First Charter

By: Matt Badolato

Article Category: Matt Badolato

“Here Mrs. Thomas, let me put those waters in the cooler.”

“Thanks, Matt.”

From up on the dock she handed down a cardboard box full of bottles and snacks, her wide-brimmed straw hat shading her saltwater-tanned face. “I made some sandwiches, one for you, too. Fresh sliced turkey with lettuce on wheat. Got a little jug of rum, too.”

“Dang, Mrs. Thomas, you sure know how to fish in style!” I said with a smile. “It sure is a nice morning. Those snook should be hungry with that full moon comin’ up. Outgoing tide will start soon, should be perfect.”

“I hope so. Paul’s caught a few before but I never have. We usually just fish the reefs for snapper in our boat, but that’s too easy.”

“I’ll do my best to put ya on them today, Mrs. Thomas.”

“That’s what we’re paying you for,” she said with a wink.

“Speaking of Paul, where is Mr. Thomas?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s on his way. He woke up grumpy because we ran out of coffee, so he rode up to the store to pick up a pound. He’ll be here any minute.”

While Mrs. Thomas dangled her feet over the water’s edge, I readied the boat for our departure. I checked on the pinfish in the baitwell that I’d caught the night before. With a rod and light line tied to a small hook, I’d stayed up late drinking beer and used pieces of shrimp to catch two dozen of the palm-sized baitfish. Their bright pink and yellow fins were outstretched as they swam vigorously around the tank, which meant they were lively and would make good bait.

“Ahoy!” Mr. Thomas shouted from the gravel walkway that led from the marina to the dock. His coffee must have kicked in because he was half running, his fishing rod and oversized tackle box rattling with every bound.

“Morning Mr. T,” I said. “You ready to fish?”

“You bet. We better hurry up and get out there while it’s still cool. I’d like a shot at one of those big tarpon Pat McToobs hooked last week down off the south reef.” Mrs. Thomas shot a menacing glance at her husband. “Honey,” she said with wide eyes. “I want to catch a snook.”

“Ah shoot, we can catch all the snook we want over off the jetty. That’s fool’s fishing.”

“Well how come you’ve never taken me there to catch one?” she rebutted.

“C’mon now, you don’t want to sit there and soak bait with all the rest of them lead slingers, do you? Let’s get us a great big tarpon on fly, how ‘bout that?”

“Whatever you’d like to do, darling,” she said, rolling her eyes and gazing out at the calm, green lagoon. “Hey, we ain’t gonna catch a thing sitting here at the dock,” I chimed in. I choked the old Mercury and started her. I let her idle for a few minutes then tossed the ropes up onto the dock and we were off. Mrs. Thomas took a seat on the cooler while Mr. Thomas stumbled around the deck of the flats boat trying to stow his unusually long 10-weight fly rod, its bright orange line tangling around his ankles as he stuffed it beneath the gunnel.

As the skiff skipped across the water toward the mouth of the inlet, I had to shout over the loud engine to talk to Mr. Thomas. “I think we’ve got a great tide for snook fishing, you sure you don’t want to try it?” I yelled. “All that bait flushing out of the river should have the big ones feeding.” “No,” he shouted back. “Tarpon. Think we could find them outside the inlet?”

“It’s a long shot,” I told him. “They normally school up at night during these bright moons and they usually don’t feed during the day. But it’s up to you. I can probably find them.” “Yes, I want a tarpon,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing.” Then he belched and tossed his plastic water bottle into the lagoon.

I cringed and shook my head. Since he was my first-ever client and I was working for him, I followed orders. I ran the skiff down the channel and out the inlet. The ocean was calm, the emerald green surface sparkling in the morning glare. Pelicans dove on schools of mullet as the little baitfish rushed out along the jetties. I could see snook fishermen with their rods bowed up with heavy fish hooked up. Mrs. Thomas noticed the action, too. She looked at her husband, who was messing with his assortment of flamboyant flies, and rolled her eyes again.

As we came to a reef I knew held tarpon at certain times, I pulled back the throttle and stood up to look around. I noticed a tern flying up ahead and beneath them a school of mackerel thrashed on the surface, preying on small, shiny baitfish. “Tie on a little streamer,” I told Mr. Thomas. “There’s some mackerel over there. Use a little piece of wire on the leader or they’ll cut you right off with those teeth.”

“I’ve got a long shank Clouser minnow that will kill ‘em,” he said. “Don’t need no wire.”

“They’re pretty big,” I said. “You might need that extra protection.”

“Just watch,” he said.

I motored quietly up to the feeding fish. When we got in range, Mr. Thomas began casting into the school, whipping his fly rod back and forth through the air. His fly landed right in the middle of the frenzy and he was instantly setting the hook on a fish.”

“Got one!” he shouted proudly. The fish sped off, but the line immediately went slack. “Ah, shit. The bastard cut me off. Musta been a big one.” Mrs. Thomas grinned. “That reminded me of the time you lost that big white marlin off Green Turtle Cay, honey.” she snickered. Mr. Thomas sat down and rolled his eyes at his wife’s comment.

“I’m telling you, try the wire leader,” I told him. “I’ve got some made up in my bag right here.” “Enough of these lousy mackerel, I’m out here for a tarpon,” he said. For over an hour we zigzagged back and forth across the stretch of reef, my eyes peeled for a tarpon I knew probably wasn’t there. The Thomas’s sat down and made a rum cocktail. As the sun rose higher, finding a fish felt futile. They were probably out deep, I thought, waiting for their midnight feeding.

“I’ve got an idea. Let’s run back into the river, head up the backwater creek. I know a spot where the tarpon will eat mid-day. They’re not as big as the beach-run fish, but occasionally I’ve gotten nice ones.”

“Whatever you say,” said the rum-buzzed Mr. Thomas. “You’re the captain.”

Twenty minutes later we were cruising up the creek, its brown tannic water a stark contrast to the bright green sea we left behind. I stood on the poling platform with the push pole in hand, moving the boat along like a gondolier.

“Is that a tarpon?” Mrs. Thomas chirped from her seat on the cooler. “Over there, I saw a fin.” I looked where she pointed and sure enough, a big silver tarpon rolled lazily on the surface. We watched again as the fish came back and sucked down a small crab that was kicking its little legs for dear life on the surface. “Yep, get ready to cast, Paul,” I said sternly. “He’s hungry.”

“I can see that, Captain,” he muttered. Then, realizing he’d have to take my advice for once, he asked nicely, “What fly should I tie on?” I fished around in my tackle box for a crab-imitation and handed it to him. “Here, this will work. It’s called a ‘Brown’s crab’. Once you whip it out there, let it sit still and sink. It wobbles down like a crab swimming to the bottom.”

He tied it on quickly and hopped up onto the front deck, ready to cast. I poled the skiff closer to where the fish was and once again the tarpon rose up, its fin trailing on the surface. “There he is! Cast!”

Mr. Thomas made a flawless cast and the crab landed a few feet in front of the swimming fish. The fly slowly sank into the brown water and sure enough, the tarpon followed it down and inhaled it. “Set up on him! You got him!” I shouted. He reared back on the rod and it bent over like a noodle. The line tightened and the tarpon shot forward and leaped out of the water, rattling its red gills. Its long, silver body seemed to hang in midair before plunging back down with a splash.

“Dip the rod when he jumps!”

“I know, I know!” Mr. Thomas snapped.

The tarpon made a long run, all the way to the mouth of the creek. Mrs. Thomas took pictures while her husband hung on for dear life and cursed about his expensive reel’s drag mechanism. “What a piece of crap,” he said. “My first fish on this reel and already the gears are grinding.” “Hey, at least you’ve still got the fish on!” I said from the back of the boat. “We’ve got to chase him around this corner.”

I poled faster to keep up with the massive tarpon, easily over a hundred pounds and a good six feet long. It took us out of the creek and along a mangrove shoreline, still pulling strong and not tiring from the fight. The push pole kept sticking in the soft, muddy bottom and I struggled to keep the boat moving along.

Ahead of us, a clump of short mangroves grew out of the sea grass and Mr. Thomas’s line was dragging across the stalks. My feeling of hope for a successful first-day guiding was drained as the tarpon chafed the line against the mangroves with every powerful stroke of his tail. “Watch out, he’s gonna break you off on those ‘groves,” I told him.

“If we land this fish, I want to kill it,” he said. “I’ll mount it at our yacht club, that’ll show Al Spencer who’s boss.” As if it heard the comment, the tarpon turned and ran headlong into a narrow cut in the mangroves and just stopped. I knew that particular spot didn’t go back very far, so the tarpon must have reached a dead end.

“Stay here,” I told the Thomas’s.

I jumped in the neck-high water and made my way into the shallow mangroves. I followed the orange fly line into the trees, far enough back that my boat and clients were out of sight. Pressing further into the tangle of mangroves, the line came to an end and I found the fish. It was lying on its side, pumping its gills and breathing heavily.

I looked into the tarpon’s big, black eyes and thought about how noble the fish really was. I pictured it out at night, feeding in the brisk current under a full moon, riding the crest of a wave through the inlet, making its way back into the blackwater creek — all only to run afoul of an egocentric fisherman like Mr. Thomas and end up on some prissy clubhouse wall.

I grabbed its lower jaw and pulled the bulky fish back and forth to run water over its gills, taking my time to revive it. It cast a long shadow over the sandy bottom. Slowly it came back to life, its tail swaying and getting stronger every second. Its shiny, metallic scales reflected a swirling, dreamy light onto my chest. I looked into its eyes once more, twisted the hook out from the corner of its jaw and set it free, pushing it out and watching it swim away, back to deeper water. I stood there, dripping wet, hanging onto the moment. Then I walked out of the mangroves, back to the boat to tell Mr. Thomas that his fish had got away.