The sun was just breaking through the tall pine trees on the eastern horizon of Apalachee Bay, when the Toyota rolled up to the beach. My best friend and I sat in the running SUV while we watched as sand plovers began their day scouring the water’s edge for small invertebrates. We were alone in the parking area except for one lone raccoon, typical of a North Florida haunt. The heat from the engine was piped in to our feet, the last warmth that they would see for hours. I looked over at my friend and gave a nod of approval and we both hopped out and donned our Simms G4 waders and boots.
The tide is out fully and finding tailing redfish in the marsh should be as easy as spotting some movement, but as I scanned the horizon I saw no flags this morning. The Gulf was calm, eerily quiet for a good old boy raised next to the hustle and bustle of Charlotte Harbour and Tampa Bay. Two miles out, a mullet boat cranked up and started his search for the roe laden fish, while overhead contrails gave away the positions of heavy planes against the blue backdrop. Again I looked to the water and I spotted an area where ripples have begun to form no more than one hundred yards to my left. The ripples spread outward until the Gulf absorbs them and I decided it was as good a place as any to begin the stalk.
I walked my friend along the beach until we come to the spot where the ripples were last seen and we entered the water together, while I calmly said to keep looking for tails along the marsh grass.
“Watch for the oyster bottom, the fish will stand up on their heads trying to dig shrimp and crabs out.” We walked twenty more yards or so, while only seeing small schools of mullet here and there, until out of the corner of my eye I caught some movement near the marshy shoreline.
Shrimp began firing out of the water doing evade and escape maneuvers that seemed to only delay the inevitable. The big, bulbous head of a redfish came shooting out after them, devouring the hap- less creatures. It was a lone bull, out for breakfast I assumed, and I directed my friend into position. I patiently waited through the false casts and finally gave the order to drop the fly. It landed within a foot of the feeding fish and we watched, as the bull wasted no time striking the hand-spun version of the real thing.
The rise was almost too perfect for such a cold morning. The fish’s head pushed a large wake of water in front as it shot towards the slowly submerging shrimp. Its head burst from below the surface against the marsh-grass backdrop, spraying water as far as the tip of my friend’s outstretched rod and sounding as if someone had dropped a cinder block into the shallow water.
My best friend strip-set the line and it became piano wire taught, shooting through the water at speed, chasing that big red hooked in the roof of the mouth! The 9-plus reel hummed as backing peeled off and as the sun finally crested those lonely pine trees on the horizon, our bodies began to warm at the feat just accomplished. We smiled at each other and I helped retrieve the brute from the chilly water. Several photos later, we watched as the pumpkin colored monster swam off, knowing never to eat that color shrimp again.
The morning progressed and the fish were few. Be- tween the two of us, we only had three shots at tailing fish until our break for lunch. We met back at the Toyota and pulled out the Yeti Cooler. I had agreed to guide my friend and the fact that we only had one fish landed was making me sweat in the cold wind. She was not used to fly fishing for reds and I worried about her having a good time. The sandwiches and cold beer made the long morning more tolerable and then I looked over to see a bright smile across her youthful face.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, “Nothing, nothing at all. I’m just having the time of my life. I’ve never thought about bringing the fly rods out to try for reds. The fact that we actually got one, on the first cast of the morning just makes it that much sweeter.” The smile continued through lunch and on into the next few hours.
Finally as the sun began to set to the west, I spotted a group of tails waving at us from a shallow bayou, the smile turning to seriousness. We crept up on them from the bank, working our way around downed pine limbs and sharp sand spurs. Every now and then we would both stop and check each other for ticks, a constant nuisance.
After ten minutes of bush whacking, I figured that we were close enough to the school and we cut in towards the steep banks of the bayou. We belly crawled the final few yards and peeked over the tall marsh grass to see the school of fish directly below us lounging about, waiting for the tide to come in. I instructed my friend to dapple the fly on top of them and see what happened, as I had only ever used the technique on small creeks up north for brookies.
The shrimp fly was on the surface no more than thirty seconds when a small red smacked it so hard it flew back at the very mud bank we were hiding behind, making this the second time and a second swing and a miss. Finally, the fly became water logged and began to sink faster. A decent twenty-two inch redfish smoked it and began ripping drag in the opposite direction of the school. This gave me an opportunity to hook one and make the finale a double header. My weighted clouser sank on the first try and I was now in the heat of the battle. Both fish fought tooth and nail, until we finally bested them down the bank.
My friend lay against the muddy wall after releasing the fish. “That was one of the greatest days of fishing I have ever had.” I was happy to have been apart of it. Back at the house, we sat around a warm fire and agreed that “fun” fishing isn’t about how many fish you catch or how big they are. For us the real reward is getting to be on the water and sharing the experience with the people you care most about. That smile, on my girl’s face at lunch, the one that stretched from ear to ear, is all the reward I will ever need.
Captain Johnny makes his living from the deck of skiff and from his grandfather’s writing desk at his home near Tampa. The Florida native occasionally takes clients hunting in Old Bay and encourages readers to enquire. He can be reached through his website at: www.LPineOutdoors.com.
