Watch your cork!

Last week, Matt and I took Joanna to Longboat Key for a few days. Seems we've spent the majority of our time since we moved to California in time zones nowhere near Pasadena. But no matter.  We continue to learn that home is a place we pack up and take with us.

The highlight of the trip was trout fishing in St. Petersburg. Our friend Captain Tim, whom we've fished with many times before, has never let us down, and this time was no exception. Every time I think I've mastered fishing with Tim, he teaches me something new. The first time we went out, we fished for Spanish mackerel, and that meant, as soon as I felt a little buzz on the line, I had to snap up the pole to do something called "set the hook." The next time we went out with Tim, I was all set to do some serious pole snapping and hook setting, when instead, he taught me how to use lures rather than live bait. That involved him injecting something into the rubbery bait look-alike that I called fish goo (I still don't know what the stuff is actually called because Tim was too busy laughing at "fish goo" to tell me). That day was all about fishing in mangroves for reds and trout -- reds off the stern and trout off the bow. So the third time we went fishing with Tim, I figured I'd either be pole snapping or dealing in fish goo ... but alas, I should have known. Instead, we fished with shrimp and tiny weights attached to the line. The trick was to let the bait settle on the floor of the bay and every once in a while, give the line a little twitch. Although this yielded very few fish for me, I learned a great deal of patience, not to mention I had the biggest catch of the trip. That day, I rightfully became known as Fish Killer (not to be confused with Matt's designation of an activity possessing Fish Kill Quality -- which I think means "sufficiently manly").

So last week, off we went with Tim for another fishing adventure. All morning, Tim said three words over and over: "Watch your cork." After a lot of "Huh?" "Cork?" and "Watch it do what?", I finally got the gist. Tim would cast my line about 40 feet off the port side of his boat, and the bright orange ping-pong ball sized float he'd attached about three feet north of the hook would, after a moment or two, give a little bob. I felt nothing. So I did nothing. But after the millionth, "Watch your cork," I figured it out. What Tim should have said was, "Reel, woman, reel!"

We caught 50 or so trout. We're vegetarians (well, Joanna is more like a pescaphile), so 49 of them survived. Number 50 was snatched up by an osprey who was so delighted by his catch that he made a victory lap around the bay before wolfing that sucker down. Fish Killer indeed.

As we got near the end of the bait, I sat down in the back of the boat and turned my face to the sun. Tim asked, "Don't you want to fish anymore?" I gestured to Matt and Joanna, standing side by side on the fore deck of the boat, both of them gazing intently at their lines, sweat running down their calves, and their heads tilted to the right at exactly the same angle. The moment did not have Fish Kill Quality ... but it filled me with peace.

I said, "Tim, I'd much rather watch those two than my cork." He smiled. And, for a moment, turned his face to the sun, too.