Helping to chum

My bro-in-law invited me on a chartered fishing trip this past Sunday. I haven’t been fishing much so I happily agreed. The trip was well organized. Everyone (a group of neighbors totaling 10 men) met at my brother-in-laws house at 5am sharp. It might sound early but thats the earliest most people wanted to leave. Some wanted to leave as early as 3am just to be the first ones out fishing. Anyway, once the truck was packed with coolers and food, we were off towards Chesapeake Beach, Maryland.

Once we arrived, we were greeted by the boats’ Captain of the “Semper Fidelis III” (yes, he was a “JarHead” in his time…) and his mate. We sailed off promptly at 6:30am after a mandatory safety briefing. Ten miles later, we were out on the bay’s reef. We weren’t alone, oh no. There were approximately 30 other boats “trolling” the reef. Man, at this point everyone was like, “We should have gotten up at 3am!” Oh well, we were here and ready to fish. Unfortunately, 6 hours later, we had only caught 10 fish with each fish no shorter than 20 inches long (18 inches was the minimum legal length). Everyone’s mood at that point was a little low in my opinion. Honestly, I think it was the heat that got everyone all down. It was HOT! However, the Captain and his mate quickly accesses the situation (like a good lil’ Jarhead) and decided to change pace.

The captain then suggested that we do some chumming. This is where the fun part started in more ways than one. First, we had our own fishing poles with clams as bait. The Captain was doing “chumming” while we fished. No less than 20 minutes later we caught our legal limit of 20 rock fish and one blue fish, for “the boat”. The biggest fish was a 29 inch rock fish. That fish was nice! Everyones mood quickly changed for the better.

The other fun part was me puking! Yes, I got motion sickness for the first time in my life. I felt like a little wuss! I puked a grand total of 3 times! So in a sense, I helped the captain (I think the rock fish liked my German bologna sandwich I had). I was good all morning when it suddenly hit me. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was a combination of diesel fuel exhaust and the heat. Whatever, I am not trying to make any excuses. Thankfully I didn’t damper anyone’s mood as everyone seemed to understand the situation. Or maybe it was my, “Give me a beer and lets party” attitude after each time I puked. As much as I hate having that “puke” feeling, I still had fun. Sign me up for next years trip!

This is how I looked and felt!

Got Puke?


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