Ode To The Vietnamese End Of The Pier

or: The Wrath Of Kenny

Today I was, quite simply, shocked...

at the number of rods on Candlestick Park Pier.  

A veritable phalanx of Beef Sticks.  

Amazing to me that more fights don't break out.  Thing is, everybody's related to each-other (or if not related, close friends) out there--at the end, I mean.  So what are you gonna do, get pissed off at your brother in law because his line drifted into yours?


  

        One of my favorite words, "phalanx."

The Simple Fact Of The Matter Is

... the Vietnamese are able to take possession of the far (most coveted) end of Candlestick Park Pier, because they are willing to wake up earlier than everyone else.  A statement which I hope will be made all the more resonant by the fact that many of them actually ride bicycles to the pier.

  

Does everybody feel me, here?


   

What I'm Trying To Say Is

... you gotta be one hardcore fisherman to be willing to wake up at 4:30 in the morning, (the cold HP morning, yo!) make the sandwiches, make the tea, make sure you got an extra set of batteries for the live bait air pump, {wait! don't need the air pump, Kirk!  Have Kenny's old anti-freeze bottle with holes drilled in it.  Tie it with rope to pier.  Make trap door with hinge. Works much better than battery.  Keeps shiner alive all day!"} ......make sure the kids are set to go, wake up Tran and Phat, (actual names of guys out there today) make sure you bring the DFG rule book so you can ask the nice guy, Jim, to explain what a few of the crazier sentences mean............. the transistor radio, the hook sharpener, the needlenose pliers, the toilet paper (remember: furlough friday, bathrooms in state parks closed!)... okay... it's all set to go.

Along with the tacklebox 

in the backpack,

and the rain coats,

and all the obvious stuff.  And then, at 4:48 AM, you lash all this gear (the tackle boxes, packets, pails, jars, buckets, ropes, baggies, knives, eating utensils, rods, blue disposable latex goves, crappy old blankets, yada yada yada, fold up stool and weird Japanese salty cheeze crackers for snack, onto a four storey, thriftstore, aluminum-frame back pack, that also features the (recently) wife-embroidered, custom-made pocket for a portable butane (or is it white gas?) stove (good for boiling soup), a flashlight and a plastic water bottle. 

And I will tell you this:  

The halibut of my dreams isn't losing any sleep over me--Iounging around with my hot wife after another night of excess and rock and roll.  But when Kenny fuckin' Nguyen, taking his first day off in two weeks, is headed down to Candlestick Park Pier,

the halibut of SF Bay

are trembling with fear,

and shitting bricks

the size of pyramids, 

and in their cold and lonely benthism, are, no doubt, 

praying 

to that cold and lonely god of ectotherms, 

for a bit of mercy,

hoping against hope,

that maybe,

just maybe,

this time, 

the wrath of Kenny

will pass them by.

Again, the MFN will always bring you the cutting edge in improvised/home made fishing tackle. This is, without a doubt, the best jacksmelt bobber of 2010.  Don't even try to tell me otherwise.
 

From the PC headquarters of the USA, this is, that lover of all the great fishing cultures, (of which the Scandinavian, the Vietnamese and the Filipino are, we think, quite highly evolved) Lombard Of The Intertidal, signing out.

PS: if you are one of the 9 people who read the first version of this post, sorry, I pressed "publish" before editing the sucker.

Comments

[Orsa Fisher]

This is probably one of the best I have seen so far:)

Too bad I did not read the original.

Woke up at 3:30 myself today to hit the sunrise on the surf. No luck with stripers but ocean was beautiful.

[Alan]

In my humble opinion, the greatest fishing culture has to be the japanese. If I see japanese names on the log, I am so not in the pot.

[Jocelyn]

Nope! Vietnamese all the way! You should see what happens when my grandma gets out to a lake with her pole. The fish basically leap STRAIGHT INTO HER WAITING ARMS. No lie.

[Alan]

Just haven't seen the japanese in action. Theres not a ton in the bay area so you don't really notice, but some of the best guys out there are nisei. Takahiro Omori ain't no fluke. If you get spanked badly by an asian guy, odds are he's japanese.

[bob]

The old-school japanese fishermen are getting long in the tooth and the next generation are not learning "the ways." Where's Mr Miyagi when we really need him? My brothers and I are the youngest j-brutha's out there and we're in our 40's, which is too old to be waking up at 4:30 and riding a gear-laden bike out to a rainy, cold-ass pier.

[monkeyface]

You'd be surprised how many young Japanese-Americans I run into on a weekly basis... In fact I would say they are carrying the torch quite well. Thanks for all the commentary on this one.
--K