against all odds

I woke up at 6:55 on Saturday morning to slate-gray skies, tides higher than normal and 20-knot winds. I thought for a second of leaving the Blazer in the driveway, even if it was all ready to go, and sleeping in.
When I walked down the trail to a pretty easy-accessible fishing spot down on Hunting Island, I realized I was the first on the river trail, given that I was clearing all the spiderwebs with my face.
That's a dead-sure sign you're the first. And at 8 a.m. with a cup of coffee in one hand and my 9-foot, 8-weight in the other, I figured worse and better fishermen are getting coffee refills, painting the kitchen or rolling over in bed again, waiting for the weather to pass.
Me, well, I figured I might as well try.
It's the philosophy that drives pretty much everyone around me nuts, because when the weather's bad, the odds are horrible or no one's really into it, in some twisted way, that motivates me.
Every last time.
Motivate might be too strong a word for Saturday morning. My expectations were below low: No fish are going to bite, and I accepted that. But I also knew that there would be a great deal of frustration with casting into a hard wind, getting soaked, sinking into plough mud to get to the river bank (like I said, super-high tide) and probably being too cold or too warm.
Yeah, all of those things happened.
I lost a fly, about half of my leader, my shoulder — I believe — is swelling fro hurling a thread-bound wad of feathers into 30-knot gusts for three hours, my feet hurt from constantly balancing on the dead reeds of spartina that separated me from slipping into the river for a quiet death (who, after all, would ever find me way out here?) and I tripped upon a next of hornets (the kind in the ground) the size of kazoos. All 15 or so of them.
Luckily — no, amazingly — I didn't get stung (or bitten, I forget what hornets do). Of course, when they are 4-inch-long bees, they are bigger targets, and a fly rod can be a deadly weapon.
Trudging through the mud, I realized that I could get stuck on the way out if the tide came up another foot or so, which it was predicted to do.
But I made it to the bank, the wind picking up the salt off the water and whipping it in my face, and I had to let the line out on the back case, which I hate to do simply because there are obstacles behind me (shrubs, scrub, spartina and even a few craggy trees). For the next hour or so, I resolved that this was a practice run. I hadn't been down the bank this far before, and with my father-in-law coming up to visit next week, I figured I'd better scout a few new spots to fish with him, seeing as how we haven't been terribly successful at some of the scenic, yet fish-desolate places I've dragged him to over the years.
Again, if the odds are bad, my motivation increases. It's a sickness, I know this.
By 9 a.m., the tide had changed, the wind was still gusting, but gusts are sporadic, and fish gotta eat, right? I used just one fly all day (well, one fly pattern. As I said, I lost one), a No. 4 lime green and orange rattler minnow that I bought at the Orvis shop downtown. It's a noisy little bugger, and when you give it a good little yank, it becomes pretty spirited and trout are supposed to enjoy that.
And trout like to feed, this time of year, in the deeper troughs near the banks where the food comes to them.
And that's when it hit. I probably only had 10 yards of line out and was jigging the fly near the reeds when a gorgeous trout took it as he was rising. I set the hook like a pro (lucky, I guess), and wanted to take another step into the river, but with the tide spilling over the bank, again, it would have meant a very tough swim or a very easy death. (I wonder if I would have still been holding the fly rod, attached to the line, attached to the fish, when they found me. I'd have hoped so. I could see the coroner shaking his head, "Damned shame. That's a nice fish.")
I reached down with my net and scooped the fish out from the plough mud and reeds. He immediately spat out the fly and clamped down on the catch-and-release net, which got all caught up in his teeth until he started to run out of breath, or water, and finally began gasping.
For a minute there, I thought I was going to have to bring him home. But I picked him up by his gills out of the net, and he measured from the tip of my little finger just below my elbow. That's my unofficial 16-inch measurement, and he was good and plump. Would have made a nice dinner.
But, like I said, my father-in-law is coming up next weekend, and I better leave the fish in the hole for next Saturday.
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I'm fairly certain that I was the only fisherman out that Saturday morning in Beaufort County. I mean, it looked like a hurricane was coming, and the breeze felt like it too. There were no boats on the horizon and none humming about the protective reeds. No shrimp boats, no crabbers. No one even sitting on a bucket, huddled under a bridge. The Saturday morning fishing shows had high ratings that day.
Me? I held a beautiful, fat trout in my right hand breathing the fresh salt air, looking over miles of marsh grass contrasting brightly against a wet gray sky. And released him.