Attempting to Fish While Windsurfing ~ Ted Avellone

As both an avid fisherman and a windsurfer I’ve long mused on how to simultaneously combine these fun water-related hobbies.  One of the challenges to this titillating idea is that you kind of need both arms to windsurf but you also pretty much need both arms to fish.  Despite being bad at math I was vaguely aware that this meant I was short approximately two entire arms necessary to accomplish this goal.  But, figured I, maybe all that was really needed was for me to ignore such minor details and to instead think positively and adopt a can-do attitude.  After all, with good old American ingenuity and a can-do attitude we beat the Axis and put a man on the moon, so with a can-do attitude maybe I could figure out how to sail with one arm and fish with the other.  Maybe this could be plausibly accomplished, figured I, with the clever use of a harness and using a small rod & reel. 

Over the course of many months this dream lay dormant but alive, ever working within the dim recesses of my subconscious mind.

Then one day a few weeks ago, while slowly driving through my neighborhood the day before large-item garbage pickup when I’d routinely examine piles of junk for potentially useful items I might want to throw in the back of my truck (to join with the other potentially useful items piled under the hedges of my back yard), I came upon such a pile and spied one of those cheap little rod & reel combos for kids.  A lightbulb instantly went off in my head as I jammed on the brakes—this was perfect!  I jumped out and grabbed it; it was a pink My Little Pony-themed specimen in nearly perfect condition, complete with line.  Reminiscent of the old Popeil Pocket Fisherman devices advertised in 1970’s TV commercials, these kiddie rods just might get the job done, figured I.  With the Smith regatta quickly approaching I knew I had to come up with a plan to somehow use it during—yes during--a race. 

With the dream no longer dormant the physical engineering phase sprang into being, albeit rushed as the regatta was only a couple of days away.  I made a wrist-strap for it by drilling a hole in the base of the rod’s handle and running a long zip-tie through it making a large loop.  I then tied a swivel and jig on the end of the line and attached a Z-Man tan rubber shrimp with a bright yellow tail on the jig head.  In a flash of prescient wisdom I took a pair of pliers and squeezed the hook’s barb flat against the shaft so that anything the jig’s needle-sharp hook might penetrate could be withdrawn much more easily than had the barb remained.  I then hung the jig’s hook on one of the line guides on the tiny rod and wound the reel’s flimsy handle a few turns to put some tension on the line so as to hold the hook in place on the guide.  I quickly noticed the janky nature of the cheap reel’s anti-reverse mechanism—it sometimes worked but seemed to have a tendency to back off a little without warning.  And because the stubby rod didn’t have much flex in it, if the tension of the line relaxed even a little the jig would be liable to fall out of its captive guide.  Realizing that worrying about such inconsequential things was in direct opposition to a can-do attitude, I decided not to worry about it.  There was no time to test it out; all I knew was that I would be able to have a small, complete fishing rig on my person as I headed out on my board for the race.  I’d just figure it out as I went.  No worries.  Can do!  The dream was certain to manifest into final reality.  Would the first fish be a trout?  Perhaps a mackerel! 

The day of the race came.  It was a beautiful sunny day, with relatively mild but slowly increasing wind with seas a light chop.  After hauling my gear to the beach, I rigged up my sail, attached it to my board, and slipped the zip-tie loop holding the My Little Pony rod & reel setup over my wrist.  Off I went! 

The first inkling of a potential issue became apparent soon after I had pulled up my sail and got underway.  I quickly realized that even when the board, boom and sail seemed relatively steady as I traveled along, if there is an object loosely attached to your wrist by its base and that object is long with its center of mass close to your wrist, the slightest movement of any of those parts will cause that object, especially the tip of its light end, to flail around with alarming velocity in random, unpredictable directions.  As I continued on I discovered to my dismay that some of those directions were towards my upper thighs, which brought the midsection of the rod, where the jig was held in the guide, slapping against them … and against the zone where my thighs joined.  An immediate sense of concern shot to the forefront of my mind as this flailing and slapping continued.  Mere seconds later my concern turned to dread and impending horror as the tip of the jig’s needle-sharp hook, still in the rod’s guide, pierced the fabric of my swim trunks and entered the flesh of my thigh and stuck there. 

They say we actually use only about 10% of our brains on any given day.  But on that day, at that moment, my brain kicked into full gear and was 100% engaged in preparation for dealing with this new, unexpected, and highly concerning situation.  Einstein’s theory of relativity suddenly seemed simple, and I realized I was now somehow fluent in French, as evidently all the information from my high school French classes which had been filed away in dusty forgotten corners of my brain were now fully activated along with everything else. 

In addition to reflecting on the simplicity of Einstein’s theory and the rich beauty of the French language, my brain immediately set to orchestrating the multitudinous calculations associated with controlling the 825 muscle movements per second my body required for balance, working the boom just so, and trimming the sail thusly, while simultaneously contorting myself in an attempt to get the hook un-stuck from my thigh.

Within seconds, I was unhooked!  Success!  Yet my sense of relief was short-lived; within moments my recent concern transformed into a sense of abject horror--it so happened that the act of detaching the jig from my thigh had inadvertently caused the hook to come out of its guide, and now the leaden jig with its insidious curved steel lance was wildly swinging about on the end of the line like the head of one of those fan-powered inflatable tubular dummies you see on the sides of the road in front of used car lots.  The diabolical flailing jig head was indiscriminately wrapping around one leg then another, then flipping up between my legs and hitting me on my backside, and then randomly knocking into the mast and sail and back again.  I realized that as long as whatever part of my body the jig touched remained perfectly still while it was touching me, the hook’s point would not sink into my flesh.  But how long could I keep that up while standing on the board as it rocked, yawed and pitched on the waves?  What if the hook stuck onto a sensitive body part and the line wrapped around something and in a panic I fell, causing the hook to sink deep into a sensitive area as I lay shrieking on the deck in a trilling soprano wail and convulsing in agony?  Happening to glance down for a moment I noticed the My Little Pony sticker on the kiddie reel; no longer appearing as a child’s cute fantasy animal, the equine’s huge eyes seemed to be wildly rolling, its nostrils flaring, and its open laughing mouth revealing a sinister ivory rictus, looking more like a mount fit for a ring-wraith than a silly plush toy.  The rubber shrimp itself on the whirling jig seemed to be happily going along for the wild deadly ride like a tiny Slim Pickens astride the falling nuclear bomb in the movie “Dr. Strangelove.”  Did I see a tiny cowboy hat in one of the fake arthropod’s waving rubber arms?  I was at the brink of insanity.  Beads of sweat formed on my brow; visions of me living the rest of my life as a eunuch flashed before my mind’s eye ….      

At this moment my brain shifted into a state of super-activation.  While working out what to do next I casually reflected with mild amusement that the Langlands Program, the Riemann hypothesis, and String theory seemed like mere child’s play.  I also noted in my peripheral awareness that I could telepathically “hear” in my mind a passing dragonfly chattering in insect-speak something akin to “no mosquitos here; no females here; I move on!”  Getting to the immediate matter at hand however, my brain concluded that what I needed to do in order to deactivate this horrific threat was to sever the line and jettison the potentially emasculating jig away from me.  Aware I had no knife, my brain instantly reached far back into Neanderthal legacy-memories hidden deep within our psyches for an immediate solution for cutting something not unlike a fiber of mammoth sinew.  As my mind’s eye dimly beheld a resplendent expanse of late-Pleistocene savannah dotted with mammalian megafauna the answer burst into my consciousness in the form of a grunting, guttural thought-word I’d never heard before but which I somehow knew meant “use teeth.”  In a flash I shot back to the present, quickly grabbed the line between the rod tip and the insidious flailing potentially emasculating jig, deftly bit the monofilament line in half with my canine teeth, and flung the jig far to windward ….

A seagull’s cry pierced through the warm humid air over Shell Point Beach channel.  I found myself idly wondering if the hamburgers would be ready when we got back, and whether I should have put on sunscreen before I left, and whether I should mow the grass when I got home or should I wait until after it rains?  Yes, with the imminent threat now over my brain had reverted to its previous state.  The only French I could now recall was “filet mignon” and “voulez vous coucher avec moi” from that 70’s song.  I knew that multiplying fractions was far beyond my math abilities, and my sailing skills again became clumsy and inefficient.  The little pink My Little Pony rod, now neutered of its potentially emasculating character, dangled harmlessly on my wrist. 

Yet somewhere in the back of my subconscious mind I could still sense that the dream remained, and that new potential solutions were already being silently worked out.  Maybe the answer lies in some sort of trolling system, perhaps with jig-tipped lines trailing from the end of the boom, or the mast tip itself, or perhaps my ankle.  Yes, it seems plausible!

What could go wrong?