One of the hardest things
for me to learn about saltwater fishing is how to throw a cast net. That and
remembering everything has teeth down here, even the flies.
Everybody seems to want me to place the leadline in my teeth while I prepare
to throw it. These teeth cost me a $1000 dollars (Remember, when in bar
fights, don't lead with your face) and the water is courtesy of the Atlanta
drainage system, so placing the line in my mouth is not an option I would
consider.
We needed some pogies, so 2 guided the boat down a narrow channel in front
of the oyster processing shacks looking for schools of the small fish that
always have a surprised look on their face. Just like the cartoons. Several
of the oystermen were readying their boats for a day of work out on the
oyster beds. This kind of work looks to me to be at least as hot and hard as
roofing, but with more government interference.
I took my perch on the bow and adjusted the 8 foot net into a throwing
position that usually opens up into at least a D shape and every once in a
while into a true O. I have, also, thrown most of the other 24 letters and a
few Chinese characters tossed in for good measure, occasionally at the same
time.
I saw a small school dimpling the surface and spun the net out toward them.
The leading section traveled about 4 feet before the trailing back side
latched onto a button protruding from a pocket on the leg of the cargo pants
I was wearing. There wouldn’t have been a problem other than being
embarrassed by getting myself tangled in the net in front of people who had
started throwing cast nets before they started preschool, but things began
to fall apart rapidly, following the first law of Chuck’s luck. If it can
get worse, it does.
2 was paying rapt attention, not to my situation, but to two sweet young
things in lo-rider short shorts delivering breakfast to their boyfriends on
the oyster boats, suddenly cut the boat hard left and goosed the motor to
avoid what he later told me he thought was a submerged log. It turned out to
be a bed of sea grass that reached near the surface. I, on the other hand,
recognized the grass for what it was as the combination of lead weights,
net, pocket knife, concealed carry and keys carried me down into it.
Then the theme from Jaws started echoing in my head....
