Vacation Time
A return to Cape Cod
At the time of this posting, I will be on a long-overdue vacation. I will be taking two weeks early to drive my family up to Massachusetts to celebrate the Fourth of July. The Fourth of July is a mainstay holiday for my Bay State family. My great-aunt has been putting on a Fourth of July parade in her neighborhood for more than 40 years, and she's over 90. She leads the parade from her house near the beach down and around the neighborhood block before returning to the backyard where food from the entire family has been prepared and laid out several watermelons will have been sectioned and carved multiple types of salads will be laid out hot dogs, hamburgers, marinated shrimp kebabs that my father and mother have perfected the recipe 20 years ago one that is still feverishly consumed by all in attendance. Joyce’s little parade that started as a way to have the kids burn off energy, waving flags and dragging a boom box playing patriotic tunes on a western flyer wagon has become a major event with more than 100 people from the nearly 5 generations of Bissell decendannts as well as local beachgoers, neighbors, the local police, and the fire department often lending vehicles to the parade as well.
This is an event that I have not attended in more than a decade. The logistics of driving or flying from my previous home in Florida to Massachusetts, along with the fact that the service industry doesn’t often allow workers to take holidays like the Fourth of July off.
The job I have currently gives me a bunch of holidays off, plus I have a healthy amount of accrued leave; so what am I doing? What are my plans besides the Fourth of July in the birthplace of America?
Well, it should be no surprise. I’m going fishing.
I have three trips planned so far.
Flies on the flats
First off, I'll be joining a friend and fellow writer, Harry Spampinato, on the Brewster Flats, trying to get my first striped bass on a fly. The Brewster flats are my childhood stomping grounds. The miles of sandy tidal flats create dynamic waterways where striped bass can gorge on sandeels and seaworms. With a tidal change of around 10 feet across nearly 12000 acres of flats, we have plenty of options for where to hunt for skinny water fish. Harry has been putting big striped bass on the sand this season, and his dedication to the fly means I won't be allowed to so much as think of picking up spinning gear while I'm out there. I am prepared to be both frustrated and humbled.
Kids trip
My old fishing buddy, Gary, will be down for the fourth, too. Grammie B is gone, but Garry picked up a smaller vessel. Gary will be bringing a couple of his grandkids, and I'm bringing Kennedy for her first “deep-sea” fishing trip. My aspiring Marne biologist is pretty excited to see what we can catch.
Tuna rematch
Three summers back, I boarded the “sea wife” for an exploratory tuna expedition. We traveled nearly 60 miles to try to target yellowfin that had hooked a hard left before Nantucket. We were unsuccessful with Scombids, but I got the captain hooked up on his first Bull Mahi under a floating log I'd spotted. The trip was salvaged by stopping on the Monomoy shoals and loading the cooler with fluke. We will be going back out.
With the culinary focus in my family, I have been asked to bring a bunch of venison up for grilling. I expect that over the next two weeks, there will be a constant feed of food on my back deck.
I can also expect some adventuring shenanigans as I meet up with childhood friends. Needless to say, I will end up with some solid writing content for July and August.