A Fishing Story for Tomorrow

I was inspired this morning by a NerdFitness blog post to try something new. Last time I went fishing I had some success but access to the prime spots was limited by deeper water and waves. Today I decided to pack extra light and bring along an old boogie board to help keep my rod out of the water if I blundered into a deep hole or needed to swim across a channel. Things were going pretty well at first. The board was definitely helpful in getting out to the reef and I started casting at a likely looking spot. I had the board fastened by a 6 foot cord to my belt and it would tug slightly when a wave came through. Pretty soon the tugs got a lot harder and I noticed the board was foundering a bit in the passing waves. Then this happened:

The board broke in two. One half was still tethered to me but the other half was floating free in the waves. I couldn't in good conscious let the big chunk of Styrofoam drift away but I was not ready to admit defeat. So, I splashed after the piece, broke it into smaller chunks, shoved them in my shirt and kept on fishing!
When I graduated from the academy in October, a friend and former co-worker gave me a fishing themed lei and attached fishing lures to it.

I don't know if it was coincidence but these are one of my favorite papio lures and this was my first chance to try them out. I waded/swam my way along the reef with my broken board in tow. I stopped at any spot that looked promising and eventually found myself on an unusually shallow outcrop right in the surf zone. A perfect place for papio. Sure enough, on the third or fourth cast my little squid lure got hammered and I pulled in a nice fish.