fun in the sun
Matt and Kristen flew up here last Wednesday after work and the 4 of us went over to the Vineyard for 4 days. When we scheduled this little trip in March, the thought of late September on the water seemed to be a crap shoot as far as the weather is concerned. Well we lucked out on that front with warm days and cool nights.

Matt brought a ton of fishing gear and Kristen brought her 7 months along belly. The Derby is currently underway and typically the early fall on MV is some of the best fishing anywhere, any time. So when there were albacore breaking all around the pond and Matt lands one from the beach a few hours into a first day, well things were looking bright.




Although it is too painful to recount in detail, let me simply say that over the balance of our time there, we spent a fair collection of time driving the beach or in the boat trying to build on the success of those first fateful hours. We fished at night and during sunrise and most moments in between. We looked North and we looked South. And Matt caught a rat blue on Sunday afternoon. That was it. I had 2 strikes and one short hookup but lost the lure and fish straight away. What made this more maddening was that the albies were in the pond each day. We were consistently close enough to see their blitzes but they seldom came up near us. Through shear force of will, Matt manufactured about 2 more decent shots at breaking fish over the four days but was never as lucky as his first.

Undeterred by our lack of success with the fin fish, and buoyed by the love of our womenfolk, we turned our attentions to various other edible selections from the pelagic pickings that were available.The slower and dumber the better. And so a great scourge befell the bivalves. Fingers dug and dislodged and rake tines probed and plucked from the marine sands relentlessly. Fueled by our fishy frustrations and the recurring habit of drinking beer at 9:30 in the morning, a great harvest was collected. We used the big quahogs to make a chowder and ate the steamers and cherrystones straight up and served with butter.

When not in hunter-gatherer mode there was bocce played (Crossett’s won) and horseshoes (Mark and Kristen won) and Yahtzee (Matt won). The girls perfected the art of the 2pm nap. In all we had a wonderful time. If you’ve ever had guests who do more than their share of work around the house, are great fun to be with and completely maintenance free then you have some idea of what our vacation with Matt and Kristen was like. Here’s to hoping that we can make it an annual event. And may the Good Lord please see that the fishing is better next year.