The 3rd of the 7th

Cook out!

The sun has just peaked up over the corn and soybean fields of the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake as I quietly slip along the dock.  Waiting at the end is a sleek 30 foot Aquasport, center console, with an inboard/outboard engine (an IO).   Even though it is early July there is a slight film of dew on everything and the air smells of cleanliness and salt.

My mission is simple.  Catch a few stripped bass for a cookout on the fourth.  Normally, a day for hamburgers and hot dogs....ours will be stripper, perch, crab, clams and shrimp done up on the grill.  Side all that with fresh sweet corn, tomatoes, and watermelon and you gotta wonder how the other half lives.  Sprinkle in family and a few friends and it doesn't get any better than that.

I ease away from the dock toward the dark western shore and past the anchored hoard of sailboats spending the night in protected waters.  The bay is a sheet of Mylar that promises temperatures close to the century mark later in the day.  Swan Creek has no traffic other than a waterman or two headed out to tend crab pots.  I'll stop one later to purchase a bushel of the Chesapeake Bay's blue gold.  But for now my nine foot fly rod is fully loaded and I looking for the gulls that accompany fish feeding on the surface.

I am on cruise control as I leave Swan Point in a direct line south to the mouth of the Chester and Love Point.  Off to the southwest lies the bay bridge.  At any moment, I could see the tell tale swirl of large fish chasing small fish.  The sign that the catch will be on.  I am not looking for the large fish they catch off Montauk or Cape Cod Bay.  But a few four and five pounders that are the best eating outside a fine Charleston restaurant.

My first cast is just off shore of Hickory Thicket.  The fish are driving alewives towards the flats at Eastern Neck Island and an occasional bucket sized swirl is my casting target.  The first fish is on just as a crimson line sneaks over the black shore line and I am fast to a charging, diving, delicacy of the deep.  The only sounds are the sea gulls alerting each other to the meal at hand and the wine of my fly line screaming off the real.

Quickly there are four fish in the keeper.  My fly needs repair and I now have to opportunity to cruise back to the dock at a slower pace.  Taking in all the scenes with which I grew up.  Pound nets with blue herons, egrets, and cormorants looking for a free meal.  Osprey screaming to mates on some distant nest.  Eagles patrolling for a fish too close to the surface.  Pods of bait fish circling in the shallows.  Crabs skittering across the glassy surface with a mate in tow.  A waterman working his crab pots in eight feet of water.  The sail boaters are still asleep and the sound of lines slapping mast as the boat rocks is everywhere.  At this place, at this time, all is right with the world.

You need to click on the links in the text to see the purdy pichurs.