In the Morning Light

In the Morning Light
July 9, 2002
J. Glenn Eugster
Fontna Free Press





















In July of 1960 my father, Joseph, took me surf-fishing off the coast of Long Island just below Orient, NY.  I was twelve at the time I was awakened at a God-awful hour by my father and told "It's time to go."  Dazed and confused, I pulled on some clothes, drank some fresh squeezed orange juice-with pulp and seeds that was left by my mother, and climbed into a 1957, green, Chevy station wagon.

We made our way in the dark and dead of night, driving with little conversation nearly twenty-six miles to a remote and rural area near Orient, NY.  Along the way my father and I stopped for coffee.  Although I didn't drink coffee, my father handed me a cup and said, "Here, this is for you."

The coffee was with milk and sugar, very hot and definitely helped me stay awake.  The radio played a combination of news reports and music, none of which made the long drive memorable.  As the coffee kicked-in and the radio continued to intrude on the scene, we arrived near a dirt road next to a farm field.  My father carefully parked the car in a small pull-off near the tree line and said, "Let's go."

We pulled our hip-boots on and then removed the nearly ten-foot long surf rods from the back of the wagon.  Throwing old army bags, packed neatly with fishing gear, over our shoulders we quickly finished the coffee, locked the car and clumped-off down the farm road.

The farm road quickly disappeared into the trees and a canopy formed over our heads. It was dark, somewhat cooler than the open field, but yet a bit humid.  As we clumped-clumped-clumped along, our boots making a strange noise, we walked quickly in silence passing through a variety of micro climates.  Despite the darkness the forest was cool in places, warm in others.  We passed through a wet area that filled the space with a rich, almost sweet, almost sour smell, which was different from anything I ever smelled.

Before too long we came to the end of the road and the forest.  The beach and Long Island Sound was suddenly before us as the ground changed from soil to sand and the clumps turned to softer thumps. "This way," my father said, as we walked to our left along the shoreline that was filled with fist-sized cobblestones that moved when you stepped on them.

The waters of the Sound had a rolling quality to them.  The sea wasn't rough but it moved with power and grace, waves regularly washing far up on the shore, retreating with a long-whoosh through the cobblestones, before returning from the shore.  The tide was almost high and that meant "Good fishing," according to my father.  Obviously, I thought, Dad has done this before and he appears to be fairly good at it. "Quite impressive," I said to myself, somewhat surprised by the skill I was unaware of.

We stopped and my father helped me with my lure and offered some simple instructions. "Throw the plug out beyond the waves and reel it in slowly," he said as he walked off down the shore to cast from another spot. 

The beach was in darkness and now I was left alone, half excited and half wondering what I was doing there at that hour.  I started lobbing long-casts out toward the breakers, increasing the distance each time until he reached a rhythm that felt right for my strength and expectation of the instructions I had been given.

As we cast into the surf, we walked ever-so-slowly each time we threw our lure into the Sound.  Patiently we moved down the shoreline, casting out, reeling in, casting out, reeling in, again, and again.  Once we reached a certain point on the beach, known only to my father, we started back working the same rhythm and routine.

"I’ve got one," yelled my father, as he reeled in faster and with a joy that livened up the dark beach.  He had hooked a striped bass and was bringing it in.  It would be the first of several he would catch that night.  All of the fish were more than twenty pounds, beautifully textured, and alive with a fight.  They would be brought home, cleaned by my mother, and eaten by that part of the family that liked fish.

As the fishing continued daybreak was arriving just as the tide was at its highest point.  With the sky starting to lighten I hooked my first and only fish.  The end of the long pole jumped and I felt the fish take the plug and try to swim in the direction of Connecticut.  The pole that had been a tool of tedium had now become an extension of me and the fish.  It was in fact the connection between a struggling boy and striped bass.

As I reeled in the fish, it broke out of one of the waves that surged toward the shore, spit the hook, and vanished as quickly as it hit the plug.  "I had one!’ I said with as much pride as disappointment. ”Wow, I had a big stripper," I said in the direction of my father, but as much to myself as anyone.  Despite losing the fish, I felt electric throughout my body and realized what the point of getting up in the middle of the night to go fishing was.

The sun rose and it was time to get on with the rest of the day.  My father would have to be at the Southold Bohack-the food store where he worked by 8:00 a.m. and I had lawns to mow and other odd jobs for an assortment of neighbors.  We walked along the shore, through the woods, and back to the car.  All the way we talked of the fish we caught, the beach, the waves, the tide, the forest, and occasionally about the one that got away.

The drive back was alive with the events of that morning, more coffee for me, and a Rheingold beer, or two, for my father.  For my father it was another day of fishing, something he did before and would do many times after.  It was part of the reason he and my mother had decided to move to this remote and rural outpost.  For me it was the first, and only, opportunity to surf cast with my father.  It was a night like no other before or since, fish, or no-fish!