Fishing is a test of patience, when you feel that it is
worthless waiting any longer for a bite, that is when a school of fish is
approaching your very spot. We were off a pier in outer banks for over 6 hours
with no fish to show for it. By that time it was 12:20 at night, and morale was
at an all-time low. I was with my best friend, his dad, and his little brother.
His dad, being an experienced fisherman, was ready to wait until 4 in the
morning if necessary to catch some croaker. So we continued to wait, around 1
in the morning is when the first of many bites would come. An entire school was
feeding right under us, all of our lines were double hooked and we couldn’t
throw them into the water fast enough. For almost an hour we were pulling
croaker two at a time, all of reaching well over 20 fish each. We threw most of
them back but kept the bigger ones for lunch the next day. My friend’s dad
decided that he’d have an experiment with a croaker that was too injured to
survive being thrown back. He turned the fish into chum and threw it all in the
water; we jokingly said we would be catching sharks soon. Croakers are notorious
for putting up a good fight, which makes them so much fun to fish. My next bit
seemed routine enough, a soft nibble and a tug later, I was pulling my line
back up. It wasn’t until I got the fish to the surface that I realized
something was right, the croaker felt way too heavy, my friend looked over the
edge of the pier. He noticed that my croaker had a distinct fin. Turns out the
chum had worked too well, and I had a small reef shark on the other end of my
line. You never know when amazing can happen if you just have the patience to
wait.
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