Happy New Year. Beginning with a solid ice season, much more is to come. Here's a true tale published in the June 2017 issue of The Fisherman.
Sunrise Point
Every young boy
lives in the sunrise of life. A gathering of conscious light growing taller like
his body. During Matt’s eighth summer, Lake Hopatcong felt like a limitless
mystery, potentially rewarding my son and I with fishing success that would
impress us as deeply as the lake seemed to fill an entire world.
In July, I motored off from Dow’s
Boat Rentals before sun-up, our first time in a boat on the lake. We wanted to
catch hybrid striped bass. While fishing a drop-off along Air Castle Isles, we
caught a couple, but they were little fish not even nine inches long. A stiff
breeze from the north blocked by that shoreline made fishing here pleasant compared
to Pine Tree Point, where we tried first, though Matt wanted to fish Sunrise
Point because the man who rented us the boat said we should. Here to the south
and east of Matt’s longed-for destination we live-lined herring with no weight
added just as the proprietor had recommended, but heavy surface chop only
seemed carry the bait as would a river current. Air Castle Isles awaited right
around the corner out of the wind.
When we returned to Dow’s much later,
the proprietor met us again. I offered a detailed report; he listened to every
word. And then he said, “If you had gone where I said you should go, you might
have caught big hybrid bass. A guy caught two six-pounders there this morning.”
“We’ll go where you point next time,”
I said.
As I gathered belongings to hike to
the car, I considered well this beginning of a long relationship between my son
and me as customers, and the proprietor with his finger on the lake’s pulse. There
would be a next time. Many.
In August, we got word from him on where
to go while I paid for the boat rental and herring bait at the desk. Sunrise
Point. As if the sun rises eternally for any who hope, the spot seemed as
ubiquitous as the fact of daybreak always happening somewhere on this planet.
“That’s where we’re going,” I said.
He said nothing, offering a steady look. I gazed back to confirm no breaking of
my promise.
A 9.9-horsepower outboard drives a
14-foot fiberglass boat with all the sufficiency needed on this lake. Our
destination less than a mile-and-a-half distant, the journey seemed longer than
it really took. Not an impatient passage, but a breaking away from routine. The
world is too much with us. We took leave in hopes of catching a dream. Business
can’t afford such a bet. The bottom line ties everything down for results, but
nature upholds destiny for any who dare conspire with abundance.
Who doesn’t know dreams may beguile
in a deceptive way? Catching just that fish imagined is as rare an event as
cornering market demand. Matt talked about hybrid bass as Sunrise Point
beckoned in view. Not a dramatic-looking spot. A few boathouses jutting out
from land protruding slightly. He spoke of walleye also. He had only seen the
nine-inch hybrids we caught in July, except for big ones featured in photographs
in Dow’s shop. Two big ones mounted on two of the walls. He had seen me and a
friend catch walleye on the Delaware River.
We anchored over 25 feet of water.
This allowed us to put out two lines apiece baited with live herring and to
cast broken nightcrawlers weighted by split shots using ultra-lights, tempting
panfish from shallower water. Matt had caught plenty of sunfish, largemouth
bass, smallmouth bass, trout, striped bass, bluefish, pompano, some pickerel
from age two until now, but this morning was another day; his responses to taps
on his line hadn’t jaded at all.
I enjoyed bluegills, pumpkinseeds,
also. A perch or two. But as I would check on the herring lines, I felt a larger
order of possibility. After an hour or so, I heard a loosened drag cricket. One
of Matt’s reels.
“You’ve got one!”
“Give me the rod!”
I lifted. At that moment, the fish took
line rapidly, entangling between the spool and pickup guide. The spool had
continued to spin when the fish slowed. My fingers began working like lightning
to right what I knew could be disaster.
“Hold the rod ready to set,” I said
under my breath, getting the mess straight with a split second to spare. With line
running free, giving the fish some excess so I could tighten the drag about
right was a cinch. The two of us set the hook together, and then Matt enjoyed a
dogged fight before I netted the five-pound walleye. He had never before displayed
such pride for any catch.