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And last night I went out to net a couple shrimp and they were slow. I would typically get three times as many a cast - but all sea creatures are erratic. I kept about a pint of small eating size for my gumbo and crab soups and 100 for bait. The still picture of the fish at the beginning of this dark video (taken last night) is from a week ago - the cooler I have to fillet now is twice as many but I forgot to take its picture.
At 2:30 a.m. I decided to go to the harbour, the wind was coming from the SW and right at the wall - also cool and I put on my one piece long underwear, but then just a shirt was needed although I took a jacket. I brought my usual 100 shrimp and went out. Three guys were there; anywhere but here they would be scary, young men with scowls and muttered answers when I talked to them. Also they would cast right onto my line and talk in strong language when I caught a fish - they were getting nothing, using dead shrimp and not knowing what they were doing. I could not decide if they were being actively hostile and aggressive - or were just completely un-socalized.
Young people, especially underclass ones, are getting pretty different with their electronic lives - socializing is not promoted as it was. I find some young people can not speak in proper sentences, let alone paragraphs. Illiteracy is kind of a norm, and illspeach is the new problem. Anyway they were dragging the whole mood down, I actually was casting in places where it was unlikely I would get a bite as they were so negative when I would catch one. It is a very long way out there on top of the wall, 400 foot or more and being under the light with 3 big unfriendly, bordering on hostile, young men certainly reduces the aesthetic side of the whole scene. But I had my 100 shrimp - and the cool wind in your face; bringing in small breakers and chop - and the surface was totally covered with anchovies, and the trout popping them with the loud sucking sound and splash still apparent in the rough water. It was gorgeous and I would wait them out - and did, after half an hour they gave it up and sulked off.
But you know, they really did add to my night. They were a force, a focal point that punctuates the fishing trip. I like people - I have hung with the roughest and crazy and all messed up people a lot, and I like them. A mean and bad person is actually the most unhappy person - they are the product of meanness and brutality, emotional and physical, they are made the way they are by pain of some sort. We are nice - because we had niceness given to us by decent people. Bad people had a cruel childhood of neglect and hardship. It was sad, that little group - but good to see, to see nature in all its forms. The beauty of the wind and sea and fish, and the harshness of it - me killing the shrimp and fish, the fact that all these sea creatures will ultimately be eaten, and pretty soon as life in nature is short. And the lot of people - the meeting gives one something to reflect on, life and its ways - that even people one would avoid as much as possible - they are human with souls and hurts just like us - but how fortunate we educated and nice ones are, and how we must appreciate that. How we did not earn our niceness and good social behavior - as they did not earn their ignorant thuggishness - it was given to us, and how lucky we are.
And then at 3:30 the Vietnamese guy shows up - every time. He does not speak any English but for individual words, but is cheerful and pleasant - and he absolutely nails the white trout! He uses a tiny, white, rubber bodied jig and just throws it out 20 foot and lets it sink with small twitches - and bam - a white trout. He fills his 3 gallon bucket every day, and then leaves at light. The Caribbean guy showed up as he does at 4 a.m. - I am a local there, everyone knows me - I am an odd looking person so people always remember me - The Caribbean guy, Patric, cast out his 3 redfish rods for 20 - -30 pound redfish and tied then securely to the railing, and then used cut bait and went to filling his bucket with white trout. These regulars really know how to fish this place.
I love it out there, and I do like the people - they are never like the guys next to you on the Tube - just anonymous. They all have something to say or do that asserts their presence. They are characters of this wall fishing, not bland.
And I have several legal specks and 40 white trout to clean. I like that too, the filleting at my fish cleaning station on the bayou - always some bird singing - always bird song here, everywhere, all the time. Fish splash, our fish are very loud, mullet leaping clear of the water, gar and redfish swooshing - It is not onerous.
[video=youtube;gwf0V_sNyxg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf0V_sNyxg&feature=youtu.be[/video]