Mountain Folklore: Blowfish safari brings back happy memories [opinion]

More than 50 years ago, my Grandpop Kline would frequently take me out onto Rehoboth Bay to fish for a unique species of puffer fish, known colloquially in the area of the bay as blowfish or balloon fish.

His little boat wasn’t much to brag about. It was just 12 feet long and powered by a tiny gas outboard motor that was steered by a handle attached directly to the motor. Our place of departure was his tiny fishing shack, a half repurposed modular home with a half wooden structural addition, off of Longneck Road on the way to Massey’s Landing on the bay.

I recently took a trip down to the area to see how the old place looks, and, no surprise, I couldn’t recognize a single thing except maybe the boat launch area. Nowadays that place of my youthful adventures with grandpop is a built-up, modernized complex of what has to be multi-million dollar homes, docks, campgrounds, businesses and lagoons that host plenty of boats worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each.

Back 50 years ago, grandpop’s fishing shack was one of only a few on an unfinished, sandy road with lots of frogs trying to cross it during the night. Mosquitoes and green-headed biting flies ruled the sky, and we routinely braved swarms of them to get to the boat and bay.

Running the gauntlet of biting insects was part of the ritual to get to the fishing grounds. As we headed out in the little boat, I’d always sit up front to observe for grandpop, you know, in case a whale or something got in our way out there in 4 feet of bay water.

As I got older, grandpop would point out objects on shore that he was navigating by. In particularly, I remember an old beat-up ruins of some sort of building toward the strip of land that separated the bay from the ocean. When was in my teens, grandpop switched roles with me and, having taught me for years, made me the captain of the boat with no name and gave me the responsibility of taking us to the fishing grounds as he stayed up on the bow and kept watch for sea monsters. (Or maybe he was just enjoying an ice cold beer.)

For blowfish, we always headed toward that old relic of a building on the far side of the bay from Massey’s Landing, and when we arrived we were generally in from 4 to 6 feet of water. Once the anchor was set, we lowered our fishing lines into the water, hooks tipped with either bloodworms, cut squid or clam strips.

It wasn’t long before the action began. First a nibble, then a slight pull, then a robust pull, at which point you simply raised your rod and rig and there was one, if not two, blowfish ready for the bushel basket that we stored them in so we could take them home to the family.

I vividly remember the first time grandpop landed what he called a balloon fish.

I was younger than 10 years old, and he said, “Look at this Davey Lee. Watch what happens when I bring this fish into the boat.”

And with that, he produced a fish on the end of his line, took it off of the hook, at which point it began to make a curious croaking noise that signaled that it was puffing itself up.

I had never seen anything like that before and it was astounding and amusing.

“Can it float” I asked Grandpop?

“Sure it can,” he replied.

He gently lowered the fish, which to me looked like a small ball, into the water, where it floated and bobbed with the waves for a few seconds until it deflated itself and promptly swam down into the safety of the bay. Blowfish have the ability to inflate themselves many times larger than they really are which helps to discourage predators. They also clean into one almost lobster tail-like piece of white meat, and I remembered the adults making a big fuss whenever grandpop and I would bring some back from the bay.

They had different names for the meat of the fish but I remember poor man’s lobster as the name most commonly used. The adults tried to get me to eat some of the catch, but I was a kid who didn’t want to eat fish.  Loved catching fish, not so much eating them.  So, up until this summer, I had never eaten a blowfish.

Decades passed, as did my beloved grandpop, and a few weeks ago, I wanted to stop thinking about it, so I set off for Waretown on the mainland side of Barnegat Bay on a blowfish kayak fishing safari.

Before I went, I prepared myself by joining a few social media groups for fishing on the bay. I arrived on a beautiful morning with flat water and paddled out to the inter-coastal buoy on the bay. Across the bay I could see Old Barney, the lighthouse that stands against time, tide and weather as a navigation beacon and a tourist attraction.

I put some clam strips onto my hooks and lowered them into the water with great anticipation of feeling something pull back. For the first few minutes nothing happened, and I thought to myself that blowfish had been very scarce in the bay areas for years, and maybe there were none around.

Then as that thought was completing itself in my mind, I felt a nibble, then a little pull, then a stronger pull, just like 50 years ago when I was a boy.

Feelings flooded back and I pulled up the fish. It was a blowfish, but a baby one. I hadn’t caught a blowfish since I was 12. I’m 66, and I felt as though I had landed a prize fish for the ages. I continued to bob out there in the bay on my kayak and eventually had the experience of catching one blowfish after the next.

I let the dinks go but kept a few of the larger fish so that I could finally prepare them for table fare and see what they actually tasted like after so many years. Adding to the adventure of my kayak fishing safari, I also caught a few sea bass, and at one point I switched bait from clam to squid strips.

I no sooner lowered my line into the water than something grabbed the squid and took off. How do you describe the sound a reel makes when a fish is rapidly and aggressively pulling out line against the drag? It’s kind of like a high-pitched “ZINGGGGGGGGGGGGG,” and it gets the adrenalin pumping.

This fish was large enough and strong enough to actually tow my kayak around a bit before I finally landed it, and it turned out to be a 4-foot female dogfish shark, which I promptly released.

This outing was one of the highlights of my summer, and I thought about my grandpop every minute I was out on the water, reflecting on how lucky I was to have someone to take me out and teach me about such things.

By the way, these particular fish are formally called northern puffer fish and yes, they are related to poisonous puffer fish but they are not toxic like their cousins. However, more and more, there are some toxic varieties of blowfish entering northern bays so know your fish before you eat it. For example, the intestines, ovaries and liver of the Fugu puffer fish contain the chemical tetrodotoxin. It’s a poison that is 1,200 times deadlier than cyanide, and a lethal does for humans is smaller than the head of a pin.

Every Fugu puffer fish contains enough poison to kill at least 30 people, but this variety doesn’t live in our North Atlantic waters. Still, some of its cousins do, and they can mess you up, too.

Fishing safari over, I returned home and for the first time in my life, cooked and served up blowfish for dinner. It’s fabulous with a delicate, non-fishy flavor, dense meat like a lobster tail, perfect with melted butter and some lemon juice. I can see more kayak blowfishing safaris in my future, but for now, the fish begin to migrate out of the bays toward the start of October and the onset of cooler weather.

This entire experience reminds me that simple things in life are a joy. Thank you, Grandpop, I want to pass along your legacy of teachings about the great outdoors to my grandchildren and anyone else who cares.

Dave Kline is an award-winning writer, photographer, show host and producer, singer-songwriter, travel guide and community advocate. Reach him at davesmountainfolklore@gmail.com.