There is so much to be thankful for as Autumn bursts across Long Beach, NY.

Walk, bike, or drive down our Long Beach streets, and you’re in American civilization. 

Venture to our boardwalk, and you’re on the border of the briney.

I took to the boards and sand recently and enjoyed a visual feast. Fall is perfect; it’s like a walk in a poem.

On the boards at Lincoln Beach by Lazar’s Glizzy, starlings added pepper to the salty air.

On the beach, farther east, clouds of gulls announced the baitfish run.

Baitfish fled predators below—like stripers—to the predators above—like gulls.

The sea is brutal; big eats small, and bigger eats big.

People came to Long Beach to share our bounty from party boats…

…to outboards…

…to sandbikes.

The shore was awash with fishers, some with rods, many more with beaks.

Simians joined in the sea harvest, as did their forebearers for millennia.

These fishhooks, found in an East Timor cave, were among fishbones forty thousand years old.

Today, we simians still harvest sea protein.

One simian’s horizon was laced with a flock, much as it might have been eons ago.

You know by now that whales are my favorite eye feast. So when a neighbor told me that whales were close in, I was there.

Scanning over my mounted camera, I watched for the blow of a whale.

Early simians hunted, gathered, and fished to survive. Today, they fish with steel hooks, not bone hooks, and they fish not to survive but for fun.

Fishing is fun.

It’s you and the sea.

No grocery aisles for fish-on-ice under fluorescent light.

It’s sand and surf under your feet and sky and clouds overhead. It’s breathing and tasting salt and life. It’s being.

It’s what we’re supposed to do.

Like life around us, we are only here for a while. Generations come to life and leave life, wave after wave, endlessly. All we can do is be present when surfing our wave, enjoy life, and maybe help fellow sims—and wild creatures.

Reeling a catch in is primal; sometimes, you can see it in a face…

…or in a focus.

It’s a back-to-the-basics moment, away from the tedious details of home and work. Much truth exists in “A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work.”

Even without a catch, there’s a feast of sand—sea—and sky—for every eye.

The mammal rose far out to sea. I knew it was there—just for me.

I only saw fishing like this once before. It was west of New York Ave Beach, and it, too, was a wonderous poem.

Feeling that hard pull on the line makes a face shine.

There’s a flash in the splash when a striper is landed…

…lifted…

…hefted…

…then heaved.

The law requires that you keep only stripers between 28″ and 31″ and only one per day. This is a narrow window, for sure, but one that’s needed, we’re told.

Photos taken from shore are not like being aboard a boat amidst them. Boat whale watchers make almost cartwheel whale captures. Photos taken from shore are hit and miss—and you can’t motor toward them.

I spotted the whale’s blow again, so I panned, hoping to capture the magnificent sight.

I caught its tonnage at the end of a lunge; I missed it.

But, at least, he was closer.

The sea harvest was bountiful this day. One sim unhooked his catch…

…as another hauled his in.

Simian hands grasped family fare, as they did for millennia.

I saw another spout of vapor when I looked back to the sea. My eyes darted left and right for a breach, like a predator for his prey.

Yes, I was alert; I felt my legs tense, and I was almost on the balls of my feet. As I type this, I remember that exhilarating moment—I was having so much damn fun.

Then I spotted a lunge, swiveled my camera, and clicked off a burst.

I played back the images right there on the beach.

I had him.

His jaw was agape with baitfish flying.

And I saw stripers at his lower jaw.

The shorts were escaping that giant maw.

He might even have let them…

…as required by law.

The magnificent mammal went on his way…

…but it had given me—a fantastic day.

Be well,

Leebythesea