How to lose a rod on a rock

No joke. One guy losing a rod on a rock he shares with partner in 10 feet of water.

I know many of you enjoy reading this kind of stuff so here it goes….

It was a dark and stormy night…Kind of…. it was dark, cloudy and swells were pretty big from a storm. We were at Cuttyhunk Island in the land big fish dreams and even bigger rocks. We did try like hell to cull a few bigger fish on eels while getting slammed by schoolies…..and reading about insanity happening at Canal including Live feed

But it was not meant to be…we were sounded by dinks on every cast. Which by the way is not the worst thing in the world. I’ve been here for days at the time and never got a bump…so I know a real pain. This was not it. Annoying ? Yeah, but manageable. After all its Cuttyhunk, next cast could be a 40 pounder

I was perched on a decent rock that took a little time to get on of while two other guys shared the other rock about 50  yards away. Just far enough where you can see what they are catching, but can’t really hear them. I can see that they were picking at small fish as I was too. Actually they had three fish to every one of mine but I knew that this was the rule on this rock. I was on that other rock the night before and stopped counting fish I released….

The swells were coming intermittently …just enough to keep you on your toes and stop you from daydreaming. Could see that one go my guys got washed off twice already and the other helped him get up on the rock. But I was too consumed trying to stay on the rock to worry what they were doing. Then something weird happen…out of corner of my right eye I can see their light stay on for awhile…. Then stay off for a loooong time. Then it seemed like one of them was casting a  bucktail trying to maybe snag something ???

I could not be sure as I was dealing with tiny fish on shit load of trebles and trying hard not to get any in my fingers…..Not in this place where there is no hospital, Doctors or anything of a kind.

I should mention that we rented an INCREDIBLE house with SPECTACULAR views and a GOURMET kitchen. The place was LIT AF as my kids would say. So that was a huge positive. Having my best buds around also a huge positive. Good fishing conditions, also a positive. Tiny fish on trebles? Not so positive until I switched to bucktails.

Eventually the curiosity got the best of me so I yelled over the swell “WTF are you two doing? “

I could have swear i heard “We lost the rod” but that cant be. Can it ? Nah, seriously, who ever loses a fing rod on a rock???

But i had enough of schoolies so I eased myself in the water and started to swim toward them. At this time tide was just about flooding and we had about eight to ten feet of water around our rocks. As I swam towards them and bobbed in the vicinity they explained to me what happened

One casted while the other was resting the rod on his shoulder…the rigged eel hooked a guide on the backcast and the rod flew in the water ………. before anyone could react they were down a Lamiglas rod and a new VSX 250. Ouch… at this point they gave up trying to hook it with a bucktail and they decided to come back at bottom of the tide in 6 hours at dawn and try to recover it. They jumped off the rock and swam towards the shore. They took a beating by swells hitting them in the back faster than they could lift their legs over large boulders, but eventually they got to shore and sat on the huge stump that washed up years ago. They were joined by the third member of the group whom they filled on their misfortune.

Why am i still bobbing around the rock huddled yards from shore in darkness ? Because I am an idiot. I am trying to prod bottom by sticking my 11 foot ODM Genesis into the water beneath me while occasionally getting slammed into a massive rock. I figured the rod could not be that far from the damn rock!!!! I mean it’s not a plug to fly a hundred yards. Maybe ten feet is all it could possibly be?

About fifteen minutes into this fruitless exercise, as I was about to give up,  the tip of my rod gets snagged the bubble weed on the bottom. I finally pry it loose by yanking on it and as bring it up to surface I expect a shit load of bubble weed wrapped up around the tip.

Low and behold the tip of the lost rod breaks the surface and before next swell slams me again into the rock, I grab it and try to hightail out of harm’s way. I needed to stay in front of the rock in order to be in place where rods could possibly be but that meant that waves keep pushing me into the rock. Trust me, my back was not happy at this point…

But I was !

I held both rods together with one hand while swimming toward the shore. Just like two of them, I got my ass handed to me trying to beach myself. At one point a swell hit me in the back hard, while my foot was caught on a large boulder. I stumbled forward and feared of breaking both rods. Eventually I made my way out to dry land and towards three of them that sat quietly on a log. The overcast sky and no natural ambient light made the place feel like being inside of a scary movie. I clutched both rods in one arm so they would not notice as I yelled something like “How the fuck did you managed to lose a rod” ….But I did not have a heart to prolong their misery…..

Let’s just say there was a LOT of hooting and hollering when i showed them that I found the rod.

Another Cuttyhunk story that won’t be forgotten any time soon