A Perfect Night for Shark Fishing

I was sitting at my kitchen table with two of my roommates and a friend Victor. Vic got a call from our friend Luke. After the normal greeting, I heard Victor say, "Hey man, are you going now?"

"Are they going shark fishing?!?! Let me talk to that boy!" I grabbed the phone from Victor and asked the same question of Luke. The answer was yes. All I had to do was grab a sweater, put on some shoes, and walk over to their dorm. Victor and I went along with Luke and our friend Ambrose. We loaded up the car with fishing poles and bait, and headed out to Tiberon.

My thoughts were running wild with scenes one would see in a National Geographic documentary: water sloshing onto a dock, a large shark thrashing wildly to rid itself of its captors. Somehow I kept thinking that sharks would also emit some sort of screaming noise as they were being dragged from their watery home. But these fantastical visions were not the only thing I was thinking about. A couple of days earlier I had mentioned to my friend Jeff how I wanted to go shark fishing with Luke, and he discouraged the idea. He told me sternly, "Tam, that is illegal." I later asked my father, and he said as long as you did it off a dock it was fine. I never did check with anyone of authority or see the rules in writing, I simply trusted the word of my father.

On the way there, the four of us were recounting our fishing history. We found that Victor and I have never caught a fish before. We drove out to the bay, and followed the windy roads down to a beach I had never been to before. There were no lights around us, so we had to use our cell phones to see the road. I saw that I had a text message from Jeff. It read something like this: "Shark fishing is illegal without a fishing licence." What a killjoy! I pushed these words to the back of my mind and focused on bating the hooks.

The bay was beautiful, and the sky was even better. We saw a few shooting stars. Lights from across the water reflected brightly and made wonderful scenery. We could see the Richmond Bridge all lit up, as well as San Quenton. You just had to forget that it was a prison you were looking at.

Well, we sat there for an hour and a half. Nothing. Not one nibble. We had driven forty-five minutes, braved the cold wind, and touched nasty dead fish all for nothing. We were cold and it was about 12:10 AM. We decided to head back.

The boys dropped me off at my house and I walked inside. A few minutes later I noticed I had a missed call from Jeff. I figured that he had called only six minutes earlier, it would be okay to call him back. When he picked up, he asked how it went. I told him that nothing happened, and he said, "Good. I'm glad nothing happened."
To tell the honest truth, I was too. For most of the time, my conscience was going crazy. We were shark fishing, for sure. But I wasn't 100% sure that it was illegal without a licence, not to mention the fact that we did enter a state beach after the hours of operation. How were we going to explain that one? "Oh sorry Park Ranger, I didn't know that if the gate was locked I couldn't just walk around?"

In essence, Jeff told me what I needed to hear that night. I was not living above reproach and setting an example for my peers. I was making unwise decisions and putting my desire for adventure above my desire to do what was right.
all in all, what I had though to be a perfect night for shark fishing turned out to be very different. It was a perfect night to be reminded of how I am to live.