paddlefishing

One of my favorite lessons as parent is that a child’s unbridled curiosity is happier than the child on your agenda; early on I learned to kiss the schedule goodbye in his wake. So a fishing trip, no matter how hopeful, is just a trip to the water with poles and tacklebox in the background. The scene’s wide open, this way.

We took the whole family out again down at Moss Landing. Seti at the helm was restless and he bailed around sunset onto an island in the middle of nowhere on the scent of some crab.

Beached flats of dried, matted thalassia makes excellent cover for young crabs (and, as it happens, super-soft emergency toilet paper! Ask Chas).

While Damon and Ford paddled on, Chas and Seti and I lingered on the island.

The breeze, the clicking symphony of crustaceans, the ducks and gulls, the passenger train in the distance heading to Oakland full of waving children, and Chas, singing his own song: that’s a priceless soundtrack for an evening of marsh-walking atop crunchy saltgrass in the sunset.

Sure, we took that handmade net with us fishing last weekend in Elkhorn Slough, just in case we needed it. I took an obligatory photo of it, in fact, just to show that I’d remembered to bring it. But we never got a bite. Turns out, according to the locals, the best fishing here is done during the wee hours, when it’s all black and glassy out on the water.

In preparation for all that fun (night fishing?! Leopard sharks?! Bat rays?! Hello summer!) Ford practiced casting for a few hours and lo, the boy can cast a line. He’s amazing.
And look what another year has given us? A “new” paddler at the helm!

Hope the fishing has been good for you, too!