I've always wanted to have a family beach day where we also bring rods and fish on the side. Unfortunately, every attempt has turned into a beach day with excess stuff to carry. Lately my son has shown a increase interest in fishing, so with all the scouting I've done, I took them to Del Mar because good structure also makes great swimming pools. I made my whole family wear polarized sunglasses while we were wading so they could see the fish cruising in the trough around us and understand why I am so obsessed with fishing the SoCal surf. This got my son excited, so we rigged up his Spiderman spincaster with a sandcarb and he started casting away. With a casting distance of only about 20 feet, I knew the likelihood of him catching anything was nill, but he was enjoying himself. As I stood back and watched, another father-son fishing duo started creeping closer, so to keep them at a distance, I rigged up my spinning rod with sand crab on a size 6 hook about 16" from a splitshot.
As the wave came over the trough, I spotted a silver figure swimming towards my left, so I lobbed the bait in that general direction, praying that it would sink somewhere near where that fish was going to be. A few seconds later, the line came taught and started pulling drag. I yelled at my wife, who came running down, camera in hand with my daughter and her friends all crowding around. In a stupid haste, I handed my rod to my son and threw his on the ground. Together, we started reeling in the mystery, his 6-year-old strength barely able to get a single turn on the reel handle. Of course, his Spiderman line got tangled with mine and get reeled into my spool. I panic, and try to keep reeling in, hopefully my line and can just "lie over" his... as if that would work. Thankfully, the handle won't turn, so I just stand there, fish on, keeping tension, while I clear my head. I tell my wife to go back to our spot on the beach and get my nippers (lesson learned, always keep your gear on you), while I start to pull the tangle out of my reel by hand. I'm able to get it out of my spool, and for what seemed like an eternity, wait for my wife to return. She runs up with my bag, extends the nippers, offering to cut any line I tell her to. I couldn't let her be responsible for losing the first good family fish we caught, so I hand her the rod, and start meticulously start trimming away at tangle, careful to pocket all the nylon trimmings in front of onlookers. The tangle clears, and my wife hands me back the rod.
By now, the fish is exhausted from being hooked for an extended period of time. I pass the rod off to my son to finish the job, and as he reels in, I see a broad silver panel with a big black dot in the middle. We take pictures with my third and biggest spotfin ever, the kids pet it while it revived in waves, and then we sent it off, fulfilling a bucket list item: making family memories fishing at the beach.
... Look at his smile...
