THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 24, 1996 TAG: 9603210174
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
When the first striped bass hit the lure selected by a friend and I was cranking in the 22-inch fish, I started thinking about how lucky I was.
The day before, sailing colleagues Len and Betty O'Connor, my son and his pals Mark and Tim had helped raise the mast on the Wind Gypsy, readying the little sailboat for another season on the sounds.
On Saturday, the striper season opened, and the first fish fought fiercely, but I got it close to the boat and John Hughes slid a net under it and brought it safely aboard his vessel.
Hughes, a Roanoke Island neighbor I met since moving here nearly two years ago, also scored. So did an old friend, Bob Lucky, down from Virginia to catch stripers.
Catch them we did, like never before, keeping our limit of nine and releasing an equal number on the south side of the bridge over Croatan South that links Roanoke Island to the mainland.
The current was running south, and we wasted half an hour fishing from the north side and working our bucktails against the flow, with nary a strike. Finally, after watching smarter boaters on the other side of the bridge catch fish after fish, we shifted to the south side, cast upstream and let the current carry the lures, and were rewarded with all the striped bass we wanted.
For the record, the hottest lure for us was a green-skirted bucktail with a lemon-colored plastic tail and a white head. Damon Tatem gave it to me with a promise that it was the best there was for striper - and on Saturday, at least, he was right.
That was one of my finest fishing days - and I was only a few miles from my house.
That night we went with new friends to a new restaurant, dined well - as you can at dozens of Outer Banks eateries - and mingled with new and old friends.
A great day, but Sunday was just as satisfying.
I drove at dawn to Elizabeth City to the Pelican Marina and helped Perry and Amy Parks get to know their new 22-foot sailboat, the Wind Knute. They sailed their ship about six miles without a hitch to their canal-front home in Camden, quickly becoming promising prospects to join us on the summer cruises and races on the waters of the Albemarle.
I got back to the Outer Banks in time to watch Mike Kelley's St. Patrick's Day Parade. That's an hour-long caravan of floats and groups in Nags Head, organized by creative people who turn commonplace stuff into eye-catching designs. My favorite was the entry by the aquarium featuring dancing jellyfish.
Parades are especially fun to watch when they are peopled by people you know.
I went to bed realizing that thousands of people pay thousands of dollars to have less fun than many of us who live here. And we do it without spending much money or going more than a few miles from our homes.
We're lucky people, those of us fortunate to call the Outer Banks home.
Most of us are, that is. It isn't a paradise for lots of people, who never get to enjoy the good things.
And abused or neglected children in troubled families often wind up being placed in homes hundreds of miles from here because there are no group houses in this land of enchantment.
But there soon will be, thanks to the generosity of scores of people making contributions to the Wright Home for kids. Hopefully, if contributions keep coming in, the Wright Home will be a reality by Jan. 1.
And maybe fortunate people like me will take kids sailing or fishing or gardening or to dinner or to a parade.
I've got a hunch that watching a kid catch a big striped bass or sail through a gusty puff of wind might be the most fun of all. by CNB