HOMETOWN

It’s prime bluefish season in my adopted home state of Connecticut, where anglers pursue the aggressive and toothy species in Long Island Sound. Our now-defunct local minor league team, the Bridgeport Bluefish, had a fitting name. Its logo — cartoon fish with baseball bat — wasn’t in the legendary graphic-design class of another long-gone franchise, the Hartford Whalers, but was very good.

I still remember the fight put forth by a blue I reeled in some years ago when a friend’s father took us out on his boat. It weighed about 10 pounds, the biggest fish I’d ever caught. Because of their strong flavor and oily nature, blues aren’t the best eating. But my host kindly cleaned my catch, and I was determined to have it for dinner.

Although my girlfriend was a good sport and cooked it, the kitchen reeked for hours after a meal that neither of us wanted to replay. We agreed if there were any more bluefish in my future that a catch-and-release policy would be in effect.

My most memorable — and unexpected — fishing experience had taken place a decade earlier on the other side of the country in the company of one of the 20th century’s finest golfers.

In advance of the 1998 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, I was writing an in-depth feature for Golf World recalling the leading characters in a previous Open at Olympic: 1966, when Billy Casper defeated Arnold Palmer in a playoff after trailing him by seven strokes with nine holes left in the fourth round. It was Palmer’s most heartbreaking attempt in his unrequited quest to add a second U.S. Open title to his dramatic 1960 victory.

Understandably, Palmer wasn’t eager to rehash the details of 1966, but he agreed to a short interview, which took place in the parking lot of a Senior PGA Tour event as he regripped his clubs with fresh leather wrapping. Casper, on the other hand, whose 51 PGA Tour wins are the seventh-most all time, welcomed a visit.

I had arranged to meet Casper at his San Diego home, but when I phoned to touch base on the day I was traveling west, he called an audible. “Let’s go fishing,” he said, before telling me where to meet him on the waterfront that evening. I assumed we would be going out in the Pacific Ocean on his boat. Upon arriving, however, I discovered Casper and I were among half a dozen passengers on a charter vessel motoring about 50 miles overnight and fishing for yellowtail the next day.

I settled into my bunk excited at the prospect of a captive interview subject. I woke up with a queasiness I’d never experienced as the boat rocked back and forth, minor movements that were causing major motion sickness. Shortly after sunrise, it was all I could do to make it to the galley, where I found Casper.

“They make a great breakfast burrito,” he said.

As Casper chowed down, I nursed a ginger ale. Another fisherman, seeing that I was hurting, said he had an extra anti-nausea wristband for which I would have emptied my wallet. I put on his gift and soon rallied enough to start interviewing Casper, who was friendly but clearly more interested in fishing than talking: There wasn’t going to be much on my microcassette tape to transcribe.

There was little action once we were outside with rod and reel. I was excited to catch a 30-inch barracuda, but the deckhand, viewing it as a nuisance, took it off the hook and threw the thrashing fish back in the ocean before I had a chance to get someone to snap a photo of me with my catch.

Eventually, as the afternoon went on, Casper and someone else landed a few nice yellowtail. The trip wasn’t a shutout. My appetite having returned in the fresh air and sunshine, I enjoyed the deckhand’s offering of the freshest sashimi I’ve ever had.

When we got back to land 20 hours after heading out, Casper and I said our goodbyes. Walking a couple of blocks to my rental car after my first ocean excursion, my legs felt as wobbly as Palmer’s game had been that fateful final nine in 1966.