My dad and my mother had six children, and so for all of us to take a trip to the beach was a big deal.  It took lots of planning, more than a little bit of money and a reliable Ford Station Wagon, with opposing very back seats, which could sit 4 (that’s right) four small children directly across from each other.  The other two children, who were larger sat in the second seat behind the driver’s seat (my dad) where only my mother sat with him while going to the beach.  Sometimes one of the four children in the very back was allowed to sit in the middle seat, but they were regularly disciplined by either me or my sister if they did not behave.  And of course, sometimes the two larger children  (my sister and I) had our turn in the very back seat, just to be fair to all.

My dad normally rented a home at either Ocean Drive or Crescent Beach, but we never stayed more than four days, as that was all we could afford.  But four days is so much better than no days!  And at least once during those four days at the beach, dad would buy Krispy Kreme donuts.  No one ever got more than one, but I guess mom and dad ate the last two, or perhaps one of my sisters, who were known to sneak things when no one was looking.

My dad loved to fish, and so one of the high points of our week, besides playing in the ocean was going fishing on the pier.  Ocean Drive had a pier at that time, and so he would pay for himself and for me and my two brothers to fish off the pier.  We brought our own reels, so the only expense was the bait, which I think generally was some kind of cut fish.  However, one time I got to fish with live shrimp and hooked a huge drum in about 2-3 feet of water, but it got off before we could lower the net under him.

One summer, my dad proposed something rather exciting.  He proposed that his dad come with us to the beach to fish off the ocean pier.  Now, Grandpa had never seen the ocean, having lived in small towns in North Carolina for his entire life.  So not only would he see the ocean for the first time, but he would get to fish in the ocean, too!

Grandpa’s fishing consisted of going to some small creeks when as a boy he caught ‘suckers’ and ‘bream’ and later he fished a lot in the carp lakes, where you paid to fish and if you got really lucky you could even win the ‘jackpot’ .  The jackpot was often around $200, a sum so magnificent at the time, as it was equal to four or five weeks of wages at the mill. This was a dream come true if you could catch a carp large enough to win it, at least twenty to twenty-two pounds, of which only one was ever placed in the carp lake.  So the day this carp was caught was akin to the coming of Jesus and might portend the end of the world as we know it!  I thought I caught the jackpot fish once myself, on my Zebco 33 reel, and the owner of the lake said if I got that fish in I would have the jackpot, but the fish outwitted me and swam beside a stump about 3 foot from the bank, pulled out the hook, and my hopes sank as I realized that fish was gone forever!

On the way to the beach with Grandpa (Grandma said she wanted to stay at home), we discussed all the different kinds of fish he might catch in the ocean.  Oh, it was a glorious time, and by the time we got to the Ocean Drive Pier on the first full day of our vacation, we were all hot with excitement to see what Grandpa might catch.  We let he and my dad do most all the fishing that first morning, and we played an excellent support crew for both of them.

My grandpa almost immediately hooked a fish, on the first cast.  So excitedly, he pulled it in and placed it down on the pier floor for all to see.  It was a type of fish I had never seen before, an ugly brown color and as we watched it puffed up into a somewhat rounded form as if it was trying to explode!  My dad called it “a blow fish”, or a “puffer fish” and told his dad it was “a trash fish”, so he quickly threw it back in the ocean.  My dad told him, “There are a lot of better fish out there to catch than that kind of fish!”

So we watched with excitement as the hook was re-baited and thrown back into the water.  The hook sat in the water a little while longer, but soon enough, my grandfather’s reel was screaming from the line being torn off in a great hurry.  Gleefully, I watched as he jerked to set the hook and begin to reel the fish in.  This fish put up a much better fight and it took a good while to get this one in to the pier.  As he drew the fish up over the railing, my dad suddenly got real serious and told us “Get back!  Get back now!”  So we moved back a few more feet and waited.  To our great surprise, this “fish” was “not a fish at all”, but instead was a sting ray!  Now, I had heard of these terrible creatures, even as a young boy, so I quickly told my two brothers to stay back as this thing has “a terrible sting in its tail”.  You could hear them both gasp as I said it and we watched to see what was going to happen.

My dad helped place the sting ray in the middle of the pier floor and waited until it quit flopping around too much.  Then, borrowing a knife from another fisherman he quickly reached down and cut off the stingray’s tail.  Apparently, this is the way to disarm one of these things and made it unable to hurt anyone.  Poor fish, I thought, but then my dad scooped it up with a net and summarily threw it over the side of the pier back in the ocean.

My grandfather looked a little stunned!  He had now caught two “fish” from the deep blue green ocean, but neither one had been any fish at all.  My dad looked a little puzzled, too, but I listened as he and Grandpa discussed the matter and after some time, he baited up Grandpa’s hook and told him to throw it into the ocean again.

Surely, we all thought, the third time will be the charm.  This time we waited a good bit longer, but sure enough, after a while my Grandpa hooked another fish.  This one, however, did not behave as a fish should.  Instead of coming straight into the pier, it swam up the pier near all the large pilings and then when it got to the end of the pier, it turned back and swam down the pier on the same side again.  By this time other fisherman were starting to complain that something was “in their line”.

My dad told my Grandpa Wilson to reel the thing in quickly, so he did, but with this strange fish my Grandpa brought in about 25 other fishing lines all at the same time.  In the middle of this large knot (and believe you me it was a large knot of lines) was something I at first thought was a snake.  But my dad started muttering, “An eel!  My God, he has caught an eel!”

Somehow, as this eel swam up the pier and then back down the pier, it had managed to take my Grandpa’s line and bring it under and then around on top all these other lines which all came up when the eel came up on to the top of the pier.  I shall never forget it, it was about 12-14 inches long, about an inch in diameter, and brown.

My dad proceeded to try and untangle all these other fisherman’s line, and finding he could not as long as the eel was in the middle of these lines, he had to slice the eel into small slivers to get it out of the interior of the knot of lines and what seemed like an eternity of time finally sliced the whole thing up and managed to untangle the lines.  He and my Grandpa apologized profusely to a whole group of fisherman that day and I could tell they both had had enough for that day of fishing on the pier.

So as we went back to the rental home rather dejected in the car, as a whole group no one had caught a real fish for the whole morning.  So I asked my Grandpa Wilson what he thought about fishing in the ocean.  He was somewhat philosophical and said, “Well, I am really happy to be able to come and see the ocean with you boys and all the family.  But let me tell you, I don’t think I am going to come back and fish in the ocean anymore.”  I asked him why, and he said, “Well, as near as I can tell, there are no fish in the ocean!”  “I am going back to fish in the carp lakes at home, where at least I know what I am going to catch.”

Now I thought about this a long time ever since then.  My grandfather never went back to the ocean and never fished there ever again.  He continued to fish and enjoyed catching a lot more carp and other small fish at home.

His words still ring in my ears; “As far as I can tell, there are no fish in that ocean!”  And yet, to this day, I go and fish in the ocean almost every year.  And while I do catch some things that don’t fit in the category of “a real fish”.  Yet, I am always excited and surprised to catch something every time I go.

I guess I have always wished he and I, my dad and my brothers and my family could do that trip over again.  Next time, I am sure, Grandpa will catch a real fish in the ocean and at least prove to himself that there are a few fish still in there that can be caught from the deep, blue sea.