Time & Tide by Frank Conroy Page A

casting the shiny drail, allowed me over time to discover that striped bass, and the occasional bluefish, entered and exited the harbor along specific channels, and that even at the southern end they moved along certain pathways. I could see them—dark, fast-moving shadows streaking along over the sandy bottom—and I learned how to cast in front of them. The excitement attendant to a strike, the sudden pull, the fish often leaping up into the air, never failed to thrill me, no matter how many fish I caught.
    The sought-after fish is the striped bass—mild, sweet, and easy to cook. Bluefish, much more common in Nantucket waters, are oily, with a strong fishy flavor, and make a fine pâté (an island specialty). They can be broiled, soaked in gin, and touched with a lit match to lift out some of the oil, as the late Robert Benchley used to do it, to good effect.
    There is a curious fact associated with bluefish. Wauwinet, Quaise, Shawkemo, Polpis, Quidnet, Madaket, Coatue, etc., are all Anglicized Indian names. Indians were the first people on the island, as far back as circa 300 A.D., the carbon date for some deer bone tools dug out of the earth.
    Stone arrowheads and blades can be found all over the island by the trained eye. (The Unitarian minister has more than once plucked up an arrowhead from my driveway, despite my having searched carefully and finding nothing. He has a wonderful collection.) The Indians died out, and when the last one expired, the bluefish disappeared. The oral history connects the two events. For seventy-five years not a single bluefish was caught. These days it is not uncommon to see small boats come in with big catches, the fish having returned even if the Indians did not.
    A small cycle occurred in Polpis Harbor, where twenty-five years ago there were so many blue shell crabs scuttling around that I could pole net twenty or thirty in an hour. They disappeared for quite some time, but show signs of coming back.
    I remember one morning in the early seventies when I was anchored in a particularly good position on the south side of Second Point, where the channel the fish used was narrow and well defined. My reel was snarled and I sat down and fixed it. When I looked up I saw two friends, who’d heard that I was catching fish, in a rowboat fishing on the other side of the point. We waved to each other and I thought of telling them to come over, but some atavistic fisher/ hunter reflex kept me silent. It was (at that time)
my
harbor, after all. So Alan and Twig had to sit in their boat, catching nothing, and watch me pull in three nice-sized bass in perhaps twenty casts. Later, I told them during a beery dart game about the channels, but they never came back. It was a long haul from town, in any case.
    I really didn’t have enough money to maintain
Que
Blahmo
properly, but I was determined to keep it. Mooring was a problem, since I did not have a mushroom (as they called it). I tied cement blocks (no good) and finally a heavy iron engine stand, which seemed to work. In the morning I could look out my window while eating breakfast and see the heavy, green, funky boat bobbing in the water.
    Eventually there was a gale, from the south, and the boat pulled the engine stand out of the mud and dragged it up harbor, where
Que Blahmo
finally sank, fifty-horse Evinrude and all. Here one moment, totally gone the next.
    I should have gotten the message and washed my hands of the whole business, but I didn’t. With the kind of stubbornness that can affect you when you’re close to broke, I insisted on keeping up my fishing life-style, not falling back, as it were. I began to haunt the shipyard out in Madaket, finally acting when an inexpensive used boat became available. I got it cheap because it was aluminum, and riveted hulls were definitely out of favor on Nantucket. It was an old black Starcraft from the fifties, with red vinyl seats, a padded dash, and a windshield—so retro I