one with the fish, Chapter Four, Practice
by Jack Holder
Monterey, California, Summer 1961by Jack Holder
In the early sixties, Monterey was a great place for a kid. The canneries had pretty much run out of sardines to can, and the giant buildings of corrugated tin and wood stood empty and silent.
The old train, the Del Monte Express, ran into Monterey, and the tracks snaked their way along the cliffs and through the forest, all the way out to the sand plant at Moss Beach.
Downtown Monterey was still a mixture of bars and tackle stores, where salty old fishermen spent their money, and told lies.
The San Carlos Hotel dominated the skyline.
The intersection of Alvarado Street and Del Monte Avenue was the entrance to Fisherman’s Wharf, and the yacht pier was still standing next to the wharf, on its west side.
The train station in Pacific Grove had as its guard a big Saint Bernard, and the business of tourism, affected only a few. Pacific Grove was still a dry town, with no bars or liquor stores.
Times were tough and a lot of people were out of work. Monterey was just a working town.
I was just old enough to get around the peninsula on my own, and still young enough to think that fishing was the only meaningful endeavor worth pursuing.
In my mind, I was on a grand quest to catch the world’s biggest fish of all time, and therein become rich, famous, and incredibly good at catching fish. It was within this frame of mind, that I discovered the secret world of the planks that existed, unknown to the outside world, underneath the wharf.
My buddy Rudy had an uncle who owned a fish market on the wharf, and he would allow us to climb down the access ladders beneath the stores and markets up above. There were flat wooden planks of two by eights that connected much of the wharf’s undercarriage together, and during low tide we could scamper around on these boards.
In several places the plumbing hung down from the buildings, and in a few spots other wooden crossbeams would block off areas, but by crawling on our hands and knees, and hanging on to the pipes, we were able to cover just about all of the wharf.
Rudy was an odd kid; he had short blond hair that always stood straight up, looking like he had his fingers in a light socket. And even the overly generous amounts of Brylcreem that his Mom put on his head, couldn’t keep his hair down, but that’s not what made him odd.
He was just strange in other ways too. He acted like he was real dumb a lot of the time, and he never finished his sentences. Teachers would ask him a question, and he would start to give the answer, and we all knew that he knew what the answer was, and then just before the end of his sentence, he would stop talking. You couldn’t get him to finish.
On top of this, he didn’t like to fish, but he was ok in most other ways, and he thought it was cool just to be down there, where no one could see us, but we could see them,
The first time he took me to the planks I thought it was cool too, but as I saw the angle of the sun’s rays cut a clear path through the water exposing all kinds of rock cod and perch, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were fish everywhere. There were barnacles and mussels attached to the wood of the pilings, and you could see starfish and small crabs hanging on to whatever little space was unoccupied.
After this revelation, Rudy was promoted to a new status, and became my best friend.
I learned to read the tide tables in the paper, and memorized the times when the fishing boats would be leaving the harbor. Many of the planks were real close to the water, and any passing boat or big swell covered them. At high tide they were completely submerged, and I soon observed that it was really only in the early morning hours, with the sun at a low angle from the east, that I could see deep enough to watch how the fish acted. So it was not long before Rudy and I could be found under the wharf on any day with an early morning low tide, me watching the fish and trying to catch them, and Rudy fishing some, and watching the people a lot.
At first I would make short casts to where I thought I could see the fish, but as soon as my bait hit the water it seemed to change position, and was clearly not close to the fish at all.
Rudy would soon tire of fishing, and climb up the boards to where he could get a better view of the shop owners on the wharf. He could hear what they were saying. It seemed like everything they talked about involved gossip or money.
These fish fed off the small food and critters that accumulated on the sides of the pilings, and I soon learned if my drifts were off, even a few inches, the fish would not hit the bait. I had to adjust for the refraction.
I would stand for hours, tossing my lures, and making mental adjustments, and soon, I was able to delicately place the bait at just the right spot, and then it would all come together, and the battle would begin…
My days under the wharf were days that gave me the tools of this discipline. It was a simple time, and a time that I frequently wish I could recapture.
The lessons learned, taught me about light, refraction, casting, and the critical importance of presentation. My studies of how the fish responded to each of these elements, gave me the basics that have applied to all the waters I have visited, and to all the fish that I have pursued.
The observations of the silent fish under the water, and the loud people on top of the wharf, were in stark contrast. Through that contrast, I learned at an early age how the world of man often ignores the world of nature, no matter how close the two are obviously connected. We go about our daily business, oblivious to what lies sometimes just below our feet.
My friend, Rudy, never developed a desire to fish. I can still remember us walking back to Pacific Grove on the railroad tracks that ran behind the canneries, thinking that perhaps it may have been this weakness in his character, which made him appear to seem not quite right.
In adolescence I found that I lacked patience. I wanted things, but I had not yet learned that most of the time it is discipline and patience that brings us to our ultimate goal.
Conscience had now become an integral part of my intellect, but I was bold then and thought that it was me who was really in control.
—Jack Holder, One With The Fish