I've been applying my photo "skills-inspiration" to a different artistic endeavor. I agree - that we're both driven/compulsive/relentless - in mostly good ways, and therefore we can't go without artistic expression for longer than a day or two.
Sharing luck as a Chinese belief - there are many many many wise Chinese beliefs - not surprising as the culture has had millennia to polish them.
I found a dollar in the street this past Friday. Carefully holding it by the edges I brought it to a nearby 7-11 and purchased a lottery ticket. Forgot to check the drawing this Saturday. Will do so tonight - if I remember. Speaking of sayings: Give a man a dollar and he buys one lottery ticket. Teach a man to make money and he buys lottery tickets for a lifetime. At least I think that's how the saying goes... 🙂
Dan,
You have to know that the Cantonese are known to be fisherman. I' a particularly good one.
So at Grumman I had this big German friend who could crush my head like a pimple. Rich was a nasty guy, and I kinda annoyed him, which is kinda dumb. Rich was a deer hunter but he didn't use a rifle to go hunting, he used a compound bow.
At Grumman's 500 acre gated complex I saw all kinds of smut going on in plain sight because I'm Calzone. So not uncommon to see all kinds of inappropriate stuff like a machinist working on a gun doing some gunsmithing on his lunch hour.
So Rich sets up an archery range. The way a compound bow works is that a series of pulleys, math, and leverage makes it hard to draw the bow until it hits a "break-point" then the force becomes minimal. Rich would brag that when he shoots a deer the amount of foot pound striking the deer from his arrow generally is enough to knock down the deer.
So the point of this story is that Rich is really-really strong because no-one we knew had the strength to draw his bow.
Rich had the aweful mood swings, and like I say he was nasty. One Monday at work I see that he is all happy, and he shows me a photo of him in cammo with his bow and a trophy deer he killed. When I said he looked like Elmer Fud, Rich did not think it was funny, but everone in my group thought it was.
I took note that for that day he seemed extremely happy and even giddy. So because I'm an idiot sa-vont I notice that on Mondays when Rich was in a good mood that it meant and coresponded that over the weekend he kill something or someone. LOL. This insight proved to be true. LOL.
Of course because I'm a smut queen this information and culture was shared with the rest of my group. So somehow Rich understood that I could be mean and nasty like him, and we became friends. One day he asks me if I want to go fishing with him, and he asks if I ever went fishing offshore?
Never been deep-sea fishing, so I go. "I was just walking along, minding my own business," when I drove out to Shinacock and get on a boat that has two 750 hourspower Volvo turbo diesals to discover that I'm part of the Shinacock Mako Mania Shark Tournement. So I never ever went shark fishing either.
So there is this rich guy who owns the boat, Rich and me. The boat is only a 30 footer, but it has a 15 foot beam (width), and it is built for heavy seas. So at the inlet 100 boats are collected waiting for the tournement to begin. When the flare was shot off for the start 100 boats gunned their throttles and headed out to sea.
Now I understood why 15 hundred horsepower is good. This boat, a Blackwatch, parted the sea and made this nasty massive wake that punnished all the other boats that were not as fast. I would later learn that it is a big advantage to be the first with a chum slick, because we would be the first boat to report landing a Mako.
My job was to maintain the chum slick. I was cutting up butterfish and "chunking" that into our slick of Bunker chum, when I heard the clicker on the the rod with the most amount of line out. It clicked again, and then I went over to Rich who was sleeping and woke him up. I told him to get up that we had a fish on that line.
Rich put the reel in freespool and let some line out. He held the rod tip down towards the water, when the slack ran out he raised the rod tip violently three times to set the hook, and then some fish started to make a "run" taking out line.
We had to clear the deck by reeling in the other lines to avoid tangles. I had to pull in the chum pot, the gaff had to be readied, and Rich yells out, "This fish is hurting me. Get me a belt." We scramble to get a belt tht has a gimble on it for the rod butt. A pad spreads the load to Richie's legs, and then Frank the Captain asks, "Do you want a harness?"
"Yes," Rich yells. "This fish is hurting me. If we don't land this fish I'm going to kill someone."
Then the fish breaks the water and jumps.
"Its a Mako." Frank and Rich scream.
Fast forward: I never have been offshore where I am no longer in the U.S.; never went shark fishing; and never gaffed a Mako which is a very dangerous thing to do.
I was going to be the "wire-man." When we got the Mako along side the boat I had to grab the line inbetween my open palms wearing leather gloves, and circle the fishe's head toward the man with the flying gaff.
When the gaff went into the sharks head the 10 feet of rope tied on one end to the gaff hook and the other end tied to a cleat resonated like a piano string as the shark sounded. Then we had to do the most dangerous thing and that is tail rope a shark.
The way it is down is that there is this clasp on the end of a rope, you circle the other rope that holds the gaff hook and it was my job to pass the tailrope over the shark's head, fins onto her back. (Female Mako's are the larger of the species)
Mako's are know to jump into boats. There are stories of Makos jumping and blowing holes in boats sinking them. This fish when Rich and Frank were pulling on the gaff line tried to get into the boat. Rich kinda saved me by knocking me down onto the deck with a shove. The Mako had lunged for my face.
The weather was going to drastically change for the worst, so it seemed like we had the trophy fish. Rather than fight the sea and the weather we decided to head in early. It was victory at sea. We ended up getting only third place, but the boat that had the bigger Mako did not put into the "Calcutta" meaning the pool for the biggest Mako. First place went to a thousand pound Thresher. We split the winnings 4 ways the prize was $10K and the reason for 4 shares is that the boat gets a share.
Point is that again Rich is a strong and powerful man, and he loved killing things.
Part three: So I can't help preying on Rich's weaknesses. He lives to kill things and he is mighty good at it. After we wone the shark tournement I was invited to go offshore every weekend because I was considered good luck (back on topic).
So this one entire weekend we load up the boat with enough diesel and ice for the entire weekend to go Tuna fishing, and are going to tie off of some lobster pots in the shipping lanes for the overnight.
We tie off. I'm grabbing a lobster pot in the bow to tie off of, but meanwhile Rich hooks into a Dolphin (fish not the mammal) using a bare hook with a piece of squid. I knew of stories of how these fish form gigantic schools, and if you tie off a live one that the entire school of fish will not abandon a member of their school.
I was amazed that this is true. The school was enormous surrounding out. One of my annoying things I do is I love to show off. I take great pride in this. I tend to use light tackle so even though we are deep sea fishing I have a casting reel with 10 pound test line, while Rich and Frank are using 20 pound test on spinning rods. Not everbody has the style and skill to use a casting rod.
So we can see the fish but we can't get them to bite. Because I'm creative I decide to cast the baited hook. I see the squid hit the water, a fish turn out of curiousity to see where the splash happened, and then see a second fish taking notice and then becoming competitive with the first and racing to attack my bait.
The white piece of squid I see just under the surface fluttering deeper suddenly disappears, I raise my rod tip, and then the fish jumps to get Frank's and Rich's attention. I bring in a 5-6 pond fish over the gunnel but I kinda am mean and I bounce the fish "accidently" off of Rich's leg.
I throw the fish into the cooler; I make a cast, set the hook and bring in another one. This time I just unhook the fish and let it flop and thrash about on the deck to create an effect, knowing that this will annoy Rich further. I make a third cast, and it seems automatic because I'm into my third fish on my third cast.
When I bring in the third fish Rich looses it.
"If you don't tell me what you are doing immediately I'm going to throw you overboard."
So I tell them to cast away and engage the Dolfine's innate sense of curiousity and their competitiveness.
Before the sun set we had literally filled the boat with fish and ran out of ice. It made no sense to Tuna fish the next day. We had captured the entire school.
Some of my best fun ever was teasing Rich. He is a great sport, but he could also be very nasty. LOL.
Cal
BTW I'm bored at work. I guess I'm getting paid for this writing. Enjoy.
