To me, there is always something special about going fishing. Planning the trip and driving to that special destination is full of anticipation of a great day on the water.

I have spent countless days fishing in the past four decades. The polar opposites of all that planning and anticipation of the trip comes when our day on the water is done. My friends or I will make the call, “last cast!”

The last cast is perhaps the worst part of any fishing trip to me. All the planning and anticipation is gone. Whatever fish bit during the day are in the cooler or have been released. It is time to secure the boat and make ready for the ride home.

Most of the time when one of us calls “last cast” it is truly the last cast of that day. But on some last casts, something amazingly
unanticipated happens.

It is rare, but on occasion our last cast produces a vicious strike, and we catch a big fish. There is no way any of the folks I fish with leave immediately after catching a big fish. After all, that is what all the planning and preparing was for in the first place.

My son and I enjoy catching Spanish mackerel and bluefish near the end of the Bogue Inlet Pier at Emerald Isle. We fish at daybreak, then again at the magic hour of five in the afternoon.

Calling the last cast during the morning session is no problem. Breakfast is always later than normal during our vacation week.

Calling last cast during the afternoon session has made us very late for supper on a number of occasions.

Last June, we fished our usual morning and afternoon sessions all week with mediocre success. It was on Friday of that week when the Spanish mackerel finally went on a feeding frenzy.

During that afternoon, we saw very large mackerel flash at our Gotcha plugs, but they would not strike. We knew the big fish were there, but they were just in a finicky biting mood.

It was so frustrating to see those fish and not be able to get a treble hook in their jaw. My son is always hungry, so it was his idea to call “last cast” that warm afternoon.

The summer sun had dropped behind the cottage roofs to the west, and there was very little light left in that long day.

No sooner than the plug hit the water, a four-pound Spanish mackerel grabbed his lure and stripped off yards of line. We landed that fish and kept on catching them until pitch dark. We were very late for the steak supper that night.

Another famous last cast that was not the last cast came at Lake Mattamuskeet. My friend and I had launched the boat in one of the canals in February and fished Mepp’s Minnows for largemouth bass.

It was one of those classic “no-biting” days, and as the sun began to fade, we only had a couple of large crappie on the stringer.

It was getting dark and colder, and we had a long ride to get back home. My friend called last cast.

Minnows had come to the surface, and there suddenly was a lot of fish activity around those smaller fish. His last cast produced a beautiful two-pound bass. The cast after the last cast produced one for me. We chased those minnows and bass to the end of the canal where two pipes went under the land dam. There was current and fish and minnows everywhere.

We tied on broken-back Rebels and caught 17 bass just before pitch darkness really set in. Late again for supper, our fingers nearly froze while we cleaned those fish. So here’s to the last cast and what it may lead to. Try it sometime.

King