“I got a big one, Barney!” Photo: Unsplash
The Oceanside Pier in San Diego reduced itself to charred rubble earlier this year, and by some spontaneous force of shared grief was presided over by a rare alliance of fisher and surfer folk—“Once ardent rivals, the two pier-loving groups now watch their beloved playground go up in flames,” an Instagram post read—clasping hands and singing kumbaya around a bonfire, or something.
Trite though it may be, this left me hopeful, if perplexed, about a potential truce in a battle that has raged as long as anglers and surfers have a-symbiotically coexisted.
It also left me dwelling upon a moment from years ago, coming to my feet perhaps a little too close to a Carolina pier and recognizing the all too familiar wrap of fluorocarbon against my skin, being a fisherman myself.
Coming to my feet, I lifted the line over my head and ducked, feeling it graze my back, believing I was free to draw my line on what I must say was an exceptional little peeler for that particular place and time, thanks to a rare midsummer’s alignment of sand.
But what was on the other end of that line had different plans for me. I felt a pressure, and then an entirely unfamiliar sensation of suddenly being brought to a standstill, if not in reverse motion against a swell.
Whether my freshly tethered puppeteer intended to set her 4/0 offset stainless steel circle hook into my kidney or mistook me for a an IGFA record-shattering whiting — about the only species you’ll catch in the foot-deep slough on the inside of that sandbar — I’ll never truly know. But that was immaterial to me.
Not following directions from above as I writhed in the wash, trying to untangle myself and, like most any trophy, not immediately realizing I was hooked, I was clearly making a poor marionette of myself. Expletives and probably a few other choice words rained down from above, telling me as much.
Tracing with my hand along my flank, I grasped a wire leader, spelling out all I needed to know. And boy howdy do those circle hooks do their job nicely. Some local surfers later informed me that they carry safety knives in the stash pockets of their boardshorts and wetties for just this reason, or to avoid this problem altogether by slashing lines ahead of time (however maliciously).
A friend — the editor of a book to which I was contributing a few segments on fishing including “how to remove a fish hook,” that very week — paddled over to my gallant rescue, biting the line.
My forlorn manipulator, along with several others now, continued shouting in admonishing tones toward us from above on the pier, but we’d already made our way up to his Eurovan for a pair of pliers to do our own firsthand testing of the recent snag upon my backstrap.
Preparing for our perfunctory field surgery in the parking lot with a pair of needle-nose, lathered in mechanical grease from his toolbox, we assessed which method of egress might do the trick when the police showed up. Imagining they were there to help, I thanked the heavens that some clean medical equipment had arrived. But no, these goodly men in blue were there to issue me — or maybe my friend, Chris? — a citation for willful destruction of property or some such nonsense.
Before this registered, a gang of surfers circled the whole scene, coming to my defense as witnesses. The aged, belligerently verbose lady who had her hook in me then appeared, screaming alongside her gang of anglers. I couldn’t remotely understand her, but it seemed like a good old-fashioned brawl was about to break out. For a moment, things descended into pure kabuki theater.
Fortunately, tensions were diffused, and she was somewhat subdued and led away by an officer. The remaining officer said I needed to return her property or else. Great. She lost a one-dollar hook, and I needed a fresh tetanus shot.
Meanwhile, Chris settled on piercing my skin and pulling the hook through, as it was in too far to back out. A few tugs, some hemming and hawing, and it was out. He used some wire-cutters to sever the thing and I traipsed over and dropped the mess of hardware, coated with my blood, into an officer’s open palm. We were off before either officer had time to pull out a handy dandy notebook and I was in the clear, if left somewhat bewildered. On many fronts.
All this is to say that the better part of a decade later, I remain at a loss for a moral in this mishap. Was I flat-out wrong and did I get what I deserved? Maybe, and I can’t argue with that conclusion.
Should there be designated surfing days around piers? That might work in, say, Southern California where swells are common enough and surfers often outnumber anglers, but fishing reigns supreme and our days of worthwhile surf are numbered over here across the great divide.
Should there be a demarcation line beyond the peak, inside of which fishing is not permitted? On the other hand, this person may as well have been standing in the sand, and whatever her aspirations may have been, they were lofty at best. All I know is that surfing at this particular pier is prohibited within 200 feet, which keeps you woefully out of reach of anything helpful it might do to manicure better surf.
How do we find resolution across this great chasm of sea-goers? I’m all for fisher folk having their fishing piers. I too, am an angler and down to it, an angler first and foremost. Furthermore, it is, after all, (purportedly) fishing licenses and fishing-related sales taxes (in conjunction with all of our tax dollars) that pay for piers in the first place, which are the one way commoners get out beyond the waves without a five-figure budget.
Sure, anglers bear some seniority, not just with tradition but fishing licenses and pier access fees. But should that leave surfers in the lurch, to ogle the oasis from the expansive, seemingly endless sidelines of closeouts especially along the vast and largely featureless East Coast shoreline?
I guess it’s an issue best taken up with local legislature, but that is as predictable outcome as any based on demographics. All that’s left within this — or any — war of worlds, is a plea: Is a little humility and humanity too much to ask from one set of thalassophiles to another, if only on those rare blue moons when sea and sand align in favor of long-lost sea-loving cousins?
