the boat toward shore and punched its
nose onto dry sand. The sun was high,
wind nearly still, and fishing was good.
So good, in fact, that Dave ignored the
rumbling in his stomach as he made the
most of fishing time with his nephew.
An hour in, though, Dave could no
longer disregard the bullfrogs in his gut.
That burrito and those peppers were on
an express elevator headed up. He could
have hurled into the water there and
then, but the fisherman in him wouldn’t
allow that. Nor did he want to defile that
pretty shoreline. And puking into his
own boat was out of the question.
“I’ll be right back,” Dave whimpered
as he hurdled the gunwale and dashed
into the brush.
Gordon, just 6, was suddenly alone on
the boat and unsure what to make of the
noises coming from where Uncle Dave
had raced into the vegetation. A little bit
scared, he grabbed Uncle Dave’s phone
and called his mother.
“Uncle Dave’s in the bushes!” he
announced to his mom, Sara.
“Ron!...Pick up the phone. Now!”
Ron did as told, reassured his son, and
asked for an update.
“I think Uncle Dave got attacked by a
bear, and he’s fighting it right now.”
“How did a bear get in the boat?”
Sara asked.
“It didn’t get in the boat,” Gordon
explained. “Uncle Dave chased it into
the bushes.”
“There aren’t any bears where
you are, Gordon,” Ron said. “Call
your uncle.”
“Uncle Dave, Dad wants to talk to
you! Here he comes, Dad,” Gordon said.
“He looks like a ghost. What happened,
Uncle Dave?”
Dave explained the situation to his
nephew, his brother and Sara, noting
that he felt much better having purged
the offender, then hung up the phone.
“I’m OK, kid. Just a bad stomach-
ache,” Dave emphasized to his nephew.
“That was a really big burrito, Uncle
Dave,” Gordon noted.
“Yeah,” Dave said through a smile,
pointing to a bent rod in a stern holder,
“but probably not as big as the fish on
your line.”82 SALTWATERSPORTSMAN.COM SEPTEMBER 2019
Accidental Lessons
Preparing for a day on the water starts with breakfast.
By Doug PikeILLUSTRATION BY STEVE HAEFELEE E Dave called Ron one Sunday
morning to ask if little brother and
sister-in-law, Sara, would like some
grown-up time while he took 6-year-old
nephew Gordon fishing for a few hours.
“How soon can you get here?” Ron
asked eagerly. “And what’s this going to
cost me?”
“Buy us lunch and bait,” Dave replied.
“I’ll feed him on the way down, and we’ll
bring back dinner.”
Ron let his wife and Gordon know
Uncle Dave was on his way, and all three
were thrilled.
“You ever eaten a burrito?” Dave
asked Gordon as his passenger buckled
up in the back seat. The young angler
shook his head. “Well, you’re about to.”
About 20 minutes away from home
and another 20 from the water, Dave
wheeled truck and boat into a smallish
restaurant parking lot and walked his
nephew to a booth on a window
overlooking his rig.
“The burritos here are huge,” Gordon
noted, looking at other patrons’ plates.
“Is it OK if I just get a grilled cheese,
Uncle Dave?”
“Of course, kid,” Dave assured, then
selected a beef burrito for himself,
loaded with extra jalapeños.
At the marina, they grabbed enough
snacks and live shrimp to pass an
optimistic afternoon, launched
the boat, and headed to a spot along the
Intracoastal Waterway where Dave left
them biting the previous afternoon.
Rather than anchor, Dave angledBACKCAST