Schools and scouts

If you read this column, you know I love to fish. As much as I enjoy casting a line and landing a fish, I truly love teaching children and watching children fish. This past week I had the pleasure of volunteering with the Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters as we taught the Edgartown School’s seventh-grade class to fish on Wednesday, June 17, and Cub Scout Troop 90 on Saturday, June 20. 

This year marked the fifth year the students and Surfcasters, along with Cooper Gilkes and staff from Coop’s Bait and Tackle Shop, have met at the Edgartown Lighthouse to fish on a June morning.

“It’s a rising-class tradition,” said Lindsay Morgan, a seventh- and eighth-grade teacher in Edgartown School. “We bring them when the eighth graders are gone [graduated]. They bring their lunch. We spend half a day here at the lighthouse.”

“It started with Michael Waters. He was from a fishing family, and he wanted to fish. He

talked to Michelle Pilkor, who was a teacher then, and she reached out to Coop,” said Morgan.

The idea was a great one. Coop reached out to Donald Scarpone, president of the Surfcasters, and a very fun tradition began. Last Wednesday, we waited for the kids on the dirt drive to the Lighthouse with two pickups loaded with rods, gear, and lots of squid for bait. At nine, 30 students snaked down the path, a few with rods. The others each picked out a rod from the trucks, and we made our way to the bowl and point on the harbor side of the lighthouse.

Squid, even squid that Coop and his crew had already cut up, is messy and slippery. Many of the students wanted to learn how to bait their own hooks. A few opted to have a friend or one of the Surfcasters put some squid on their hooks. You could tell who baited their own by their ink-stained fingers and clothes. True fishermen in the making.

As lines were cast, the chatter of who would catch the first fish ran up and down the beach between students and teachers. We didn’t have to wait long. The sky was blue, the air was warm, and the fish were biting.

Rod tips were jiggling as fish nibbled on the bait, but it was Veyda Pearl, a student in the homeroom of Hannah VanDerlaske, who goes by Miss V, reeled in the first fish. Veyda was all smiles as she held up a decent-size scup.

Quick side note: I should now be calling the scup a golden sea bream after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved the rebrand. I guess some folks will order golden sea bream on a menu, but would pass over scup. Got to chuckle over that one.

While scup are cute, the loudest shouts were heard when someone had a shark on their line. If you’re thinking Jaws, think smaller. Much, much smaller. The students were catching dogfish, and pretty small dogfish at that. But it was still super-fun to watch them get so excited about seeing and handling a shark.

Maya Nascimento reeled in the coolest catch of the day, a small fluke. Surfcaster Jared Stobie taught Maya and her nearby friends interesting tidbits about fluke while he extracted the hook. When Jared put the fluke back in the water, he told Maya to tap the tail gently. Maya did, and we all watched as the fluke skated over the sand and blended into the ocean floor. The kids thought it was awesome, and I totally agree.

The Cub Scouts had a windier and chillier day for fishing. They still caught fish, and shared plenty of squeals and laughter. The absolute cutest and most excited young fisherman was 8-year-old Jaylen Sola. Jaylen had never caught a fish before, which she told me twice so I understood how much she wanted to catch a fish.

Jaylen didn’t quit. She kept casting. We walked around the bowl, hoping a change of location, whether 10 or 100 feet, would connect her line with a fish. She missed a couple, reeling in too quickly before the hook set.

Patience and determination paid off. Jaylen cast once more and held the rod, waiting through the nibbles, shuffling her feet and pushing sand with one foot over her other foot. Finally, her little rod bent over. She reeled, listening well to directions, but expressing all her enthusiasm. When her scup hit the beach, Jaylen couldn’t wait to hold it up for a picture. 

After we released her fish, Jaylen asked, “Can we walk back down by my mom so she can see me catch my next fish?” Cuteness beyond words!

We walked down to her mom, and Jaylen proudly showed her mom how to land a second fish.

I hope to see you on the beach, and maybe we’ll chat about the benefits of golden sea bream over scup.