A typical day in mid June….

It’s 3:00 AM and my alarm hasn’t gone off yet, I quietly slip out of bed so I don’t wake my wife and down the stairs to the kitchen where I make a quick coffee. I grab a few things and go jump in my truck, my trailer is already attached and head for Mashpee Mobil station, where I’ll top off my tank and get a fresh coffee. I get to the Falmouth boat ramp around 4:30, I’m the first person there today. I back the boat in and tie it off to the dock, get it started and turn on all the electronics, including the radio, which is already alive with the Woods Hole draggers BS’ng about this and that. I park my truck as another guy who is like me, a commercial hook fisherman that trailers his boat, pulls into the ramp area ready to launch too, we chat a minute and I head down to the boat to go to work.

It’s a decent AM and the ride to the fluke is only 6 miles, about a 15 minute ride, the sun is peaking over the horizon behind me and birds are playing on the water along the way. The MV ferry, Island Home is moving across the sound headed for Woods Hole, I slow for it’s wake. When I get to the shoal I am going to fish, the tide is running East so I go to the West end of it and set the rods out and begin a drift. The first drift is good, 26 fish, mostly mediums, a few selects, but when I make the same drift again, only 7 fish this time so I go looking around a bit. I settle on a spot and it yields another 44 fish after 3 long drifts, now the tides letting go so it’s time to eat breakfast and cut baits etc., to be ready for the next tide. By the time the west tide gets rolling it’s 9:30 and theres a fresh breeze building from the SW, the drifts are stalled by the wind so the fishing is slow, it takes me till 12:00 PM to get the rest of my limit of 200 pounds.The ride in is slower than the ride out was, the tide is aginst me and the wind has built a nice roll going past Nobska, which slows me down even more, by the time I get back to the ramp it’s already 1 o’clock and the docks are alive with tourists, I can hear the dull roar of the Route 28 traffic a few blocks away. The ride back home is stressful, bumper to bumper traffic with a 22′ boat in tow isn’t much fun. By the time I get home it’s 2:30 and I unhook the boat, get all the fluke out of my chill tank with a net and pack them into 2 totes with plenty of ice for the ride to meet the fish truck in Hyannis at the Ocean Street dock.

The Truck isn’t at the dock when I get there and only one of the draggers who will take out to it are waiting, which means the other boats either got out late or are having trouble getting their 300 pounds, yes, the draggers are allowed to take 300, they petitioned the DMF succesfully, in 1997 to reduce the hook limit to 200 pounds and it’s been that way ever since. I’ll have to wait for the truck.,,Eventually the truck and the other boats show up and we take out one at a time and take some ice for tomorrow. By the time I get home, It’s 5:45, almost time to go back to bed………I’ll repeat this process similarly for four more days, until Friday, when we are not allowed to fish, but do you think I can sleep? I need to change my racor, figure out why my fish finder keeps turning off every time I key my microphone and change the oil in my truck, maybe I can sleep Saturday?

This is a typical day for me for the last twenty years.

There’s a lot more scenarios I live besides this, I”l get into those in future post’s……..

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