retention pond, part two

Surprises come in small packages. Even big surprises. Such as the largemouth bass I caught in a retention pond right in my backyard.
Back up: I live in one of those cluster developments (I like to think it's because I'm into green living, but in reality, my wife loved the house and, well, I do, too), and it has dock access onto a tidal spill just off a pretty decent-sized salt/fresh water river. I kayak out there and fish when I can, mostly for trout and redfish.
But being a cluster development, which means there are common green spaces and lots of trees, but the houses are insanely close together with practically nonexistent yards, there was some mitigation to be done with the low-lying waters that once graced the woods that were there before the homes. Thus, there are four retention ponds on the property — one at each corner.
The two up front are purely retention; the two in the back are bigger and they have fountains.
I always heard they were stocked with bass, but why waste my time here, when I live in one of the most vibrant fishing areas on the East Coast?
My father-in-law, that's why.
See, while I was slaving away at my desk one Friday afternoon, he decided to take his fly rod and plink some bass flies into the ponds.
My wife called and said he'd caught three bass.
Now, I can't concentrate on work at this point, so I'm figuring out ways to get out of dodge and join him on the bank of a suburban development pond.
Fish are fish, after all.
I did, and as luck would have it, I got a half-hour or so to see what he was up to.
I didn't bring my own rod knowing that dinner was on the stove and we'd have to be back shortly, but when I got there, Tom handed me his rod with some sort of wooly bugger on the end. I plinked it in, jiggled it, and within a few minutes the bass (pictured above) was fighting for its life.
:)
The next day, we went out fly fishing on my favorite river just southeast of where I live on the Sea Islands. We were skunked — the river still wasn't warm enough for the reds or trout — but there were a couple of nibbles and some good conversations from folks who stopped by to see what we were in to.
The next day, when the baby was asleep and dinner was being prepped, Tom and I went back out to the retention pond.
We each landed a fish. This time, mine was a smallmouth bass.
But it was a fish.

retention pond

I've gotten into this habit whereas when my wife and I plan a trip to visit folks, I'm eventually Googleing the terrain to see if there's any good fishing going on near were we'll be staying, and would I have a free couple of hours, usually at the crack of dawn while all are still asleep, to try my luck with the local salmonids.
Such was the case last weekend, when we loaded up the SUV with stuff — lots of stuff we never dreamed of ever having to take on a four-day jaunt to Orlando, Florida, that is since we had a baby last summer.
Now, I wasn't in charge of packing for the tyke, so I can't tell you what was in the eight or so extra bags (a four-day weekend!), but I can tell you that the car was completely loaded down.
The good news is that we were off to see her folks in their new winter home. The bad news is the fishing constituted retention ponds.
Now, let me back up a second. I prefer to fish with a dry fly, preferably on a river with moving water and no alligators, and preferably for trout. The holy grail of all places would be the quintessential trophy waters, tough enough to access as to leave all the weak at the more recreational streams, and one that is in a picturesque, soul-cleansing sort of place.
The dead opposite of that would be a retention pond in a condo development chuck-filled with blindingly white-skinned golfers from Sandusky, Ohio, and Poughkeepsie, N.Y., ponds where the golf-course run off seeps in to overfertilize the natural (natural?) vegetation, and one where golf carts packed with prospective timeshare buyers zoom behind you every 30 seconds with the agent asking how the fishing is all while hearing the din of roller-coaster riders from maybe 10 miles away screaming during the big drop, oh, and did I forget, getting a good line out on a fish only to be disrupted by a very bad golfer who smacked the Titleist right into the pond in which you were trying to fish (and then asking if there are any fish in the pond — the audacity).
Talk about a fish out of water. While all the snowbirds were walking around either on the front nine or heading out to play shuffleboard or hit the swimming pool, there we were, my father-in-law Tom Rydzy and I in full fly fishing garb. I even had the vest and the net. What was I thinking.
But a strange thing happened. There were fish. And they were huge.
The first pond we hit was a retention job just off the No. 5 pin on the golf course. We accessed it from the road on its east side only because while driving by, there were 16-inch shadows lurking, which turned out to be tailing browns.
OK, so they were stocked — who cares? I was planning on catching mutant sunfish, and there were some of the most beautiful browns I'd seen outside of a fish hatchery tailing in the crud vegetation lining the low banks.
We approached with precision, sun in our faces so that the fish wouldn't see the shadows, low and with stealth and with a quick scout of the hatch. OK, so there was no hatch, but what there was were dragonflies. Those beautiful little electric blue and soft black guys that flit over the water and drive trout crazy.
Yeah, I didn't have any of those. But I did have a wooly bugger and some other black and blue patterns, as well as several moths, nymphs, streamers, coachmen, Wulffs, bass poppers and saltwater deceivers... I list these because none of them worked. My guess was that had I a hot dog or some popcorn and a snelled hook, I'd have been fine. These were junkyard dogs, and they were used to humans, especially those with fishing rods. What they — or anyone else in the development for that matter — weren't used to were fly rods. And there were more than enough comments from passers by to not think otherwise.
But that's OK. A good fisherman doesn't care what's leering at him, unless it's a bear, a python or a gator. And speaking of gators, before trying the retention pond, we did in all earnest grab a GPS and found a native lake behind the local Wal-Mart (one of 52 on International Drive) that I walked down to and found tell-tale signs of bass — a few uprooted trees in the pond, clear water, lily pads and a tall wooded bank. But just as we were gearing up, a bagger out collecting carts gave us some advice.
"A buddy of mine was fishing there, and he caught a couple of really nice fish."
That was encouraging, so we then got huge smiles on our faces. But as is the way with Southerners, there's always a little more to the story if you're patient and polite enough to listen to it.
"But then he saw a couple of gators back there — one about eight feet, the other sixteen."
Now, an eight-foot gator poses a health hazard for certain, but chances are, he's going to be a bit intimidated by your size, too, especially if there are a couple of you. He's probably not going to get close enough to find out unless he's having a particularly feisty day.
A sixteen-foot gator, however, isn't intimidated by anything, and if he's lived long enough to gain such length, well, there are probably more than a few neighborhood dogs who didn't come home at his expense.
So, off to the retention ponds where nuisance gators, as they're called, are hauled off by the local critter management team.
After a few fruitless hours of smacking these hoggers in the nose, running the fly over their tails and even trying to foul-hook them with a fast-pulled streamer, we gave up. I did get an interesting strike just before I gave up for the morning in about four inches of water: One of the browns, maybe 18 inches, was chasing a dragonfly on the bank when I dropped a black moth in. Just before I cast, I pointed to Tom, just as the Babe pointed to right field, and I let it fly.
The fish grabbed the moth (I think mistakenly, but I was impartial) and came out of the water with it. Neat! Tom was even watching! Then he jerked it to the left and right, and spat it out.
That night, over a couple of Labatt's sitting around the dining room table, we each tied a couple of black dragonflies. I used a dark blue bead for the head, which really looked good. We tied them on No. 2 streamer hooks, smashing the barbs in the vice to play fair (or at least look like we knew what we were doing).
We went out the next morning to the same retention pond, but the browns were nowhere to be found. Phantom fish. They must have tailed through the culverts to the next retention pond — there are quite a few, after all.
So we went to an old standby, a stocked pond with a fountain in the middle and a tennis court at our backs. That's better than a golf course because the type of balls used are worlds apart on the pain scale, should one shell you, and tennis folks just seem more neighborly than the cigar-toting Tiger wannabes.
Anyhow, I tool the west side so as to not cast a shadow in the early morning sun. Tom went around the other side and blended in among the shrubs and trees. On my first cast, I had an amazing strike from maybe a 16-inch brown. I was late in setting the hook, probably because I had no idea I'd actually get a hit on the first cast (a coachman, even), and by the time I had tried to set it, he was off. He made such a splash that I figured I had fouled the pool. Besides, this pond was a pretty good size, maybe seven or eight acres, so there was a lot of bank to fish.
While I was moseying down the bank to cast into a nice patch of vegetation, I heard Tom make a sound, and he landed a nice little bass. Now, I didn't see it, but he said it was a decent size, and that's good enough for me. I drew out a couple of sunfish with some eggs and even a nymph, but they were spooky, and I couldn't get them any closer than to gum at my hook.
Now, I knew from that minute that I should just stop right now, pack up the gear and leave. If I couldn't get a sunfish to bite, it was going to be a long morning. Ever the optimist, I moved on down the bank to a neat little pool that proved to be as much a biology lesson as it was a smorgasborg of different species. For there, in the same big pool, were bass in the five-pound range butting heads with brownies up to 18 inches while guarding their spawning holes. There were also a few sunfish and some minnows glubbing by. I imagine the smaller fish were food for these hogs simply because the fish were huge compared to the size of the pond, and, well, there weren't a ton on minnows swimming like you'd normally see.
So, I set my rod to it. I fished from behind some tall weeds so as to not be seen. I was on the right side of the bank so as to not show my shadow. I cast perfectly, lightly. I had damn-near nine feet of tippet and leader. I even copied the insects buzzing around — white and sulfur months, hornets and even the dragonflies. Nothing. So I moved through my arsenal being extra careful not to spook the fish. I'd change flies, move up the bank, then come back.
Nothing.
During one of my trips through the fly box, Tom came by, seeing that I had been hogging this one small pool all morning, cast a honey bee in, and whack, caught a small bass. From the sunny side of the bank, too, in plain view of the fish.
Huh.
I cast again, fluidly, precise, had lured some fish from their holes. Nothing.
A few minutes later, Tom hooked another.
I walked over and asked him what he was using. He showed me his yellow and white bee pattern. I already tried that, I explained. He gave me one of his.
I got a bite, and it was a big smallmouth bass, but he spit it right back out.
The rest of the morning, as it waned, held much of the same for me. It wasn't in the cards.
I could have stayed at that hole all day and wouldn't have caught a thing. Blame it on bad mojo, but the fish were on to me.
I'm glad Tom got some, though.
We made it back to the winter house 45 minutes late for lunch, which didn't make the women happy, but they were sympathetic to my dilemma, and they weren't about to make me feel any worse.
Thing is, I didn't feel bad at all. I didn't expect to catch anything in a retention pond with a 5-weight flyrod. I didn't expect there to be a challenging sized fish in the pond.
What I did expect, however, was to have a blast fishing with a very good fishing partner on a few gorgeous mornings and to walk away refreshed, skunked or not.
And I sure did get that.

fish talk

I tend to fish alone. But I have some good fishing buddies, too: Bob, BJ, Ian and my father-in-law, Tom, to name a few. I've often thought about what makes a good fishing buddy. It's complicated. But the first rule is none of them jaw the whole time we're fishing. This is paramount. Because you're not going to catch fish if you're talking about what you watched last night on TV.
There is plenty of time to talk on the ride out and the ride back. And occasionally, to meet back at the truck or the tackle box to give a progress report:
"Lost one, but got a little speck."
"Thought I had one, but it was a skate."
"Beer?"
That's pretty much the size of it. Fishing is a tremendous feeling, it's really a stress-reducer, and, most importantly, it puts things into perspective. Some folks like to run 26 miles, others like to shoot pool or see a shrink. Me? Fishing. There is hardly a problem I can't solve while staring in to the sea or into a crystal clear brook. That's probably because I don't think of the problem while fishing. And some part of that logic translates to if I don't think about it, then chances are it's not really a big problem.
Now, if it is a big problem and my mind is set on mulling it over while staring out into the water, then chances are I'm praying about it at the same time, and that usually does a good job of taking care of things.
I remember taking two of my friends, Jerry, a cop from my hometown, and Ian, a guy I work at the paper with, to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for some bluefish, striper and whatever else we could catch. It was a four-day jaunt, complete with rundown old motel with a sink and a stove so we could eat what we caught in a little town called Buxton, which just happens to be close to the farthest point out on the Atlantic.
Needless to say, it's debatable who has more high-stress jobs, the cop or the editor. One thing's for certain: They're both very high-stress jobs. Somehow, the world seems all right once that line is chucked into the water. The sound of the surf pounding the sandbars, the crisp, slat-laced November wind rushing into your lungs, the sun and shore is better than the best massage or shrink money can buy.
I've done this a few times, but like I said, it was these guys' first trip out to the banks. I think they might have been a little worried when I was building up the trip as a change your life experience.
Either that, or it was me telling them that we'll fish a solid 12 hours a day up there. We'll be dead asleep at 8 p.m. and back up at 5 a.m. to do it all over. And we'll be on our feet the entire day, except when we kneel down to cut more bait.
That can be daunting. Because I remember my first trip with Bob and BJ (his first, too). We left right after work, drove through the night, slept for maybe an hour then went fishing. The time after that, instead of checking in at the lodge, we went right to the beach and fished. That was 2 a.m. and we didn't stop until 7 p.m.
Needless to say, having been awake for something like 36 hours, I was hallucinating.
I told Jerry and Ian these stories, after which, I thought I'd be fishing alone that weekend. But they were sports, and they came along.
They bought neoprine waders, bought or borrowed some fishing gear and hunkered down for three full days of being abused by the sea. I showed them the proper knots, what bait we use and what the rigging was, pointed to the ocean and we went our own ways.
Now, with 200 yards of line pounding in the surf, there would be a lot of untangling to do if you were shoulder to shoulder, chatting away about how the Patriots are going to do in the playoffs this year. So, naturally, we put our tackle and bag chairs way up past the high-tide mark (where they will still get swamped by the occasional rogue wave) and walk down to the water with our enormous rods, splitting up til we're just out of earshot, which is about 50 yards because of the pound of the surf.
We've developed a whole sign language of our own. Basically, if you need a beer, you fake like drinking a can. If you got something, you look at the guy excitedly. If you don't, but the rod's bent, you just shake your head. The only other signal I can think of is looking straight up and smiling. That means, "Dude, this is awesome."
On the first day out, we were loaded up on biscuits and gravy, had one cooler full of fresh mullet for bait and another with a case of beer (conservative guess here), and in one hand a cup of coffee, the other a 12-foot surf rod.
After we got our lines out, got comfortable in the surf and with the gear, I looked over to my right and saw Ian chilling out. Jerry was doing much the same on my left. I just smiled. In the next three hours, we might have said four words to each other. I landed a nice little puppy drum and Jerry got into a 3-foot black tip shark.
There were a few whiting hopping around in the surf. I threw my line in again, put the rod into a sand spike and walked over to Ian.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"Great."
"What are you thinking about?"
He hesitated, and almost sounded surprised to hear himself say, Nothing."
We smiled, and I said, "Exactly."
He just laughed.
I had the exact same conversation with Jerry not 2 minutes later.
Except he swatted me on the shoulder and chuckled.
See, there's really no reason to feel the need to converse endlessly. A good fishing partner understands this, too. It's as if we're there for support, as are they, and again to drink beer every so often. There's a whole different type of communication with nature, and we're all a part of it. I can experience that on any old trout stream or in the weeds trying to coax out stubborn reds. But the ocean has it's own song.
That's really what it's all about. Now, multiply that by three or four days of staring into the sea, listening to the surf, catching big fish, and you get the idea. You walk off the beach as if you were just born, or born again.
For the first time in a long time, you remember what it was like to be a boy, with no responsibilities, no deadlines, no pressure. Just fish.
Of course it ends, but that's OK, too. There's usually a nice, long drive or ferry ride home that serves as sort of a re-entry so that you don't hit the atmosphere too hard and burn. There are stories to tell, fish to keep frozen, plans to be made for the next time.
And that feeling of being on the beach sticks with you for some time.
And when you forget, you'll find traces to remind you: grains of fine sand lodged under your floor mat, salt spray stuck to the corner of your tackle box, the smell of the surf on a windbreaker.
And just when life again gets intolerable, well, that's when you start making plans for the next trip.

fritz's vest

I love looking through fishing catalogs — Orvis, LL Bean, The Fly Shop, Cabella's, Bass Pro — that are among the regular mailings I get here at home.
I look at the fancy rods, the anodized reels, the boxes full of colorful flies, all symmetric and perfect. Toward the back, beyond glossy page after glossy page of fly fishers reeling in beautiful rainbows, browns or brookies from pristine waters around the country, there is the gear section. In these pages, you'll find all the stuff you must have to before you can call yourself a proper fisherman.
To me, it's not much different than the racks of crap you find right there near the cash register in the grocery store — things that you didn't really need, but on second thought, maybe I do need Chap-Stick or an eight-pack of AAA batteries or even a magazine on how to improve my sex drive or abs (speaking of which, I always wondered why they didn't sell six-packs of beer right there. Would seem that it would make some good profits...).
I can't imagine fishing in the late 1800s. A trout stream with no No Trespassing signs to snarl the day, a fisherman with a bamboo rod, a modest reel and some silk fly line.
Waders might have been optional, as was a proper landing net, vest, green canvas hat and titanium fly box. I think of how simple it must have been, and how we all long to get back to those simpler days. One look at eBay, and you'll find out just how badly fly fishermen want to get back to the old days, spending upward of $5,000 for an old Heddon rod or Hardy reel (and it's funny to think that these standard items might have cost under a dollar or so back when they were new, and that was a splurge...).
I have to admit, I scan the Internet for deals on a good split bamboo rod just like the next guy. Hell, I was in the Outer Banks last fall and was seriously considering asking my wife if I could buy a 1950s model Jeep wagon — you know, wood on the sides, clear glass, before they were called sport utility vehicles...
I love the fishing equipment that Dad passed down to me. It consists of a couple of not-so-classic fiberglass poles, great northern pike rigs, an old Sport King spinning reel, a box of bass plugs, two Shakespeare bait casting reels (neither works well but are great paperweights) an old Pflueger spinning reel that was an anniversary gift from my mom and, my favorite, an old fishing vest with the name "Fritz" written in permanent marker, of course, on the left, front breast pocket.
Fritz was my dad's older brother. They were tight, those two. Having grown up in Utica, N.Y., in the heart of New York state, my dad, Orrie, and his brother, Fritz, would spent much of their boyhood years scouting out good trout streams and bass ponds, and when I was finally old enough to fish with them, they'd tell me stories of the same waterways they had fished when they were my age or even older.
I could picture the two of them in their adventures. I couldn't fish with my dad without him bringing up some fish he or Fritz caught or the time they were chased though a cornfield by an angry farmer or bull or what have you on their way back from a lesser-known bass pond. And there was my Uncle Fritz tooling along in his khaki brown fishing vest, lures or flies hanging bobbing about, the pockets full of pocket knives, split-shots, a worm can and probably a screw driver (Dad always carried one, so I bet Fritz must have, too).
When I was 19, I was given, as a gift by an old flame, a fly vest. It was nice, and I still have it. It's the standard khaki, with several rings, pockets, clips and clasps. And I wore it for a few years. That is until my Dad passed and I was handed a box of my his fishing gear. After that day, the only vest I wore was Fritz's. Somehow, my dad acquired it along the way. Brothers share a lot, and I'd bet my Uncle Fritz offered it one day and Dad accepted. He probably accepted knowing that I could use it, since I tended to fish with a fly and he had little use for it. I'm glad about that. I never did see Dad wear that vest; he wasn't much of a fly fisherman (I've never seen him cast a fly rod...), and he wasn't big into being all dressed up just to go fishing. It was jeans, sneakers and a loose shirt, probably a ball cap.
Me, too. Sometimes I actually feel silly even wearing a fly vest. Waders, a fly vest and a wide-brimmed hat might put me over the edge. Still, all those pockets come in handy, and despite the red sunburn to the back of my neck, chances are, I'm going to wear a ball cap (although I did purchase a boonie hat at the local Orvis shop, but I still feel funny in it. I tend to wear it more while mowing the lawn.) and while the waders are fine, I don't so much require them once the water hits, say, 75, which is early March in South Carolina. Polarized sunglasses are a must, even on a cloudy day.
To me, hand-me-downs are the way to go. I have an old pair of cargo shorts, you know, the kind with the gazillion pockets. I got them at the Wal-Mart for maybe eight bucks. Most of the summer, this is what I wear fishing. I mean, I bring a shirt, but I don't so much wear it. Unless there are women around. I feel pretty good in my own skin when I'm waist-deep in the river, bronzing up. Dip the ball cap in the drink and it cools you right down. Man, I could spend all day along the Broad River banks or out on a sandbar at the end of Hunting Island.
The fly vest gives me a funky tan if I don't have a shirt beneath it. I saw, in one of those glossy catalogs, a mesh fishing vest.
Let me explain something here: Fishing in South Carolina can get pretty hot. Now, it's not the bone fishing of the keys or some Caribbean island, when there fishermen don aqua-colored shirts and proper khaki shorts, and sport long-billed hats, for whatever reason. They look like dandies on the bow of a skiff with some poor native poking the sea bottom with a long bamboo pole as they look for shadows in the water.
Seems like silliness to me, but I'm sure I'd try it, sans the attire. Funny to think that a fly fisher's wardrobe can rival even that of golf, but thank the heavens that Nike or Under Armour hasn't latched onto fishing yet... Which brings me to another point, why I could never be a competitive bass fisherman. For God's sake, must they look exactly like they're in a NASCAR jumpsuit? But that's another story.
I don't know why I'm this way, the worst-dressed fly fisher to ever roam the Eastern banks.
Fly fishing guru John Gierach repeats the line that fly fishers are a little nuts, a little antisocial... I think he's right.

The only problem with handed-down gear is that a lot of times, it doesn't work as well as the new stuff. I was surfing eBay the other day and espied a 1950s model South Bend automatic reel. It was still in the box, and I think the bidding was at $29 or something. I thought I should put a bid in, just because it was so beautiful. It even had the instructions! Then I thought better of it. I mean, I don't have one old fishing reel that's better than anything new I own, so chances are this one was more for a collector. What the hell would I do with an automatic, anyhow? But, there were some beauties listed. There was a Meek (No. 44!) that had a current bid of $9,500 (that ain't a typo, folks), and still had an hour to go. Just down the page was a Montgomery Ward Sport King fly reel with a bid of 99 cents (and no reserve!). Honestly, the Meek or Hardy might be amazing reels, and maybe it's like driving an old Rolls Royce, but I can't, nor will I, afford that, so the Sage 1600 I have will do the trick.
Confession: I also have a semi-old Granger (that's just a workhorse) on an 9-foot South Bend bamboo rod, and I even have a Pflueger Medalist that is on a 5 weight LL Bean rod for the little streams that I have to travel far to fish.
By far, the Sage is a much better reel, and the LL Bean Streamlight 9-foot, 8-weight is better than the bamboo. Again, I'm no connoisseur of fine fishing equipment, vintage or otherwise, but I do appreciate a good bang for the buck (if the Bean stuff breaks, they'll replace it forever), but I prefer to fish with the bamboo with the Granger reel either way.
Why? That's exactly what I'm trying to figure out.
The way I see it is that fly fishers are throwbacks to a time when life was more simple, or at least, it seems it was more simple. We're from a time when you put in an honest day's work, came home to family and fished on the weekends to blow off some steam. Today, many fly fishers are dandies. And that kind of makes me ill. It's not a fashion show; it's fishing, dammit. Imagine if farming got trendy all of a sudden (wait, what am I thinking. Gardening is a form of that, and they have all sorts of funny, rainbow-colored rubberized boots and wide-brim hats...). But could you see Old Farmer Brown out there on his tractor, plowing the fields in $175 overalls? (They have them, you know.) And while I'm on the subject, have you priced a pair of Dickies or a Carhartt lately? Sickening. When did work clothes become high couture?
Pickup trucks for that matter went mainstream — somehow — and now you have to shell out $40,000 just to get one with cold A/C.
Not me. Why? Fish are stinky creatures. So is half the stuff you cram into the back of a pickup or SUV. Plus, I don't know about you, but trucks get a bit scratched up in the woods and pine. I don't like to have to worry about putting spider web-like scratches (or worse) in the paint.
See, all this adds up to something of days gone by. On the river, maybe it doesn't matter if you're fishing with bamboo or some modern polymer; when the river's trickling past, the line flows out gracefully, the fly dances on the ripple and all around is the sound of nature — stream, birds, wind in the trees, locusts... it might as well be 1825. The rivers are still the same, well, most of those you'd care to fish in anyway, and the fish, let's face it, haven't changed much in thousands of years, if not millions.
And that instinct to catch is innate.
Somehow, though, it still feels better with a natural element in your hand or on your back. Especially if it's handed down.
The old aluminum tube that contains my South Bend spend a whole lifetime in someone else's hands, in his truck, in his house. It doesn't smell anything like my house or my garage or my truck. Then again, my truck doesn't smell like me, either. It, too, was pre-owned. But there's some great feeling knowing that the spirit of that thing, bamboo fishing rods especially, was nurtured in someone else's very capable and caring hands. The rod's in great shape, and it performs well.
And maybe it doesn't perform as well as the composite, but what it does give is something a little more intrinsic, romantic even. It's warm, it's comfortable, and it has a soul.

the spring thaw

Spring is on the horizon, which doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot here in the South Carolina Lowcountry, but having been born a Yankee, I suppose there's some sort of biological clock inside of me that tells me that when the days get longer, I need to shed my winter fat, wash the truck, shave my beard and set my mind to catching trout.
The funny thing is that in these parts, a lot of the fish that were high up in the marsh creeks all winter are heading out to the deeper polls now in search of food and more comfortable water. That's tough to bear after spending 29 years of my life waiting for the spring thaw.
When I was a fisherman in New York state, I spent "the dark months" tying flies, polishing rods, cleaning reels and scanning any fly fishing magazine and catalog I could get my hands on. A few desperate days, when the sun poked out and maybe warmed a February day into the mid 30s, I might even head to the river with a light rod just to say I fished.
But this yearly metamorphosis was a good thing, despite it being two or three months too long. If you fish all year long, there's no time to really meditate on those intrinsics that make you reevaluate your technique, let alone tie flies. In essence, it's like putting the fields to rest over the winter. In the spring, the soil is again ready for planting.
It's a natural process; the divine Order of Things.
But not here in the South. No, we can grow a tomato year-round if we wanted to. And we can wake up on any given Saturday, assuming there's no gale or worse, hitch up the kayak, rig up the rods, kiss the wife and kid and head to the nearest creek, river, marsh, flat or what have you. Fish might be skinnier, but not always.
There needs to be downtime. I've realized this after somehow procuring back-to-back bouts with influenza that pretty much took me out of the rat race for a good part of January. I don't like being sick as much as the next guy, but it seems as if it's nature's way of telling you to chill out, lie down, catch up on your reading and let the leaves pile up in the yard (I'd use snow/driveway, but, again, the South...).
Winter is a time to recharge the batteries and rededicate yourself to The Cause, whatever it may be,
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so in that line of thought, I'm downright excited about the next day on the river. I've got it all planned: I've yet to coil some new weight-forward line on my 9-foot, 8-weight fly rod, I've got a box full of saltwater flies — some bought, some tied — and the kayak's under the side porch just waiting to be strapped onto the Blazer.
I'll automatically rise just before the silver hue bleeds into the cool nighttime horizon, grab a tankard of hot, back coffee and a buttery biscuit, chuck my gear sack in the back of the truck, zip on the musty Carhartt and begin the slow trek off to Harbor River.
I'll have listened to the waning minutes of the all-night blues station, then pull the truck off the roadside just beyond the bridge tender's parking lot, and off-load the old, grey roto-molded kayak.
There will be a few brown live oak leaves following a stray bead of bilge water, and for a moment in the early morning light, I'll wonder if they are scurrying palmetto bugs and that if I don't get them out now, I'll find one inside my waders just when the fish rise or some other sensitive time.
I'll strap the rod to the kayak, throw on the life vest, store my gear, tug on my gloves, then pull the boat through the spartina grass, down to the plough mud and oyster river bank.
Even for the cool weather, the unmistakable scent of grass, salt, mud and shellfish will permeate the air, seep into my clothes and even my skin if I'm lucky enough to be out here more than a couple of hours.
I'll slide the boat half into the water, then squeeze into the seat, grab the paddle and slice through the horizon reflected on the calm slack tide.
I've seen downhill skiers who, moments before their runs, close their eyes and envision themselves hurling down the giant slalom course, anticipating the turns, feeling the connection to the mountain.
I've not done this on the river (could you imagine if another fisherman came up on me? Not to mention an alligator...) but maybe in some strange way, I have. All winter long, that is.
I didn't fish a lot this winter, or any winter, because of that innate drive to hibernate. That, and it's cld out, even for South Carolina. I don't relish waking up to a 25-degree morning to get into a cold creek. I've done it, but on the coast, the wind can put a knot in your leader before you even make a cast.
I'm soft, I realize this, but I just chose to think it's my downtime.

It's one of the reasons that when Bob called to ask if I wanted to head out to Pritchards Island to fish for spot tails on a late February day, I jumped at the chance.
Plying the Machette Flats off St. Helena Island onto Skull Creek, through some of the most wonderful Sea Island marshes, the little 40 horsepower Mercury didn't move fast enough to blow the foam off my coffee, but it was enough to put some color in our cheeks and make me glad that I wore my bib waders.
I wanted to stop long the way, as trout were rising near the muddy banks. But that's not what we were fishing for. Besides, the tide was ebbing, which meant there'd be a chance that even the little 15-foot Carolina Skiff would get hung up, and, despite a flask full of Maker's Mark, neither of us wanted to sit in plough mud six hours waiting for the next rising tide, drunk or not.
We reached Pritchards Island, which can only be done so by boat or a very good swimmer and is maintained by the University of South Carolina Beaufort's environmental conservation program. On it is an observatory and old bunkhouse that you can sleep in should the mood strike.
We dropped the hook high on the island's easternmost beach so that when the tide came back in, the boat wouldn't be under water.
We trekked a quarter mile across the sand and dunes, stopping once to rescue a seagull who had managed to entangle her leg in some carelessly discarded fishing line and hooked herself on an old dock piling.
It took two of us to release her — one to put a fish rag over her wings, the other to snip the line. She flew away unscathed, and we felt as if the karmatic turn might deserve another in the way of some sizable spottails.
We waded into the water, past the first sandbar and cast between the next two. A good north wind was blowing, but once the sun was gaining strength on the horizon, it was clear that the temperature might climb into the 60s. Bob landed a nice spot tail on cut mullet on his surf rod and moments later, it was my turn. The difference was that instead of using a beefy 10-foot rod with a 3-ounce weight, I was using a once-piece 7-footer with a rubber jig in my hopes to get a few baitfish to cut up. The pole bent hard when he struck and I let the drag pick up a bit of the run.
Spottails go by a few different names. Among them are redfish, channel bass, red drums or simply spots. The Latin name, if we want to be stuffy, is the Sciaenops ocellatus. On the Sea Islands, we call them spot tails because of the big black spot right there on their tails. They range normally to about 12 pounds, but it isn't unusual to hear a local joe landing a 30-pounder. They're good fighters as well.
Spots are good fighters, too — especially in the surf. It's not uncommon for a spot to take a rest deep, then come up, dive and start running, and usually with some vigor.
I actually don't remember laughing so hard while catching a fish as I did that morning. I thought I might as well have fun as I was sure he'd break my line before I could get him over the sandbar, but the line held, the fish grew tired and I reeled in a decent spot — about 24 inches.
Primarily a fly fisherman, I love the feeling of playing a fish rather than simply hauling it in on a crane. However, catch-and-release fishers will tell you that it's probably worse for the fish, limiting its chances of a good recover tiring it nearly to death.
Keepers, though, are different, and so are big fish that just happen to hit your bait when you were trying to catch something considerably smaller.
Rescuing the seagull proved to yield some good results. We had a string of spots that were exactly what we set out for and even got some fresh air.
When the tide was good and on the rise again, Bob and I packed the gear in the boat, now bouncing in the breakers. He hit the start button, but nothing happened. Turns out someone forgot to turn off the battery, and it was dead. And no amount of pull-starting was doing the trick.
We were stranded, like the seagull, with the cold February wind coming as the sun waned. And we were tired from a full day in the surf.
As the boat bobbed and I grew pale, I thought of the bunkhouses in the woods and spending the night, but that wouldn't help start the battery even the next morning, and, besides, I wanted my own bed. So we dialed up the local marine rescue squadron, which just so happened to be engaging in a retirement ceremony the next island down. They sent out a couple of the sober members and they towed us back to the boat ramp, Coast Guard helicopter circling above, just in case the winter surf got a little out of hand.
Our rescue wasn't all that white-knuckled, but it did take several passes before we could gain hold of the towrope. The surf had swelled to about a 3- to 4-foot chop, and that's dicey in a 15-foot boat with no motor.
So much for karma.

That night I thought how deceptive the winter water could be. Smooth as glass one minute, but with a tide change, a whole new bag of tricks.
I remember thinking that there's a price to pay when playing the odds of fishing in a remote place in an unpredictable time of year.
It's been a while since I've been out that far in the winter, but I wouldn't pass up another jaunt. Winter fishing on the South Carolina coast means a lot of species are hunkering down in the creeks, around the oyster rakes and near the sea grass banks. They're feeding less, but feeding nonetheless. Pulling a fish from the surf certainly has its merits, but so, too, does pulling them from the marsh on a fly rod.
I think about that a lot in this winter downtown, which really isn't downtime for many a fisherman born and bred here.
For me, though, well, I'll take a break, study my gear, maybe surf eBay for that deal on a bamboo fly rod or an old reel. Maybe not.
And maybe I'll get the gear ready for a Saturday kayak spin.
Just in case.

baby, it's cold outside

I won’t profess to be an ice fisherman. But I’ve gotten drunk in a shanty before.
It’s a dangerous thing, getting drunk while fishing in 10-degree weather. You shut the door, get a small stove going and sit on ice thick enough to drive a semi over, and the augered-out hole, which seems to keep freezing itself shut around your line, is your only hope of catching fish that rightfully should be hibernating or at least taking a good midwinter’s snooze. By the time you have to take a leak outside, the sun has dropped, you can’t see the bank and you’re in no condition to drive, even if there’s no other car or shanty on the lake.
So, in essence, you’re freezing your tail off and getting drunk when you could be getting perfectly shnockered from the comfort of your couch, maybe even watching the game with a Quarter Pounder in the hand opposite your beer.
Ice fishing is sort of like working out on an exercise machine — you know, a rowing machine, a treadmill, a stair-stepper... I’ve tried most of them. It’s too cold out, or too dark, or too windy, or too what have you, so I’ll usually end up getting on a pair of shorts and sneakers and pressing a couple of buttons to begin the monotony of waiting for a new beep or light to flash. By the time I’m 10 minutes into the workout, I’ve given up, thrown on a sweatshirt, hat and gloves and gone outside to do the real thing. In short, I’d rather run outside, row outside or climb outside than stare at a 2-inch screen for an hour (or, let’s be honest, less).
So, fishing in the cold? Bring it on. Actually, I’m the guy on the trip who will spite the weather and fish, or kayak or do whatever it is the inclement weather is trying to get me to stop doing.
"C’mon, we’ll use English sinkers," I’ve been known to say in 40-knot winds on the Outer Banks in November. Or, "We can paddle through this," leaving the beach in high surf on a kayak. Or, "What’s the difference if it’s 10 below or 50 below? Cold is cold! Let’s go, Sally!”
Yep, that’s me. Which is really funny because deep down, I’m pretty much a wimp. You can ask my wife. Except when I’m doing these things. I fret about bears before hiking, sharks before swimming, snakes before running the hidden trails. I once hopped a copperhead I swore was as dead as lunch. I later found out, and luckily not the hard way, that these things more or less can sit pretty still. It’s a good little trick. I wouldn’t have even ran the trail had I known it would contain slick snakes.
And I once ran a trail being chased by a wild hog. I thought the damned thing was a deer until it started taking out small trees in the path between it and me. I never ran so fast in my life. I’m pretty sure I was on pace to break the 4-minute mile...
Again, wouldn’t have done it if someone told me there were wild boars.
And there was that ugly barracuda who surfaced right behind me while standing in the Florida surf; I could have reached out and counted its scales. By the time I heard the splash, I caught a glimpse of the enormous fish, his eye like a coffee saucer, crazy and stinky.
In fact, my wife and I used to swim with the sharks off St. Pete Beach in Florida. We’d get out of work, get on our goggles and swimsuits and log a mile or so in waist-deep water. We’d be swimming then, bonk! Something would brush by your leg. It was something pretty large, pretty meaty. Something that could definitely knock you over. Of course, at the time, we didn’t really know that sundown was feeding time for most fish, and mostly sharks. At least not till we skipped an evening swim, but caught the local news. The traffic helicopter took a turn over the beach — our beach — and showed the water out to the breakers from above, where we swim. At first, we thought all the black spots in the water were just deep pockets and, you know, shadows of clouds or something. No, they were sharks. And there were hundreds of them.
I’ll never forget the look on Robyn’s face when the anchor noted that at this time of the day, you’re always within 3 feet of a shark. Which means stand in the water and reach out your arm... (Certainly, I’m not condoning that.)
I’ll never do that again.
So ice fishing isn’t really so much, what they used to call, extreme; fishing in the cold is.
That’s why on April 1, 1990 — the beginning of trout season in the New York Adirondack Park Wilderness Area — I was out in my waders with a 5-weight fly rod wondering what fly would best mimic whatever possibly could be active in 35-degree weather.
Of course, there were no bugs on the mighty Saranac River. There might not be any until May or August. Why I skipped my college classes that day and drove out more than an hour to fish on a half-frozen river, I’ll never really remember, except that if I had to guess, I’d bet on being able to say, well, I fished opening day.
But there I was anyway, ski parka, waders, ski hat, Gore-Tex gloves, casting what looked like a small ball of black yarn entombed in ice into frigid water 3 feet higher than it would be in a couple of months.
And I remember it feeling pretty good. I thought I would tell my English lit professor that while he was pontificating about "Moby Dick," I was living it.
Then I remember thinking that I wouldn’t live to tell the story: Just as my mind was drifting as it so often does when I’m at the good end of a fly line, I felt a bump, not unlike the shark, at about hip level. By the time I had looked at what was bumping me, I realized I was about to be taken out by an ice drift the size of a Buick LeSabre. The old kind.
My initial thought was to go underwater and let it pass. That was stupid, and I’m glad I didn’t trust my instincts. The second was to give the ice my best Hong Kong Phooey karate chop.
I did, and the tip of the iceberg miraculously broke off. Which was just enough to allow me a quickly deteriorating gap between the Goliath and the river bank.
I took a couple more steps toward the bank, and the ice sheet hit me with a convincing thud. I wasn’t enough to stop it, so naturally it won, but it wedged me clear into the bank, which, I suppose, was better than into icy the depths, and I only went under to not-quite-shoulder level. I was pinned momentarily, and still had a hold of my rod, a Fenwick, if I recall, and found that even big things with velocity on their side, such as river ice, can change directions if you push hard enough or your bones don’t all break apart.
I lumbered out of the river already shivering when I got into my Subaru — the passenger side — shedding clothes like a nerd with a drunken cheerleader. I wrapped up in an emergency parka and a pair of ski pants that I kept in the hatchback (for occasions such as this?) along with a little shovel and ice scraper, and opened the Thermos of coffee while waiting for the heater to warm up.
The near-death experience, if you can call it that, really made the trip worthwhile. Plus it gave me a good story to tell for a few days and a chance to eat bad food and drink lots of beer to comfort myself.
It beats sitting in an ice shanty, anyway.
I also remember the cold front that blew in November, 2005, off of Buxton, N.C., in an area most people know as the Outer Banks or simply, OBX. That front reached BJ and I the first night we drove into town. We were all rigged up for surf casting, and we’d not only brought a steamer trunk full of warm clothes, we actually hoped for severe weather like this.
Of course, we walked out to the beach behind the roach motel we were staying in, as it was too late to fish for the day. It was dark, and the air was frigid — maybe 40 degrees and dropping fast. So, we provisioned up, got drunk, played mini golf in the motel room, and woke up at 5 a.m. to a think blanket of snow and salty ice that you needed a chisel and hammer to break off your windshield.
We, instead, heated up the SUV, and simply waited for it to defrost as we got into our warmest gear. The checklist goes a little something like this:
• Neoprine bib waders
• Long johns
• Blue jeans
• Wool socks (the real kind, which, for some reason, are hard to find in the South)
• Three levels of long-sleeved shirt, the first insulated, the second a T-shirt that says "Stinky’s Bait" or something, and a turtleneck
• Waxed canvas Carhartt hunting jacket with hood
• Ski hat
• Neoprine gloves
• Sunglasses (for later, and not for the sun, but for the pelting snow and sand)
• Bandanna (ditto)
We looked like mummies walking onto the beach. But we were there, dammit. In one hand, screaming-hot coffee, and in the other, a surf rod handle, connected to a 10-foot pole, connected to an oversized reel, connected to 20-pound test line, connected to a drum rig (two hooks, a 4-ounce triangle sinker) connected to about an ounce of fresh mullet from the Red Drum Tackle Shop.
For a few hours, we didn’t catch shit. There was the occasional bluefish, and we caught a random sheepshead. BJ got into a puppy drum, but it was an inch or two under size, so, despite that we thought we wouldn’t be eating fish for dinner that night, assuming at least one of us wouldn’t be in the hospital getting a frost-bitten toe lopped off and eating unidentifiable hospital food with a hangover, he threw it back.
Now, the sleet hadn’t exactly stopped pelting our faces throughout the morning, but we kept on until lunchtime. BJ is a big guy, about 6-foot, 8-inches in his boot-foot waders, and he’s got about 100 pounds on me. He can block the wind like no one I’ve seen. But he gets hungry, and I do my best to keep up with him. The problem was that we had a great fishing spot, and the rule on the beach is simple: You don’t give it up. So one guy gets lunch and the other guy mans the poles.
I stayed in the elements and he drove into town.
When he came back, he had two things ... well three: two extra-cheese pizzas and a bag of artificial bloodworms.
While eating the pizza — which was the best I’ve ever had in my life, of course — BJ that he went over to the bait shop and pleaded with the owner to give him something that would catch fish in the late November snow.
It sounded easy enough: artificial bloodworm on the end of a light 7-foot pole. Two hooks, a 1-once weight. "Sit back and have fun," the guy said.
The only fish that would hit something that small in the surf was whiting. But we didn’t care. Hell, whiting are tasty, even if they’re in the 12-inch range, which they were, and we slayed them. We were catching them two at a time. They were hopping out of the snowy surf as if they hadn’t eaten in months. And the bubble gum-like bloodworm usually stayed intact once you pulled it from the tiny jaws, so you didn’t really have to re-bait with each fish.
By the end of the day, our sides were split from laughing from catching fish every 13.4 seconds, we were good and drunk (at some point, you stop feeling the cold. Again, I’m not condoning) and we had a Coleman cooler full of fish.
We laughed all the way back to the motel and began gutting the fish at the sink. Our hands were still numb, and I remember thinking that the beer was just slightly colder than the fish.
Later, BJ fired up a vat of oil, breaded the whiting in his famous catfish batter (he’s a Missouri boy, so he knows how to bread a fish), and along with some hushpuppies and a small salad (to keep us regular), we feasted on some of the sweetest, most tender fish in the ocean.
We smiled thinking that there were still two days of icy-cold fishing ahead of us.
While we had enjoyed some of the best fishing and best times out on the banks, others were huddled safely in their homes or the local movie theater, waiting for the sun..
The waders and our clothes were drying nicely over the baseboard heaters cranked all the way up to 95, there was plenty of beer in the cooler and, besides, we still had the mini golf set.

putting it all into perspective

Let's see, there's Bozeman, Montana, Driggs, Idaho, Glenwood Springs, Colorado, Morehead City, North Carolina ... and Beaufort, South Carolina.
What do all those towns have to do with each other? They're the best fishing destinations in American. At least according to Field & Stream magazine.
Now, I don't know about you, but I think about fabled rivers, such as Henry's Fork and even the trophy waters of the Adirondack's AuSable River before I think about Beaufort.
Of course, these are my home waters. Or at least they have been for the better part of the last decade.
Fishing them and knowing the intimately are two different things. Now, I suppose a few editors and writers could come down to sunny old Beaufort By The Sea, where just about every day is a chamber of commerce day and the people are among the friendliest around the South or any other part pf the country for that matter, and you might even catch a fish or two, with or without a guide. If you bring the wife and kids and book a resort house or stay at one of the five-star inns, even if the fishing stinks, you'll have yourself a good time.
Here's a little something about the city of Beaufort and the outlying areas: It's among the most beautiful places in the country. The proof is in the demographics, which rarely lie. Folks are from all over the world, but more likely from Ohio or the Northeast.
When you get here, no doubt you will check into an inn, sip cold Chardonnay from the balcony, roam the quaint shops downtown, ride the carriages through the stately historic neighborhoods and grab a burger at Luther's by day and dine at Saltus by night. In short, you'll understand why so many magazines have named Beaufort in the top 5 whatever places in the country.
It's why my wife, Robyn, and I moved here in the first place. Looking for newspaper jobs after a few sweltering years in Florida, we were among the J-curve types — folks who move from the Northeast to Florida, then halfway (or so) back to the Northeast.
The next thing you'll find is that folks who have spent a good long weekend or more here will eventually start looking at their portfolio and housing market to see if they can sell the place and move down here.
Now, Beaufort isn't terribly expensive, but it is coastal, and you'll pay dearly for that privilege. I've seen too many visitors come down here and not later end up moving here or pining about it. It's that nice.
Those who don't move here tend to talk very fondly of it. I guess I'm lucky in that regard. I got to live here. It was just out of dumb luck, though. You see, while looking for jobs, the paper here was the only one that offered both me and my wife, also a writer, jobs. Other papers wanted one or not the other, or neither, I don't know, because we took these jobs almost on spec. How? Well, the jobs were on Hilton Head Island, which everyone has heard about at some point of their lives. But the town itself wasn't really for us. It's all golf courses, manicured lawns, gated communities and strip malls. And I don't drive a Mercedes, so I'd be in the minority with my pickup. Sure there are beaches and rivers too, but most of them you needed to be behind a gated community to access them. We didn't really fit in. We're Yankees, after all. We like downtowns.
But I got on the horn with a buddy of mine who did his Marine training on Parris Island, which is a stone's throw from Beaufort, and he told us to go check out the city just to the north.
We did. It was a Sunday afternoon, sunny, breezy, beautiful. In short, it was just about every day in Beaufort. We sipped drinks on the river, ate at a trendy café, found an apartment over an antiques shop downtown and have been here ever since.
You'll hear this story from all the new residents of Beaufort: "We fell in love with the place," or "There's just something abut Beaufort..."
We can't go wrong, so it seems. So, not only will you find the best weekend getaway, the best romantic jaunt, the best historic tours, the best eco-vacations, you'll now find the best fishing here.
Next year, I imagine it will be the best seafood, the best ice cream and the best Wal-Mart.
As for the fishing: It's pretty good. It's no Outer Banks, and I'm sure it can't match Henry's Fork, but overall, it's decent. You'll catch fish. And if you're like me, from places where the fish are a whole different bag of ticks, then it might take awhile.
And when you're serious about it, you might head north to the Outer Banks to fill up the cooler.