The Auction

Monday, September 3, 2007
Labor Day.

Today’s charter was really not a true charter but a donation to the Duxbury Art’s Association – a very worthy cause. I had offered a charter in their silent auction and it raised some money and that is great. I attended the party one cool evening in August and, of course, knew one of my auction winners: Brian M. His friend, Bern, offered the highest bid and the two of them were on me for the date of our excursion. I knew Brian, faintly, from our college years. He and I lived in the same dorm during freshman year at UVM – back in 1984 (he was on Patterson 2nd and I was on Patterson 4th). And although we weren’t friends back then, we shared the same friends and as a result, as adults, there was a kindred connection of sorts.

But Brian and Bern knew the bay and knew it well. And this was a mental challenge for me because many of the spots I took them to were ones already familiar to them. So, we met up nice and early at the town dock (I required 15 minutes to clean the oyster mud off the boat) and off we went. I knew it might be a hard morning because the weather had just changed. It was cool and the wind was forecast to pick up from the west/southwest. And it did, and this pushed the fish down. But not before we hit some nice rips that held some decent sized stripers. Brian’s largest was 28” and he released it. Bern and Brian both hooked up on several Saquish-area rips but then as the day wore on the fish thinned out and the wind picked up.

It wasn’t the best day of fishing, but also not the worst. The three of us did have fun with stories; new and old. And I scored some extra coffee as Bern’s Dunkin Donuts clerk accidentally doubled his order. Brian is a big, newly converted, live pogy man and he impressed me with his accounts of hooking into large fish in the channel and other parts of the bay. I see him regularly out there netting the baitfish and on one occasion (see a future post) he scooted up to offer a live one to me as a gift. Great guys and skilled fishermen.