Chapter 18: The Impromptu Picnic

I fished off the pier. I didn't know shit about saltwater fishing but I knew enough to fish off the pier. I bought a hundred-buck spinner rig with twenty pound test line and very little flex to the rod along with a fistful of good sharp hooks on wire leaders. I figured that I'd get nothing but lies out of the guys sitting around the tackle shop--if they knew what they were doing they'd be out fishing, eh?

I bought a half pound of frozen chicken livers from the grocery store, packed a sandwich, a gallon of Arizona Iced Tea and a beach chair. I baited up and sat back, dangling that rig right next to a piling at the end of the dock.

Pretty soon I noticed the tide had turned and was flowing pretty good. I was about to stand up and piss off the dock and call it a day when the pole was damned near ripped out of my hand. I half-cleared the drag and set the hook. I kept reeling and pumping and the fish kept stripping line then coming back. My hands were sore. My ass was sore. My cheeks were sore from grinning. I didn't have a net or a gaff so I dragged that motherfucker all the way down the pier to the beach. There I whacked him with a rock and grabbed him through the gills.