Matt Pieciak was playing a game of cornhole on Nauset Beach around noon on Sunday when there was a sudden pull on his fishing pole, which he had propped up in the sand near the shoreline. “Does he have a fish?” someone called out after Pieciak left the game to investigate. It was, indeed, a fish — but not the kind Pieciak was hoping for. After a brief tug of war, a pair of sharp fins breached the water, roughly 50 yards from the beach. Everyone nearby gasped. Pieciak said his dad brought down chunks of mackerel so that they could try to catch some fish while they all relaxed by the water. “I wanted to go surfing but the tide got too high, so we decided to go fishing,” he said. “We cast a couple of lines out there hoping to catch a bass or a bluefish, or something.” Pieciak went about his day, leaving the rod upright in the sand. Then he saw the rod “go off” behind his cousin, Cal, and ran toward it. “I said ‘Dude, hold my beer,’ and grabbed the rod,” he said. “And it all kind of happened quickly from there.”
Boston Globe
Beer is a fisherman’s worst nightmare but is also needed in every fishing trip. I went fishing last week with my buddy, and we were fishing for bass with topwater frogs. I had the rod in one hand and a beer in the other. My friend goes, shit, your frog is gone, and that means I had a bite. I felt a little tug, but I only had one hand when I put the beer down and went to set the hook; it was gone. It wasn’t a monster because it wasn’t a huge hit, but a fish is a fish, and I missed it because of beer. This didn’t happen to Pieciak. He was able to set the hook, but it wasn’t enough as the shark sailed off to freedom.
This is the reason 134,234,393 to not go into the ocean. Growing up nowhere near the ocean, I thought the ocean was this magical place with sand, waves, and hot chicks frolicking around. This is not the case. Everything in the ocean wants to kill you. The animals are massive with giant sharp teeth; the little animals can electrocute you; there’s a mysterious thing that can happen in the water where the sand and waves pull you deeper into the ocean, where you drown to death. That’s only a couple of things. This story could have gone horribly. Instead of a Masshole catching a shark, it could’ve been Masshole eaten by a shark.
If this were a Hollywood movie, they would have reeled that Shark in, and it would’ve flung itself onto the beach, ate everybody, ripped the hook out of its mouth, and swam onto eating more tourists. People who fish in the ocean are special animals. This might be the dumb redneck in me, but everybody who goes saltwater fishing is a rich fuck who uses their daddy’s boat. Unless they are fishing from the sand, then they’re normal dudes. There are thousands of saltwater fish, and I would have no idea what I caught and if it was going to try to kill me when I took it off the hook. With freshwater fish, I know that Pike, pickerel, and catfish/bullhead could hurt you with their teeth and sharp whiskers. Nothing will electrocute me or eat my handoff.
So if you’re going to the beach instead of getting blackout while thinking you’re tougher than the sun, throw out a line, and who knows, you might catch a monster Great White Shark. You can still get hammered, play cornhole, and stare at girls in bikinis with a line out in the water.
