As many of you know, I have four boys. My boys are now pretty much all grown up and range in age from 19 years old to 26. I taught them all to fish when they were young. When they were little, I often took them to a local pond pushing two in a double baby carriage and holding the hands of the other two. They all continued doing it as they grew into adults. Even as adults, they still love to fish with their father. Yes, I am lucky! So, it didn't take much prodding when they called yesterday to see if I wanted to meet three of them along the oceanfront. My son, Matt, drove down from Boston where he lives and works, and my sons, Jon and Ben, live in Narragansett since they are students at URI. My other son, Chris, was in Kansas City for the weekend. You never can get all of them together at once. So, Matt, Jon, Ben, and I headed for one of my favorite spots for an evening of surf fishing for stripers.
We went to a location where I often took them when they were kids. When they were seven or eight years old they could just barely get around in a baggy pair of waders and swinging an eight foot surf rod was a chore. But, they loved wading in the surf, tossing a lure into the waves and battling stripers. It was in their blood. I have photo books of them hauling in some decent fish on the spring runs catching fish that were half as tall as them. It was like deja-vu yesterday.
The fabulous spring run of fish along the RI oceanfront was still in full swing. The three kids were excitedly hauling in striper after striper, sometimes scoring double and triple headers using a teaser rig. The fish were all sizes, ranging from 10 inch schoolies up to keeper fish of 28-30 inches. There were increasing numbers of larger schoolies in the 22-26 inch range. I took pictures in between catching fish.
The four of us landed and incredible number of fish, and yesterday will be remembered as a great fishing day that we'll talk about many times this year when we have family get togethers. Just another memorable day of family fishing in a lifetime of many.
