Dr. Strange Pot

Spend enough time on the water and you will come across all kinds of things floating along. As a family, we always try to bring back a load of trash. Not hard to do with the amount of litter casting along with the currents.

The brush we use to clean the mud from the deck we found bobbing along. Josiah climbed up into the marsh to fetch a colorful kite that caught his sister's eye. Our bait bucket was another gift from the sea.

I have never seen but had heard stories about vast islands of trash swirling around in the ocean where the currents collide. Our friend, Frankie Eubanks, says there is one such trash heap off the coast of Virginia where the Gulf Stream curls off the coast above the Outer Banks of North Carolina. When he commercial fished they would go to the 'trash plie' if they needed coolers, cushions, gaffs, and all manner of items, nautical or not.

In my time at crab fishing I have pulled my share of peculiar bits from below. Once while crabbing behind an old plantation, I pulled a pot with confederate money caught in the mesh. Along that money theme, in the middle of a string of 'good pots' (traps full of crab), I pulled a blank (trap with nothing in it). I had been robbed. When I noticed an envelope in the bait well. Along with a roll of cash was a note that read, "We anchored here for the night and got hungry. Hope this covers the cost of dinner."

Today Sarah pulled a trap that topped the puzzling chart for me. Let me remind you that a stone crap trap has only one 'gate'  (entrance) located directly on top. She open the lid and pulled out a ... golf ball!

Did I hear anyone say ... hole in one!