The Art of Fishing

A few weeks ago, before the latest onslaught, we were in San Diego. Thing 1, looking contemplative below with his grandpa photographer, had determined that he wanted to go fishing.

Now I like fishing, but I know next to nothing about it. So we got an inexpensive pole (which I was fairly certain wouldn’t be strong enough), a few weights, we read a (useless?) website or two, procured some frozen squid (mmmmm) the night before we headed out, and crossed our fingers.

Our first morning out. We got up at 5am, woke up my poor mother in law, uncovered some sweatshirts because, let’s face it, coming from Arizona—in July—I had not thought of such things, drove to Oceanside, fed the meter, and hoofed it down to a nice spot on the pier. We’ve only ever gone pier fishing, Thing 1 and I.

Normally he’s a pretty chatty character. What you see here in not only quiet boy, but also slightly sunburnt boy. We’d all gotten a touch of the sun the day before at Sea World, having miscalculated the depth of the overcast (or the lack thereof). The quiet boy thing is nice. Rare and nice. It’s one of the reasons I like to go fishing. We have good convos.

There is something about this next picture that I just love. I wish I could put my finger on it. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t surprised. This is just a very unique look on the kid. The picture does give you some idea of pier length, too.

See those little blue shacks half way back down the pier? Those are rest rooms. See the little tower with the lights on it further down? It’s looking to be about midway between the bathrooms. Parallel to that tower but on the left, hidden by the bathrooms, is the bait shop on the pier.   Where we’re standing is about a little more than halfway out the total length of the pier.

If we were on the Balboa or Newport CA pier, I think we’d already be in the water, having fallen off the end in a fairly unceremonious lump, I’d imagine.

All this is a long way to say: the Oceanside pier is LONG. Really, really LONG.

And very nice.

Very VERY.

The guy who owned the bait shop was just the loveliest um…fisher guy…selling stuff…and coffee. Very hot coffee —actually, everyone on the pier was great. There was an adorable man who both recognized and helped us on our second and third days. Great advice and help with bait when, on our third 5am morning, mom cleverly (sleep deprivedly) left the squid at home.

We’d see a lot of overcast days when we were there. Overcast and cold, especially on the water.

This was taken on day two.

And this is day three. It was raining and really super ungodly cold (okay, it was probably 60 with a brisk breeze).

No, now that I look at this next picture again, it really was cold. The mist zinged us and went through our sweatshirts and jeans. Our hands were icy—the frozen squid wasn’t the only thing in a frozone.

But because of our undaunted natures, we got to see dolphins. Lots of dolphins. The camera phone was slow on the snap and the inability to zoom with any muscle means you pretty much just have to trust me, but there IS a dolphin in this picture—see the black blob midway down the water on the left? Yeah, that’s a dolphin.

There were actually a small pod (we had a tough time counting but it was at least five, could have been eight) that went further and further in, then started surfing. They continued to play in the water for the rest of the time we were there.

And oh yes.

They were playing.

So, the big question: Did we catch anything?

Nope.

Got some good tugs though.

However, we saw some guy catch fish our last morning on a 1, 2, 3 rotation (literally. Hook in.   Fish out. Hook in. Fish out. Hook in… it was something else!). We checked out his rig and got lots of good ideas for our Labor Day trip.