap dancing.  By the time we had all of our fish, it sounded like an all mackerel dance troupe.

All of a sudden, I feel like a rock hits my line.  It’s pulling like crazy and I’m fighting to get it onto the boat.  I’m reeling my salad spinner in like crazy, trying not to lose it.  The other two are busy with their little mackerels and I’m on my own.  They don’t believe me that it’s big.  I finally get him up to the rim of the boat and I’ve just got him by the tip of the head.  Crazy Ivan grabs the gaff (think of it as a fish hook the size of a small crow bar) and hooks my COD-zilla for me and get it into the boat.

I’m sweating.  I’m screaming.  Everyone is laughing.  I feel like when I get back to the dock that all the other fishermen are going to gather around to see my catch.  Maybe they will hoist me onto their shoulders and carry me around town.

Maybe not – but I had my own celebration anyway:  Watch COD-zilla