Skunked with Spamps
Fishing and Failure on Cape Cod
Harry Spampinato is a buddy and fellow outdoor writer; his work stretches from gear reviews in magazines such as “Heavy” to travel articles, most recently in Flylords. He’s also been dating my sister-in-law. So, to not give him any extra ego, he’s saved in my phone as “Spamps”.
As I mentioned before, Harry is a fly angler first and foremost. In the summer, he, like so many Cape Codders, works multiple jobs, including landscaping, kayak tours, and working as a bouncer at one of the local clubs, so timewise his free time coinciding with tides is a little snug on one evening. My family decided that we would get sandwiches and head down to the beach for supper and to watch the tide come in. This gave us about 2 to 2 1/2 hours of sunlight at the beach as well. Harry shot me a message and asked what I was doing since he was off of work. I told him my family’s plan and the location, and he responded that he would meet me down there with his gear. So a few minutes after we confirmed our plan, I was sitting at Surfside, sandwich in hand, with the spinning rod leaning against my chair when Harry and my sister-in-law walked down.
The conditions were not ideal for fly fishing. There was a strong on shore breeze, making casting difficult, adding to a small amount of chop as the tide came in, but we decided, why not? The water is wet. Let’s try some fishing. We walked and waited with the incoming tide, Harry casting a clouser to imitate the silver sides and me winging a half-ounce sand eel imitation.
What made this fishing event so much more exciting was the number of pink lady crabs. Pink lady crabs are a variety of swimming crab that look like a slightly less pokey blue crab, but with pink polka dots. Not only do they swim and occasionally charge, but they spend a majority of their time hiding under the sand and erupting like a creature out of Dune. Harry had a pink lady attack his fly and fight all the way to his hand. It was soft, indicating that it had recently molted. Did I mention there were a lot of crabs around? We think that the soon-to-be full moon triggered a molting cycle in the crabs, who all molted and, as a defensive mechanism, went on the attack. Not only were our toes ambushed by crabs as we walked, but crabs took offense to our presence and would charge across the seabed to pinch our toes and ankles. This made casting a very awkward prospect to attempt, and a very amusing one to witness; seeing a grown man yelp and jump on one foot while halfway through a back cast is funny; having it happen to you is not nearly as fun.
Did we catch anything? No, we did not. But it was an eventful few minutes if nothing else.
Later that week, I was given a tub of flies and random fishing lures that had once belonged to my late mentor Mike. I invited Harry over for deer tacos and to pick through flies that were tied probably two decades ago. Some of these flies were tied for the flats of Chatham. Others were assembled for the bonefish flats of the Bahamas. As the power went out in my neighborhood, we drank beers. We picked through shrimp imitations for permit, wire-leader poppers for bluefish, and wild combinations of beads and feathers tied for such esoteric conditions that an angler anywhere else in the world, but where we grew up fishing, would scratch their head.
