Negotiating the fence with a backpack and a fishing rod was easier than I thought it would be. I just had to make sure to step in the right spots, kind of like Indiana Jones in that temple before he gets chased by a giant boulder. I had to step between the razor wire wound along the bottom part of the fence, then swing my body around the five or so vertical strings of barbed wire, then step back through the razor wire, and then hop from the fence to a pile of concrete. From there it was a brisk walk through more demolished and, depending on the tide, submerged, concrete slanting in at interesting sharp angles, steel I-beams that were the sturdiest things in the area, and piles of weeds with hidden, or perhaps discarded strands of razor wire in the grass. But once you made it this far, you had your run of the small area. Some rocks were loose and would shift under your weight, but for the most part it was quiet except for the sound of water flowing under the pier and the snapping pops of fish punctuating the surface. I'd reached the prime rib of hobo fishing spots.

I rigged up with a 6" Bomber lure my dad apparently had for a long time since it was beaten up by rocks and the paint had mostly chipped off. It's one of those classic lures, a long and skinny torpedo-shaped shallow diver with a sort of wild wiggle pattern on retrieve. Considering I'd lost pretty much one of everything else, I figured why not this one. My first cast came back unmolested, though every minute or so a fish was jumping out close to the pier, taunting me. "If I can't catch a fish here then I really have to retire," I thought. I changed up the retrieve a little on my second cast and about 20 feet out I got a hit! Miraculous! I set the hook and it was on! Ever since I was a little kid I've had this type of background music that starts up whenever I hook a fish—it's not very distinct as to be a kind of music or any particular song. It's not the tournament montage music from Karate Kid. The only way I can describe this kind of awesome music is that it's like the theme song from The Benny Hill Show played through an 8-bit Nintendo. The music was in my head now as I was fighting this fish. I had to pull the fish around a submerged piling and I could see its white belly flash in about three-feet of water. I managed to get the fish in a shallow pocket of water just below me. Finally, Christ, I thought. And at that moment as I reached down for its mouth, a quick flick of its head, the fish—about 18-inches—unhooked and with a snap of its tail I watched the gray shadow speed back toward deeper water. Still, I felt pretty satisfied.

I could hear Greg and his friend on the other side of the pier, their lines whizzing with every cast. I got a couple more hits on the Bomber before I accidentally cast it onto the pier. I jiggled the line a bit hoping to get the lure to hop back over to the water but no such luck. Reluctantly, I had to break off. I lost another Bomber up there shortly after. The action started to slow down, so I rigged up some clams, casted out, and waited. Fishing for me gets boring fast when using bait, bored enough that I began studying the pier and potential ways to get onto it to retrieve the lost lures. A fence extended out about 25 feet from the shoreline, was about 10-feet high and was liberally applied with barbed wire and razor wire. The more bored I got, however, the more daring I felt.

The pier for all intents and purposes was abandoned. It appeared to be an old shipping dock for a company that no longer existed. The water was very deep, as I'd later learn from Greg who was out there on that raft and tried to drop anchor with 100 feet of line and hit bottom with 20 feet left. The pier, destroyed and rotting away in places, had been rebuilt in other places for some indiscernible purpose. I managed to pull myself onto the dock and run to where I last saw the Bomber. Along the way I saw a few poppers and other lures and snatched those up too. I found the orange-bellied plug amongst some rotting wood and weeds. "Fuckin' A, man. Awesome." I hustled back to the shoreline and got snagged myself on razor wire on the top of the fence. Perched up there like a bird caught in fishing line. A pair of pliers I had in my back pocket plopped into the water as I tried to unhook myself. With surprising patience I freed myself and climbed down, noting that that was probably the worst way on and off of the dock.