At times like these it is easy to question ourselves, even to wallow in negativity, but that’s just not my way. It’s quite possible the conditions will be shit this entire run. No matter, for despite the fruitlessness, all of this is beyond amusing. I don’t mind paying my dues and am well aware there’s never sugar without the salt, for life will humble you along the way—plenty. After such a drive to get here, with inane expectations of fish after fish, I still need to simply settle in, breathe, let it all hang out and find that groove. It’s going dark. I batten down the gear, turn on the headlamp and start paddling toward a wide sand bar to make camp. I am instantaneously surrounded by all types of winged creatures what feels like an infinite number of moths and insects. The next few minutes are surreal and heady. We are a 20-foot halo floating along as one bizarre being, looking for a resting place. Camp is a small, struggling fire on the sand bar with the canoe pulled close. Shards of moonlight stream through the gulf cloud banks and I don’t feel like cook-k ing, although I am hungry as can be and worn down. What I wouldn’t give for another slice of that pie. Oh, damn that pie. The fucking pie! It’s still riding shot-gun with the crystal under the front gunnels, and it is as good as the first time, perhaps even better, coming apart like a Roman candle on my tongue. Satisfied and with a wan, shit-eating grin and gems of brown sugar around my lips, I crawl into the canoe and use the thunderbird blanket for a pillow. I pull out a leather-bound collection of Tennyson I found for 10 bucks in an antique shop and let it buckle me at the knees. A couple bell-ringers are, “ The shell must break before the bird can fly ,” and, “ I will drink life to the lees. ” I second that, Lord Alfred. And as I start to fall asleep, I remember someone saying that big-ass gators roam everywhere out here. That’s fine, come on and love me. Morning and the French press is on the flame, kicking and simmering. Coffee smells so damn perfect. I’m changing on a sand bar naked as a jaybird. I should fish like this all day. Then I remember my back cast in yesterday’s winds. I pour the coffee to the brim of the thermos, load the gear and kick off again in semi-darkness. The winds are still howling. I spend the next few hours exploring random tidal f lats and saltwater creek tangents and don’t even bother to cast. There’s still no clarity and I squander more time watching coastal herons and gulls than I do wondering about the fish. I don’t feel like I’ve put the rest of the world behind me yet. By late afternoon, the tide starts to fall out hard. I find myself in a small oxbow with only a few inches of water and finally see a couple reds at the far back bend. They are weaving back and forth along the edges of the spartina. I send a 30-foot shot in front of the lead. The take is lazy, but the fish hightails it as soon as I strip set, with his friend right behind. It’s about time. By nightfall the tide has rolled back in and I still haven’t found shit other than one decent red. I find another sand bar and pull the canoe in to shut it down for the day. Supper is vacuum-packed coho and a couple bottles of Shiner beer. One could overthink all of this and head for home in the morning, but there will be no cutting bait. I came to fish, and everything that comes with it, no matter the unraveling yarn mitten of a trip. Going it alone is good for the soul. When you read the fancy magazines and look closely at the pictures, sometimes you’ll see the sport who can’t cast their way out of a paper sack, while the badass guide is in the shadows lighting a fire and chopping wood with an axe, taped-up hands covering blisters from the oars, and there’s probably nothing but bills in their P.O. box back in town, all with a grin on their face. There is a reason guides get what little pay they do. But in life, our job is to guide ourselves—that’s the only way we ever figure shit out. When you aren’t a kid anymore, there is a grace that mellows you out to let some things go, and also a more stringent bullshit detector that occasionally wants you to drop the ham-mer. Yin and yang. Lying on my back in the canoe looking up at the first few stars of the night, I crank back into the Tennyson and dip into my favorite road-trip secret weapon. You can find cheap-ass vanilla cookies called “Grandma’s” in any gas station, and damn if they don’t make a righteous dessert anywhere in the world. The small, plastic-wrapped roll of them lasts three poems before I am out like a light. LEFT One-room fixer-upper. Striking views. Privacy. Close to fishing. This duck blind battles the wind, sun and salt on the south Texas flats of Laguna Madre. Photo: Nick Kelley THE FLYFISH JOURNAL 079
The Flyfish Journal Volume Eight, Issue Two: Page 79
