least another hour. And if not for the wind it probably wouldn’t have, at least not to any mentionable degree. Tides are predicted a year or more in advance with unerring accuracy. Winds, unfortunately, are not. Although things started out picture-
perfect, the “5-knot south wind” that lured us here shifted to the east around 30 minutes after our arrival. Then it added a little extra velocity just for good measure. Still, that first half-hour was worth
the extra effort.
because it presents the bait in far more natural fashion. Not that it matters now. Somehow, though, with a lightly
set drag, a careful hand and a world- class measure of luck while dancing the round-the-deck two-step, he even- tually brought the 31-inch redfish to the boat. Now, with the 21-foot hull still
steadily drifting away from the jetty, I’m about to break it to my friends that we’re well outside of the strike zone.
one scope in 40 feet of water. It’s an essential equation, especially when ship channel waters get ugly and rough. For added assurance, a heavy four-foot length of chain holds the anchor firmly head-down. The boat will swing back to the
rocks, sure as a see-saw. Until then, I figure, we’ll all take a
break. Just before I announce the plan to my partners, Little’s rod begins to buck. Seconds later he lands a respectable speckled trout of 18 inches and change.
Aitken fought the fish for almost 15 minutes, every second of which I expected to hear the firecracker pop of overtaxed monofilament.
I was still paying out anchor rope
when my buddies Dave Aitken and Matt Little hastily dropped their live baits in the water. Little’s shrimp was torn from the hook about halfway down. Aitken’s “hopper” met a similar fate, but not before the circle hook firmly drove itself into a large and a leathery jaw. Somehow Aitken had grabbed the
lightest outfit on the boat. It was nestled in a rod holder on the port-side console, a buggy whip baitcaster with 12-pound- test line and a fluorocarbon leader so thin it could pass through the eye of a fresh- water trout fly without touching metal. I know it as my “bait-catching rig.” Maybe it really is Murphy’s Law. I
prefer to believe that big fish always go for the wimpiest rig on the boat simply
36
LIKE A CHARM In a conflicted clash of natural
forces, a strong and unanticipated east- erly wind and the premature measure of current it triggered have created a virtual standoff. For now, it’s a dead- even tie between incoming wind and outgoing water. The anchor rope is suddenly slack,
floating atop the water like a long, life- less snake. I step to the bow and hur- riedly gather half-inch rope hand-over- hand until I’m absolutely sure that the anchors are still solidly stabbed into the clay-thick bottom. They are. One hundred and fifty feet of rope is enough to provide an almost four-to-
www.joincca.org
Aitken, meanwhile, is having fun with
a sand trout on the opposite side of the cockpit. Little, is already lifting another even larger speck over the starboard gunnel. Okay, then. I’ll take a break. As the boat swings out to its widest
point, Little casts another live shrimp, this time out into the channel — exactly where I would have told him not to go. He barely has time to engage to reel bail before setting the hook. It was bound to happen. I reach into my tackle bag and blindly dig around, hoping to find the needle-nosed pliers I’ll need to safely extract the hook from what has to be a hardhead catfish. Hard heads, after all, are about all you catch this far out. Except for one apparently lost flounder, just shy of three pounds, that
TIDE
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