Father, Son and the Firechicken

Summer is officially over. Reflect with me. (Hazy dream sequence ensues.)

The beachfront was blurry, as it should have been at 6 a.m. My contact lenses were dry and flat, but thank goodness my father's vision was clear--he had already been navigating the highway for an hour-and-a-half from Houston down to the less-than-picturesque "beach" of Freeport, Texas.

I, on the other hand, had been sleeping, drooling and dreaming my way to the last hurrah of summer vacation. The assortment of poles, hooks and old tennis shoes in the backseat heralded the obvious--we were going fishing. (Note to the Harvard community at-large: this was no "hug-a-tree," catch-and-release, greeting-card-commercial fishing jaunt. We were playing for keeps. And, yes, fishing is still a sport. And this is the Sports page.)

I had with me a piece of paper with a saltwater stamp from the State of Texas that said I was allowed to physically remove fish from the water. Empowering? Yes it was. I was equipped with a closet-dusty rod and reel and a fast-fading knowledge of fishing technique. The past two years at Harvard had mostly been spent writing papers and launching my body at other guys in helmets and pads--two things that don't bode well for memory retention.

When we traded asphalt for sand in our four-wheel drive Jeep, the ride seemed more like a Six Flags stomach-churner than a scenic nature drive. My sleepy head jostled back and forth like a pinball. The trip seemed a sacrifice for both father and son, each for the other's sake--my father from his busy work schedule and his son from his last days with his beguiling girlfriend. But for a few brief hours, my father and I were spending time--life's most precious commodity--together.

I slithered out of the Jeep and into my beaten-up tennis shoes and grabbed my gear that my father had meticulously arranged during my date the previous night. My red-and-pink shrimptail lure had been enlisted for battle with everything from speckled trout to eel-like ribbonfish. The assortment of friendly people half-submerged in the water reminded me that I was not in Boston.

I waded out into water that almost perfectly matched my body temperature and was remarkably clear for the Mississippi River-catching Gulf Coast. My father reminded me to pop the rod tip, making the lure look less like lifeless rubber and more like food, something a fellow beachgoer must have known as he yanked a four-foot hammerhead shark out of the water.

We fished the shoreline's natural gutters where the fish ran on their breakfast binge. The first hour went by without a nibble. Then I spotted something in the water.

A seemingly harmless, softball-sized jellyfish propelled itself past me as I watched its movements carefully. Moments later, Dad hauled in his first prize of the day--a smallish sand trout. As he attached the fish to the stringer, I noticed that a few more jellyfish had begun to appear, of no consequence to me, to be sure.

Minutes later, the journeyman was hooking sand trout, ribbonfish, speckled trout, you name it. He seemed to be a few fish from writing his own article for Saltwater Sportsman. His stringer got more and more crowded. I, however, could not shake the goose egg for the day.

Slowly, but surely, I began to be more preoccupied with the jellyfish. Not only had they increased in number, but they were also picking up my scent, consciously moving toward me. Our Norman Rockwell painting had devolved into a scene from the movie Sphere. Trust me, after a few of the little guys start ricocheting off of your crotch, you become a little preoccupied. Then they executed a maneuver not soon to be forgotten.

One jellyfish reversed into me, chemically burning my belly button with five of its tentacles, and, as I recoiled in shock, another stung me in the lower back from behind. The hunter had become the hunted.

Determined to preserve quality time, I sucked it up, batted a few of them away with the rod butt and continued casting. I even heard my dad yelp from the stings a couple of times, which, strangely, made me feel a little better. Sometimes having tangible evidence that your father also experiences human pain can be comforting.

Meanwhile, almost out of nowhere, a portly, mustachioed East Texan waded into the water in an old collared shirt and a goofy canvas hat. Of the several things the loquacious man told us, solicited or otherwise, he turned us on to one lure--a "can't miss" speckled trout-killer known only as "The Firechicken."

Apparently, this man had unleashed its pink-and-white fury everywhere along the coast, from Matagorda to Port Aransas. Of course, he didn't have one with him. One thing that he said, to which I can attest to being true, is that a man can walk nearly a mile into the surf without the water rising above his waist if he finds just the right spot. Sometimes you just have to stop and let creation amaze you.

After switching to a spinner bait--a silver spoon of sorts with a hook--I snagged a small fish of my own. Actually, it is possibly the smallest fish I have ever seen. At time of print, I am not certain as to whether the tiny whiting was actually hungry or was attempting to engage in fin-to-fin combat with its peer out of insecurity.

Moments later, the fisherman's worst nightmare attacked my equipment--line tangle. The mass of 20-pound test line on top of my reel resembled something of a mix between a bowl of spaghetti and a hairy, matted armpit.

This problem had cropped up approximately five years earlier and had gone untouched ever since. I recall thinking at the time that the line would untangle by itself. After minutes of frustration, the line broke on its own. Dad was watching patiently. No pressure.

Soon enough, the line was fixed, and we were side-by-side again. Nearing the end of the morning feeding period, my father had caught the lone keeper-sized speckled trout, only about fifteen inches long. What became of it may shock you.

We fished until about 10:15 a.m. At about 10:10, the wheels fell off. Heeding a warning from an hour earlier about a shark in the area, the few wading fisherman, including my father, were trying to keep their stringers of fish out of the water. As I turned around to begin walking in toward shore, my father made his last few casts. Then, WHAP! A giant slapping sound and a lightning-like splash of water shattered our serene scene.

In one selfish chomp with scalpel precision, the neighborhood shark had bitten off our one keeper trout from the gills down. Irritated, my father offered the rest of our tiny fish to our new portly friend, seeing as how our haul could no longer make a meal.

Hoping to salvage some success with a few final casts, I reared back with my rod and fired with a strong flick of my wrist. Apparently, there was another soft spot in my line. I felt the way a pitcher must feel when someone goes yard on his fastball when my line broke and it and my lure shot approximately 100 yards into deep blue nothingness. "Yes, I believe we're done for the day," I thought to myself.

"We don't need fish," I told myself. It would have been nice, but, shoot, we didn't even need rods and reels. The goal of our sports excursion had been accomplished. Even though I would sleep the entire way back with nothing in the ice chest, I knew that the trip was well worth it, and that my dad was even more worth my time.

Next summer, we'll take "The Firechicken," or as the Mexican sealords know it, "El Gallo de Fuego."

Beats the hell out of golf.