I love fishing on the Marin Rod and Gun Club pier. I know that once the door closes behind me I will be by myself with Mother Nature and my thoughts. Last Sunday I was fishing with my friend Kate and between the two of us we caught 35 Jack Smelt. Most people throw them back as they are smallish and can have worms.I learned from my new friend Kate that they are delicious when smoked! Like “Bay trout.” Kate and I work as a team to get the work done so we can go home and be with our Hubby’s, she got married last Thursday. Nothing like a “fresh” husband to go home to. Scott and I will be Married 4 years this month, he is still pretty new so after spending a windy overcast morning on the pier home/Hubby is where the heart is.
Kate and I packed up our gear around 2:30 and headed back to the cleaning station to process our catch. I really want to call it the KILLING station just to screw with the lame ass Vegans that seem to love to hate me. I always throw my line in the water while I am cleaning fish just in case a stray hungry striper swims by. We dumped out such a huge bucket of fish on the KILLING station that every seagull in the bay showed up for guts and scraps. Kate scales and washes them off I fillet them then give them back to her,she looks for worms and removes them with a pair of tweezers. During this process my rod jumped and the line went out like crazy! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ I yelled “HOLY SHIT! I got a striper.” My rod almost flew off the pier as I tried to grab it. I thought I had a REALLY BIG FISH or a bat ray so I screamed over to the lawn for my friend Bob to please come help me. He dropped his drink and ran out to help. No one had been catching much of anything lately and a big fish is fun to haul in. No such luck. A Juvenal seagull had some how tangled its wing tip in my line. Bob said” Fuck it! just cut your line.” Kate who is apparently terrified of birds ran away at first. LOL I am laughing just thinking about it again. I said “NO WAY, if you catch it and are responsible for freeing it.” I had Bob reel it in and I gently pulled it over the rail and held it to my chest to keep the wings from beating me up. This is where things went wrong. I let go of its head to try to free the line and it bit the living shit out of my hand! They don’t just peck, they BITE hold on and shake like a pit bull. I yelped pulled my hand out of its mouth and grabbed the beak and hung on! Kate came back with some scissors and cut line and only the smallest 
tip-off of the feathers,then she ran away again. I loved holding that bird, it was strong and feisty like me. I checked it over just to make sure it did not have any line on it from “other” fisherman. Bob snapped this photo and I threw it up into the air. I yarked a CAW and flew away. That was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I do not recommend playing with gulls they are dangerous. This just worked out well. I have heard other stories that involve rangers, blankets and a plastic bag. I feel like I earned some good fishing Karma points and it made me feel great! How is that for a fish story?
