Rough

Island Beach State Park with my wife yesterday was a nice time, but instead of fishing much, we relaxed and talked and I read a story about trout fishing a little unnamed river in the Rockies, one of many stories collected in The Greatest Fishing Stories Ever Told, edited by Lamar Underwood, published by Lyon's Press. We made our usual stop at Murphy's Hook House for a bucketful of killies, and then soon after buying some burgers to take into the park, found the beach crowded, the surf pretty rough. I cast killies weighted by a 3/4-ounce steel slip sinker using my seven-foot Speed Stick, the rig holding bottom OK, but nothing biting. Towards sunset I tried again, finding the surf had calmed down considerably, and soon watching the guy next to me reel in a foot-long blue. I had just lost a killie to the tell-tale tapping of a snapper blue, only the head remaining. The other guy used peanut bunker heavily weighted.

I gave that better surf a good try, but never got another hit.