Pressing My Luck
It was the simplest and most delicious of meals. A thick rockfish fillet anointed with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse-grain salt, fresh-ground pepper and dill and broiled long enough to brown both sides. Served with the fish were the first ears of Florida Silver Queen corn, boiled for only four minutes, plus thick slices of fresh tomatoes also treated with olive oil, salt and pepper and sprinkled with chopped basil.
The dinner had taken a little over 20 minutes to prepare. The complete operation, however, involved many difficult hours. There’s an old saying to the effect that if you want to give the fish gods a chuckle, announce your plans.
Foolishly I had proclaimed how good the bite would be on the opening day of the second rockfish season May 16 and just how readily I would procure large and tasty fillets for a springtime meal that very evening.
When I peered out my window that Monday morning, I saw that opening day was going to be a washout as a drenching rain would fall all day. My plans were as sodden as my newly planted raspberry bushes, at that moment threatening to float down the driveway.
My angling efforts during the latter weeks of the trophy rockfish season had resulted in lots of close calls. We had caught and had to release a surprising number of fat stripers up to 32 inches but landed few of the legal 35-inch minimum. I expected a superb bite when the minimum size fell to 20 inches.
The day after the deluge dawned with great weather. But much to my surprise, the areas from above the Bay Bridge to below Hackett’s were pretty much rockfish desert. The thousands of marks I had seen on my finder in previous weeks were no longer there.
Oh, there was a blip here or there. But the fish-rich scene painted by my angler sonar in early May was no longer there, though I searched from the Baltimore Light down south past Tolley’s Point. Questioning fellow anglers later that day confirmed my experience. There were lots and lots of long faces on the second day of the second season.
The problem with stripers, an old waterman had confided, was that the rascals have tails. They can and will often be many miles away within a short time. As there was also no evidence of the gatherings of baitfish that had previously teemed in the mid-Bay, I could only surmise that right around opening day the baitfish had left with the stripers following.
Still, I persevered. Jigging some areas and fishing cut bait in others, I worked for more than six hours to get a single bite. That lone 23-inch rockfish was it for the day.
The meal my wife and I shared that evening was worth every moment it took to acquire it. There is nothing to compare to dining on a rockfish caught the same day.
I managed to score some nice fish later in the week, though rockfish still have not returned in their previous plentitude. I am confident, however, that fishing will continue to improve — but not so confidant that I will tempt the fish gods again by flaunting my plans.