A Birthday Beating

Written by Andy Whitcomb

Recently, I returned from a little vacation at Hilton Head, South Carolina. Shared a time-share condo with the in-laws. Yeah, I know.

Anyway, it had been 3 years since this unsalted dog had dropped a line in saltwater. I remembered the guy at the marina telling me that I’d only catch sharks and rays in the surf. All I caught were tiny redfish, but occasionally I’d feel a hit and then the line was cut. So for months ahead of time, I had visions of hooking something big, shlogging back up the beach, and handing the rod to my 7-year-old boy, who has expressed desire to catch a shark.

Several times prior to the trip, I asked if my in-laws, who were driving down from PA, could throw in the fishing poles that I store up there. Mainly needed my 2-piece 11 ft. steelhead “noodle” rod. Not only does that rod make everything fun, I really wanted the length so I could point the rod to the sky, clear the waves, and feel the slightest tap. But “beggars can’t be choosers”, so if they just had room for the medium spinning outfit, that’d be fine too. My family was flying and, with car seats and such, I didn’t want to mess with a rod as luggage if I didn’t have to.

What arrived in the back of their Buick Rainer was my kids’ two K-mart specials. Matching little red spinning and push-button outfits for the kids to tease the bluegill and creek chubs in PA. So off to the Hilton Head Wal-Mart.

Many choices. Especially numerous, was an unrecognized brand of spinning reel, complete with a loaded tackle box. Although seemingly a good value, the rod was overkill for the tiny redfish I recalled and if something was going to beat me with a lighter rod, so much the better. It was my birthday, and I’ve never owned a Penn. There was a spiffy little number there that I carried around with me for a while but it was a one-piece 7-foot rod. I’d have to get a two-piece to fit in our rental car. I settled on a Shakespeare Cirrus, pre-spooled with unknown line.

The Hilton Head Wal-Mart (which may or may not have anyone working at the time who knows how to handle fishing licenses) also had a couple of nicely stocked bait freezers and refrigerators. I grabbed a couple of packages of shrimp with the head on, stopping to do a double take when I walked by professionally packaged chicken necks. For crabbing.

Once at the beach the kids were having a good time with my wife and the grandparents, so off I headed chest deep in the surf with swimming suit pockets loaded with shrimp. Nothing like crotch chumming for sharks to keep you on your toes.

In my three afternoons of fishing like this, I caught a dozen tiny redfish, letting the boy reel in a couple, and landed one blacktip reef shark that was about the size of the rubber shark my son bought at the South Carolina Aquarium gift shop. On a couple of occasions there was some surface activity so I raced back, retied, and tried throwing some lures but couldn’t find the action. Always felt as if I was too late and the fish had headed on down the beach.

The other place I got to fish was on the resort’s private dock on some intracoastal water.

One of my dreams in fishing is to be completely spooled by a fish. Feel that power, that helplessness, when every last bit of line is ripped off and there is nothing I can do about it. When I expressed this to my mother-in-law during an energetic fishing rant one day a few years ago, she said, “Why don’t you just put on less line?” Cute, isn’t she?

The first morning at the dock, the tide was really hauling out. I was surprised at how shallow the murky water was. I threw a couple of times but when nothing happened after a while, the shrimp was always gone. It felt like the shrimp was just being beaten off the hook as it bounced across the bottom. At 9:10 a.m., on my third cast, I hooked up.

Something big just kept steaming out. It wasn’t a fast run. Almost as if the fish didn’t know it was even hooked. I just held on, pleased that maybe I wasn’t the only clueless party involved. I fumbled around with the cell phone and somehow managed to call the family down to see.

The kids came. The kids left. With line still heading out.

After a while, I noticed that my spool was dangerously low. Something had to give. So I palmed the whining reel and tried to force the issue. There was so much weight and power there that I knew the fish could end this whenever it wanted to. Somehow, despite being tremendously outmatched, we seemed to reach an uneasy agreement. It would not go out any further… but it would not necessarily come in either.

Dolphins swam by. Boats went back and forth. Pelicans flew into my line. But the knot held, the rod didn’t break, and the line just kept singing in the wind.

The rod did not have enough backbone for to do anything but hold the load. By slowly taking a handful of steps back and then racing forward winding like crazy, I had managed to gain line. By 10:10, I had back about half of the spool.

The slow, wide arcs and the occasional flip-flip-flip at the surface on the horizon had me thinking this was a large ray. At 10:40, a boat crossed too close. At the exact moment that the boat crossed my fish, the line went slack. NO! Madly reeled in but all my tackle was still there. The hook had just pulled loose.

My arms hurt. My hands were trembling. I had just taken a beating from a fish for over an hour and a half… I could get used to this.