I’ve been trading emails this month with an angler in Philadelphia named John Meisel. He’s fished the derby for 20 years, most recently with a gang of false albacore addicts who call themselves “The Lighthouse Boys” after the Edgartown landmark where they met in 2000. John sent along his favorite derby tale (with, I should add, the full permission of his buddy):
“Fishing it hard all day doesn’t keep some of the Lighthouse Boys from hitting the bars in Edgartown hard at night. Pete McChesney, one of the founding members of the Lighthouse Boys, is never one to back away from a big fish or a tall glass. One night, we went out to a bar to have a little rum and celebrate a good day of fishing and catching. Later, Pete and a couple of the other boys went out and had a few more pops, and apparently met up with a bachelorette party. One thing led to another, and Pete ended up dancing on the bar with the maid of honor and didn’t get home until a couple of hours before it was time to get up for the morning Lighthouse session.
“I was the first to arrive at the Lighthouse around 5 a.m., and I secured the point as I always do with a dozen Dippin Donuts in hand. A little while later, the other boys started to stagger in, a little bit wrecked, and told me not to expect Pete. Lo and behold, a couple hours later he wandered down the beach and told us he felt so bad he couldn’t stand up. So he took a little nap in the beach grass.
“After the morning session was over, we contemplated our next move and decided on Wasque Point. As soon as we arrived Pete found a place along the edge of the berm and pulled up the hood on his slicker. He must have been asleep for an hour or more because he was half-covered in sand.
“The fishing was slow that afternoon, but a couple of the boys and I kept the faith and cast away. I decided to switch over from a Maria to a MegaBait, and as soon as I cast out that mackerel pattern, wham! I was on to a fish! I started shouting, ‘I’m on, I’m on!’ The boys started casting furiously into the rip. I guess I shouted loud enough that I actually woke up the sandman, Pete, who was rolling over and blinking his eyes to see what was going on. Never one to be left out of any action, Pete got to his feet, grabbed his rod, staggered to the wash and managed a half-assed cast into the rip. A couple of cranks and bam! He was on.
“This fish was big, and Pete sobered up in a hurry.
“When he got down to the last few wrappings on his spool, we knew this story was going to have a hell of an ending. Like his drinking, Pete is a pro at playing albies and he fought this fish to perfection. When he got it into the wash, we could tell by the height of the dorsal and the thickness of the shoulders that his albie was well into the teens. As it turned out, the fish weighed over 11 pounds and put Pete in third place on the big board, where it stayed until the last week of the derby, when he was bumped by an 11.5 pound fish. But he did win a weekly prize and cemented his ‘Lighthouse Boy’ status for hard drinking and (sometimes) hard fishing.”
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Nice blog, I’m surprised that there’s no other comments.
Will spread the word for you!