My Journal

What a day today.

Today is the first day I hired my own proctor out of my own pocket after raising my rate. Since Vivian had left, I paid her brother $73 in cash today. If it's not the siblings: Alfred & Jessica, I would have to find some high school / college students from churches or local schools for a lower rate to begin with.

Then, Nadia and I were able to visit Rockaway Beach together for the first time. This is the one in Fort Tilden. I swam still, despite the shocking appearance of a small 4-foot shark last time, only not too far this time. I think that shark was probably caught by some angler who threw it back to sea half conscious. It seemed rather weak.

Anyway, after being brushed by something on my foot near the shore, I immediately realized that I should start setting my fishing rod, which I brought, just in case. The last catch was at Breezy Point and it was just a Sea Robin - useless keeper but plentiful. So, I had almost given up, even with the thought that what brushed my foot was soft but strong enough to be some sort of fish.

Now I've watched John Skinner's shore fishing flukes at Long Island Sound and was intrigued:

So, I tried his method of baiting for Summer Flounders at the shore. I was giving up after a while but then I saw that my fake marinated worm bait's tail has bite marks. So I tried again. There was a stronger pull, but it was let go. I am now convinced that this is a fluke's work. They are good at swimming with the bait when being caught, thereby I would not realize that I've caught anything. This also allows them to free themselves easily.

So, the second time I felt a slight pull, I quickly reeled in and pulled the rod back. However, my line suddenly got caught under the spool. I knew I couldn't wait to fix my line, so I just grab my line and ran back against the sea, not giving the possible fish any chance of escape. Wow...there it was, a not so big flounder. I was excited. It certainly made my day.

But I already knew, from afar, that this is not a keeper. It's against NYC recreational rule to keep a Summer Flounder less than 19 inches long. But I had to show Nadia (And yes, I have the kind of ego that's hoping other strangers, including the angler who's 50 feet away from me to see it too, because he apparently had a bigger fishing rod than me and I don't think he caught anything yet).

I had easily caught some large sand fleas and shown Nadia. Any fisherman knows that the prized fish are either Flounder or Striped Bass. Nevertheless, I had to let it go. I held it in my hand as long as I could, hoping that I could still flash my ego around for others to sea, I really can't tell if anyone else saw it, there might be one or two, but I was wearing goggle, my vision wasn't clear despite the fact that it's a special prescription goggle, due to water marks.

As for why I was wearing goggle. I was trying what I called: Swim Fishing 🙂 It should be self-explanatory. While others were doing conventional fishing - standing on the dry land and casting their long and mighty and probably much much expensive fishing rod, I was jumping in the waters like a sea monkey. From within the shallow end of the water, casting forward, backward, side ways, any way I could. I had planned only to swim in the beginning, remember?

Before the swim, we set up a semi-tent for the first time that Nadia spotted on sales in Costo a few years back:

This is also the second time I noticed someone (a young lady) thought this is a nude beach. Just at 3'clock from our tent in the video. This is the third time I'm at this beach. I also saw a mother took off her cloth playing with her baby boy by the beach the first time I was here. Unlike Brighton Beach which was packed with latinos and blacks, this beach is much less crowded and a haven for what looked like Russians. And the Russians certainly treat their beaches as nude beaches, for toddlers to old old folks.

Anyhow, I'm not here for the nude beach, I was here to swim and catch some fish and maybe fly the drone, which didn't happen today. I wished I could fly the drone above the sea in search of large sea monsters. But time did not allow it.

After coming home, I learned remove the spool by turning the drag. As the cover goes, I could see so many loops of line inside the spool. I had to cut all the tangled line anyway because I don't have time to untangle them. I also checked Fishing4Tides.com, and learned that I was actually fishing at the best moment: 7:30-8:00PM EST as the tides dropped to lowest at 9:16PM. Sun was setting at around 8:07PM. The waves weren't too strong, which was not the case the other times I was here. It was probably 1-3 foot high. Fishing4Tides showed 8-9PM was the time with most fish, it gave 6+ fish icons, that's more than the usual 4 fish icons for most lowest tides.

This has certainly built my confidence in fishing. Were it not for the tangled lines, I might have actually caught a keeper. But then, it could be 9PM by then and I had to face a grumpy wife driving home.