BY DON DOUCETTE
It was during the years when the Russian fishing fleets working off Cape Cod were depleting the fishing stock and there was great concern.
I enjoyed a number of deep-sea fishing outings near that time with five other guys from the Attleboro area.
We, as usual, departed early in the morning from the Chatham municipal pier and made our way down Chatham harbor behind the barrier beach before reaching the breach and then out into the real ocean as our fishing journeys customarily began.
The stern section of the SS Pendleton which wrecked and split apart in the 1950s during a winter nor’easter, still rested hard aground off the coastline of nearby Monomoy Island and I always looked forward to passing that iconic Cape Cod shipwreck.
The rusted jagged metal stern had become a bird sanctuary streaked with guano, so great were the numbers of pelagic birds which turned that tragic portion of ship into a natural nesting place.
Little did I know at the time that the SS Pendleton incident and the rescue of crew members is considered one of the most daring sea rescues of all time by the United States Coast Guard.
I learned some years later that the Chatham wreck had been determined a navigation hazard and demolished (exploded) by the US Government and pieces yet remain in the ocean sands off Chatham.
Our fishing trips were memorable and plentiful. We caught mainly cod and haddock and sometimes trolled along the Pollock Rip for beautiful pollock.
Another vivid memory is that of the Pollock Rip Lightship which was yet on station guarding the major shipping lanes and I recall one foggy trip when the anchored Pollock Rip lightship loomed out of the fog and frightened me considerably before I came to my senses. Our captain was simply using the lightship as a navigation aid.
We all took fish home and the remainder was sold by our captain at the pier in Chatham and I recall learning during one such occasion that our iced fish truck was bound for the famous Fulton Fish Market in New York City.
The fish were all gutted at sea as we always had a cloud of seagulls trailing behind during our trip back into Chatham Harbor.
We usually lingered outside the Chatham Breach to help our captain tend his lobster pots.
A day of hard labor in the salt air and physical exertions from landing so many large cod fish always gave us an appetite.
We usually stopped during our trip home at the China Maid in Wareham and I’ll never forget the good egg rolls with hot mustard and duck sauce.
China Maid was demolished some years later so please don’t go looking for it.
I’m so encouraged to share this fish story with our readers – my really true fish story.