Out there a thin layer of sand-like dust covered everything because it doesn't rain much on barrier islands and the wind knows no fatigue. Slightly fishy and powerfully earthy, the scent of pluff mud rode the breeze with each tide. The olive green spartina grass, like a permanent population, carried the sluggish creeks through the bountiful marsh. The creek’s color was likely to change with the sun and sky, from green to blue to hues of pink, red and violet. My father gave me just enough money for the right supplies. I had three months on the island until sophomore year in August. I spent that summer with jungle thick hair, from the salt air, dry and cracked hands from being constantly wet and dried, and tan, freckled skin. I know what you’re thinking, no not grocery money, tackle. I learned to be a fisherman.
Dewees is a barrier island off the coast of South Carolina, just north of Charleston. The entire island has a conservational easement, limiting development. There are sixty-seven houses on the island but you wouldn't think there were more than thirty because they are all nestled in the trees, like docile giants, squatted low so as not be seen. The alligators do not squat, or hide in any matter, nor do the deer, raccoons, rabbits, mosquitos or deer flies. None of them are afraid to be at your front door first thing in the morning.
With my Dad’s money I bought a minnow trap, hooks, sinkers, a cork and a handful of lures, all the things I remembered being in dad’s tackle box. Most of the time coming to Dewees, I fished with my dad. Going where he went; fishing where he fished, casting where he said cast.
When you are on your own, you remember where you caught, and what bait you might have used. You do not remember what you never thought about; being on your own is a little more complicated.
Saturday I put in the minnow trap in front of a water lock, where we always would put it. It produces -simple.
Later that day I floated a minnow in a creek that dead ends at the big water lock, just like I remember. No dice. I strung up a plastic lure on a jig head and bounce it across the bottom at the head of the impoundment, shallow, just off the main road. I got no bump, tug, hit, bop, pull, bite or strike. Not a one. Years ago we could sit there, in front of God and everybody, and catch flounder and red drum by the bucket. We can’t do that anymore, too many alligators, and people. Midday, at another common fishing hole, Six Pipes, I could see the speckled sea trout waiting for minnows spilling out the pipes. Six pipes, hence the name, run under the road connecting one side of the creek to the other allowing a targeted flow of water and therefore fish. Again, not a plastic lure nor minnow on a cork yielded any kind of lunch or dinner.
The blue crabs, attracted to anything dead and meaty, have never not been at the crabbing dock so I had some for supper Sunday night. After supper, on an outgoing tide I again floated a minnow in front of a creek by the ferry dock where dad and I would dangle our feet in water at night, whilst tearing up the trout and drum. Again, no dice.
I was not catching fish. This was particularly upsetting because I knew my dad could. I knew my brother could. I felt inadequate.
What made matters more worse was how I performed in school. For the first time in my life I had to withdraw from a class because I was failing. Math is the bane to my existence as an english major. My father is a math minded person, with high expectations; he is also a banker. At two moments, that my father and I share quite often, do I feel especially like a son to my father: in intellectual conversation, because he often answers questions before I have asked them, and our dedication to the outdoors.
The next day, at sunrise, a little perturbed by my inability to perform with the rod and reel, I walked up a remote creek to the honey hole my father showed me, high expectations. Walking up I could see big drum swim past me, boiling the top of the water with the flick of a tail and leaving wakes like a tiny dinosaur would. There were walls of pluff mud, a black, quicker than quick sand, smelly mixture of dead things, dirt and saltwater, and spartina grass on either side. I was shirtless, shoeless and breathing heavy. I had pluff mud all over my legs; it was a tough walk. I even had some mud on my shoulders to keep from burning. When I arrived, another cork-rig failed; another failed plastic. This especially fueled my fire because I could see the fish coming up to the top and just when I figure out, on my own, what to do, my phone buzzed for me to come to work.
The next evening, I tried fishing where I’d never been before, but I knew my dad had. Wading in the spartina grass, knee deep in the marsh, sight fishing for big drum at sunset under an inconsistently pink and blue sky, is something people travel a long ways to do. I walked from Big Bend Dock to Lone Cedar, about 200 yards away. Real close to Big Bend Dock, I got on a few smaller spottails but couldn't invoke a bite. It wasn't until I got right up on Lone Cedar that I had any more fish tease me. A bull of a spottail bass had his head in the mud and his mahogany colored tail like a flag just above the surface of the water. I made the perfect cast: four feet past and four feet in front, it only spooked him. He made a b-line for the larger creek, a wake like that of a ghost ship. Head hung, I returned home with nothing to show for my efforts.
I had tried everything I knew. I was beaten. Dewees whooped me with a stick and sent me to the nurse’s office. I called my dad. He had only one thing to say. “You only know how to fish in the fall.” He was right. I never thought about that. I have only been really successful fishing in the fall. The time of year was different and so were the fish.
So what had I not done? In my book I had done everything. What wasn't in my book? What had I not tried? I devised a plan. Dad always told me, write it out. So thats what I did. I took everything about each situation and wrote it out. One constant remained unsubstituted. Day. Next on my plan was to try daytime techniques at night.
Hungry, I saddled up my E-Z Go with all my tackle and headed for six pipes. It was high tide, outgoing, the trout would be sitting in front of the pipe. In the day, the trout could not be fooled by a hard plastic top water lure. They could see it. At night, however, the lure was a struggling fish splashing on top. Three casts in I had one ashore.
In the past I had great success, led by my father. Catching fishing only required listening, and not thinking. When I was thrown into a different current, the summer, I had to think to be successful. Imagine that. What I thought up was fishing is like an equation. I had to factor out what led to a catch or an empty bucket so I could change a variable, substituting one bait for another, changing tides. Not only did I learn to fish, to think for myself, but what I took away from this, in the long term rest-of-your-life sense, was that learning and challenges in such broadens one's mind to include blue prints to thought processes novel to a mind that was, in simplest terms, uneducated. Turns out trout like to hunt by ear as well as sight. So at night a top water plug sounds just like a top water minnow, splashing around. Who knew.
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