This story starts with my dad, (Pop), asking me to come to Cardiff in San Diego County where he and my mother lived in a mobile home park, (long since torn down and made into a state park). It was located on the water at the foot of the cliffs leading to Solana Beach.
There was a rock reef, exposed at low tide out in front of their mobile home, and we often fished from it. My dad would go out when the tide was real low and collect mussel, (a type of bivalve/clam), off the rocks, open them up, take out the meat, salt it down, freeze it, and it became the bait we used to fish in the surf and off the reef. We caught a lot of fish over the years and it was nearly the only thing I ever did with my dad as an adult. He was 70 when this story took place.
It took me about an hour to drive down to their place from Santa Ana where I lived and taught at Santa Ana College. He was waiting for me when I got there at 6 a.m. so we could catch the low tide, walk clear to the end of the reef, and cast way out to where some big calico bass and sheep head lived. Later in the morning, as the tide came in, we would move off the rocks to the beach and fish for Corbina and perch in the surf. The rocks became very dangerous when the waves started breaking over them as the tide came up.
I was watchful of Pop, at 70, he wasn’t as steady on his feet as he used to be, but he knew this reef well, every crack and hole in the rocks. He was born in 1899 and raised just a few miles back from this beach on a farm. His brothers and sisters would hike to the beach and fish off this very same reef when he was only seven. It had been his friend for sixty-three years, and still was.
We caught a few nice bass and the waves were getting where they were washing over the reef, I shouted over their noise, (my dad called it the “Sea Serenade”), and said, “Pop, let’s move over to the surf and try for some surf perch.” Pop liked to eat the perch and so did I. I walked over to him and picked up the bucket with our bait in it. Pop had his hands full with a 12-foot fishing rod in one hand and rod holder in the other. He made his own rod holder. It was ½ inch rebar three feet long and sharpened on one end with a two foot piece of two inch steel pipe welded to the other end, to put the butt of his surf rod in. It weighed at least seven pounds and he was using it as a walking stick to get across the uneven rocks, which were now under water as each wave passed over them.
Back to ‘The Bucket.’ When I picked up the bucket I was caught off-guard; it must have weighed about 25 pounds. It was like lifting one of my diving lead weight belts.
After we walked a hundred yards down the beach, and set up our gear, I asked, “Pop, why is the bucket so heavy?” The bait in it couldn’t have been more than a few pounds, and his spare reel he always took along was only a pound or two. He always carried some extra sinkers he molded out of lead from old tire balancing weights, but not 20 pounds worth. He was on his way to wade out into the surf and make a cast.
He glanced back, looked at the bucket, and said, “Those old metal buckets (he got it before the days of plastic), don’t last as well as they should. That one rusted out in the bottom. (No kidding, he had been fishing with it at the beach in salt water for 15 years). I fixed it so it will last at least as long as I can still carry it.” He laughed, walked out waist deep in the water, and cast out. He backed up so the water was only knee deep, which is what we always did when fishing the surf. I did the same thing and came back and stood next to him.
I just had to ask the question. “Pop, how did you fix it?’ I couldn’t imagine what he had done.
The answer was simple and matter of fact. “I poured three inches of concrete in it.” Just then he hooked a two-pound Corbina and we never talked about the bucket again. He was still using it when he fished with me for the last time at age 85. The only difference was I had to climb out on the rocks and get the bait.
Whenever I get the urge to buy something new, I remember the bucket…maybe you should too.