Grunion hunting

 

Did I ever tell the story about introducing Judy to grunion hunting?  Living in Long Beach, a few blocks from the ocean, if we paid attention, we’d find newspaper articles about when the grunion were running.  Then, all we had to do was go to the beach and watch the waves.  The waves would break, roll into shore, slide up the beach, then slip back into the ocean without event.  Except at just the right time, one of those waves would leave the sand full of small fish, all wiggling to get their tails down into the sand to lay their eggs, before they got washed back out to sea by the next wave.

(Not my photos.)

 

 

 

We waited and waited, and sure enough, right around midnight the next wave brought in swarms of grunion.  Judy was amazed.  She was impressed.  And she was surprised.  Turns out, all this talk about grunion hunting, she thought it was just an elaborate excuse to go make-out on the beach at night; like a snipe hunt or watching the submarine races.  She didn’t know we were actually going to see fish!