The second time, I caught what we think was a Pinfish, roughly ten or eleven inches long, and I have no idea how much it weighed. I was fishing with the grandson of some friends of ours, (his name is Sean) and we had failed to bring even a cellphone camera to record our catch before we released it. This also explains why I said earlier "...what we think was a pinfish..." We were standing there trying to remove the hook from this poor fish's mouth but had no tools with which to accomplish it--no pliers, no knife, nothing. Consequently we were holding the fish out of water while we tugged this way and that on the hook, then placing it back in the water for fifteen seconds or so to allow it to breathe, then removing it again to tug on the hook, then dropping it back in the water to breathe. It was the man-to-fish version of water boarding. I think that this fish would have gladly spilled its guts if we spoke fish.
In the end, we broke the line by getting it caught on a rock while the fish was on one of its brief returns to the water to catch its breath. I lost the little jig we were using, but I think the fish escaped alive. I am sure there is some knowledgeable fish out there that can show ours how to remove hooks. I know, you probably think that makes the fish smarter than we are. But, hey, I didn't bite on the hook trying to nibble on an earthworm, did I?
We were still pretty darn thrilled to haul in what was probably the first fish I caught all by myself in more than fifty years. I only know of our family vacation in Eagle River, Wisconsin because my older siblings talk about it, and they think I probably fished up there when I was five or six. If I didn't actually catch any fish at that time, then this was probably the first time I ever caught a fish all by myself in my lifetime.
We confidently strode out the next day, allowing my friends' grandson the majority of the casts so he could catch one. All we caught was flak from a security guard who walked up and told us we were fishing in a place where fishing was not permitted. He was nice enough and said he didn't see where were causing any trouble, so we could stay a while longer if we liked. I thanked him and told him we wanted Sean to catch up with me on fish catching, and we tried for little while longer without success.
I've been doing some research on public use and access to coastal waters and the land beneath and adjacent to them, and I'm beginning to think we can safely ignore the security guards in the future. We might have to step below the high tide mark, but private owners are not allowed to regulate access to the land beneath navigable coastal waters, in the Supreme Court ruling on the delightfully-named State v. Pacific Guano Co. The justice writing for the court said “In South Carolina, the state owns the property below the high water mark of a navigable stream. This property is part of the Public Trust. The legislation creating the Coastal Council and defining its duties, while not explicit, implicitly charges the Coastal Council with administering the Public Trust lands in connection with coastal waterways.” What this says to me is that the State, and not the private property owners run the show where we were fishing. I'm not sure how much of a battle I want to wage here, but at least I know it's not so simple as the condo or the property owners' association putting up a "No Fishing" sign to stop us from fishing there. I wonder if my copy of the Supreme Court ruling will fit in my tackle box?
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