April 27th 2014: Deep Sea Fishing in Hampton NH

My friends and I woke up really early this morning to head to Hampton NH, where we were to embark on an all day deep sea fishing trip with Al Gauron Deep Sea Fishing and Whale Watching. It was raining just a little this morning, but everyone thought nothing of it, excited at the prospect of catching big fish out in the ocean. I grabbed a Ham Egg and Cheese Sandwich from Al Gauron's Luncheonette along the way.

Our fishing boat, the White Star,

was moored in the Hampton Harbor,

and after everyone had got onto the boat and tied their rods to the side of the ship,

 we were off.

They had to pull up the bridge for us to pass through.

After passing under the bridge,

the boat sped up,

leaving the land far behind. That was when things started getting bad, as the seas were choppy and constantly rocked the boat. I thought I would be alright, and seemed so for quite a while while my other friend immediately started vomiting a few minutes into the wild ride. Unfortunately, at one point, the food I had eaten this morning at my friend's place suddenly decided to escape my stomach back into my mouth, and things went downhill from then on.


By the time the boat slowed down and buckets of squid bait were placed out beside the rods,

I had already thrown up almost everything left in my stomach, but it did not get any better. I struggled to do some fishing, hooking the squid to the line,

then putting the rod out to sea and controlling the descent of the weighted line into the water after releasing the catch, using a finger on the reel to control the descent. No need for casting like in lakeside fishing. After lowering the line, it was then time to wait for the fish to bite.

Unfortunately, I could only do this for about 10 minutes before I started vomiting again, and I gave up for the rest of the trip. My friend wasn't affected, thankfully, and he was able to catch 2 fish, one of which he had to throw back into the ocean because it wasn't big enough to be kept according to government regulations. The other people were more skilled at this, and all day long they kept catching all sorts of stuff, as the boat moved from spot to spot, like Mother-in-Law Fish (cabezon),

cod, which has a white lateral line,

haddock, which looks like cod except that it has a black lateral line instead,

and Acadian redfish, which have poisonous spines and must be handled carefully.

I was just relieved when we finally headed back for home, and the fishermen started cutting up their catch, especially the redfish.

Strangely, the boat ride back was much smoother, and eventually I got a little better, enough to take this picture of the rainbow as we arrived back at the harbor.

I was still a little woozy, but I managed to drive my friends back home, then headed home myself, too sick to do anything else for the rest of the day. All I can say is, deep sea fishing is definitely not for me. I don't know how I am going to fare in scuba diving in the coming weeks.