A tongue in cheek account of a fishing trip me and Lunch Money made once; embellishing as much as possible.....but staying somewhat close to the truth. Based loosely on Hemingways accounts as a Nazi hunter in the open sea.
It was a chilly day for Central Florida, and the breeze was picking up, but it was flat calm as we pointed the bow west and motored slowly into the brown and brackish Sebastian River.
The few mullets that we managed to catch were sloshing happily in the custom built cooler-live well…….probably having mullet-discussions about eating, swimming around in schools, and getting chased. They had already forgotten that less than an hour ago they were in the open river, swimming happily. They were also happy that there were no tarpon in the live well.
Tom was at the helm and was making headway towards a hole off a point that he knew held big snook. It was easy running. This part of the river was known to be clear of mines and the boat didn’t draft so much water as to be concerned with running aground. Both of us hoped that the early start would put us on the spot before the locals.
“F#CK!”, Tom said as he looked ahead.
I looked forward and saw a fisherman anchored at the snook-hole.
“What the f#ck is plan B?”
“Lets go up-river….there is a bridge there that might be good”, said Tom as he swung the boat around.
“Ya wanna beer?”
“Naw….not yet. You have one though”
“It feels good to drink in the morning”
“Especially when you drink a fine beer like that Busch beer………not many beers better for drinking in the morning”
I popped the top on my beer and felt the cold spray on my bare legs. The beer tasted good and felt good.
The bridge was just ahead now, and I could see it was a railroad bridge. The pylons were big and brown and covered with barnacles. There were lintels between the pylons that were only about three feet above the water and as long as the boat. That’s where the fish are, I thought….. gonna be tough pulling one out of there.
“Drop the anchor here and tie us off long”, Tom said on a low voice as he cut the engine about twenty feet upstream from the bridge. I reached back for the anchor with my long arms, tanned and strong from years of exercise. As I leaned back, I could feel the cool, damp fabric of my fishing shirt gently rubbing against my six-pack abs. I dropped the anchor and tied it about 25 feet out.
Quietly, we both hooked up the big mullet on our 6/0 circle hooks. I checked my leader and knot since I tied it on the night before….when I had been drinking. I was also using a new type of “super-line”, similar to Powerpro, and I didn’t know how well the knots would seat. The silence was soon broken by two loud splashes as our mullets hit the water after flipping clumsily through the air….impaled on hooks. They were good baits, alive and fresh and tugging at the big corks we had holding them from diving. Immediately we saws signs that they were being pursued by something large enough to pursue a foot-long mullet.
Tom saw some action first on a short cast into the channel, but the circle hook pulled out of the fish’s mouth. The mullet was scaled but still lively enough to go out again. As soon as the bait hit the water, the water erupted again, as something, or some things, chased the big mullet.
I was fishing closer to the edges of the pylons and had bounced my bait of the barnacled concrete enough times that it forgot how to swim….and also forgot how to live.
By this time the action had settled down. Tom had two good strikes but didn’t hook up. The use of circle hook was a pretty new thing and the old rules of fishing and setting the hook didn’t apply. With a circle hook, you just wind up on the line and let the hook set itself in the corner of the fishes jaw. A sudden jerk will usually yank the hook out of the fish’s gullet and also out of its mouth. We both knew this in our minds, but our arms, hands, and fingers were trained otherwise. All in all though, the use of these hooks was better for the fishery since there was less of a chance of the fish swallowing the hook……and he could be released unharmed, and only a little stressed so he could be eaten by a shark or porpoise as he regained his strength.
My mullet was dead….Tom’s was dying. He tossed his fallen soldier in the live well and pinned a new fresh one. I cut the body off of mine and took my cork off, remembering that snook would pick dead bait off of the bottom sometimes. As Tom’s hit the water with the familiar loud sploosh, mine went in quietly just to the left of a cluster of pylons.
Within five seconds, I saw my line start to straighten.
“Get Him…..Get Him!!” Tom started screaming.
I waited……quivering…….”wait for him to eat it”, I thought.
I could see that I had a little belly in my line from the river current and set to getting it out…slowly. After three cranks of the big black and gold PENN, I felt the tension and cranked like hell.
The drag exploded with its loud whizzing sound, shattering the silence of anticipation and replacing it with loud excitement.
The fish was running like hell…………….right between pilings. I could see my line being dragged right over the edge of the concrete with drag tension. We were gonna lose this fish unless he turned and came back to the boat on his own accord. I looked down at my spool spinning against the drag and waited for the line to break.
“Screw it!!! Let’s chase him. You got Powerpro…the line is still good!”. Tom yelled.
“I can’t pull in the anchor”….I had my hands full.
“Cut the f$cker……I don’t wanna lose the fish”.
I reached down into the side pocket on my AFTCO fishing pants and pulled out my fillet knife. It took one quick slash from the razor honed edge to send the anchor rope down to the bottom and we were free.
Now we had the problem of two full grown men in a canoe with a fish pulling drag from the stern, trying to maneuver under a three foot lintel.
Like a well practiced tournament team, we sprung into action; Tom leaning left, and I leaning right; our noses almost touching the water as we worked the boat through the obstacles and into open water. I handed the rod off and swung the stern around, then took it back as Tom paddled us out into the river.
Fortunately, the fish was still running out to sea, away from the bridge, so he kept tension on the hook in his mouth the whole time.
In open water, I played the fish carefully, knowing that the line and leader had taken a beating. After a minute or two, the fish broke water. It was not a Snook, but a big Jack Crevalle…….the king of inshore fish. As the behemoth rose from the deep, I could see that he was hooked solid, but the leader was frayed….barely hanging on. One more shake of the head and he would be gone. Carefully, I kept his head above water until he gave up and laid there on his side, acknowledging that he had been beaten.
He was much too heavy to bring into the boat alive so I reached for the nickel-plated rifle that I always kept in the boat…in its well-oiled cropped lambs wool case. As I drew a bead on his head, I caught his eye. I then felt sorry for this great fish who had given such sport. I knew he was not ready to die, and so I reached over and pulled the hook out of his jaw. This fish was too great to be diced up and served to the local villagers as their dogs growled and squabbled over the bones.
