Knot

Tried to put everything I could think of in Silver, and rolled out to Balboa Pier in the Late Afternoon Yesterday...while trying to figure out the Toll Parking Dispenser, which was trying me much as the MetroLink Ticket Dispenser, a fellow stumbled past me with a large bag..."oh....you're from the Boat!"...he had his poles in one hand, and Big Fishes in the bag...solved the parking ticket riddle--$4.50 for three hours--and went back to Silver and gathered the gear...found a spot along the Pier Railing far from everyone as I could...all the new gear made me self conscious, and I was trying to avoid attention!...and failed, thrice folk interrogated me, and I had to just own up and say, "I haven't fished off the Pier since I was a kid...gear is all new, see?!"....my fingers aren't nimble, threading needles, and tying knots in monofilament, are problematic...just cutting the filet knife out of its package with a pocket knife was an adventure...wonder how many wounds occur just from opening vacuum formed plastic packaging?!...everything unpackaged, set up the folding Big 5 chair, tied nylon rope to the five gallon Home Depot Orange Bucket, and tossed it over and brought it back up half filled with salt water, put the spinning reel on the lower pole section, and used the pocket knife to pry off the packaging around the reel, and knicked the monofilament!...unreeled a lot of line until the knicked section was off, and cut that away, rolled the useless line into a bird's nest, and threaded new line out through pole's eyes...and tied on the bait catching jig with the one knot I know from tying down underwater in SCUBA gear hundreds of plastic seaweeds in the Submarine Lagoon (a task during Sub rehab at Disney)...all set, I thought, and put the rig over the rail, and it plummeted to the bottom..."oh"...I forgot to flip the Spinning Reel before I threaded out the line through the pole's eyes...not sure what that thingamagig is called...brb.."Bail"...it's a half circular wire ring that flips from casting position to reeling in position...in reeling in position it rotates and catches the line, wrapping it around the spool the line is on, which is spinning...hence, Spinning Reel!...hmmph...lifted all the line back up by hand, cut it all away again as it tangled all up, and tied another knot...line over the rail again into the Ocean...success!...jigs work by lifting and dropping them, and intent on this, one of  the thrice said, "You look so intent!  What are you catching?"...maybe they intuited there was more to my effort than met the eye!...I self depreciated a bit and..."We caught Swordfish and MahiMahi!"...hmmph..."I'll likely have some such dinner too..."...but I was a content and happy clam!...a beautiful evening, photogs about taking sunset pics, and iphonetogs taking selfies and groupies with sunset backdrops...it was warm until Sunset, and then the Ocean breeze was cool, too cool for just my tshirt and light longsleeve...the Valley winter jacket I had unpacked looking for things, I hadn't thought to bring with, but it will serve well next time!...picked up and returned, checking Silver's milage to gauge the cost of such a foray...and Big Mac meal at Micky D's...sunny warm blueblue cool at sunset...oh, no Fish caught, no one else catching Fish either!...too much Wind and Wave Chop, I think...and I had no bait, no razor clams or anchovies...or ice chest...but pretty much all I needed...including a book and my hiking head lamp!