Despite what my passport reads, maybe I am really not at all Canadian. The first indication of this would be my incredible aversion to cold weather, my reaction to winter being similar to that of a black bear, whose sane response to the harshness of the season is hibernation until spring. The not so subtle second indication, a corollary of the first, would be that I do not ice fish. Depending on the temperatures in December, I will continue fishing until water freezes, then I retreat for the year and put my rods in cold storage. For some reason once the temperatures dip below zero, my metabolism refuses to adjust to the cold, almost as though my body lacks the anti-freeze ingredient neccesary to survive our harsh winters. When the water stops moving, so do I. A half decade worth of assorted injuries, as well as incipient arthritis in some of the aging joints, become acutely evident during the winter months. From January to the end of March I remain in a constant state of frigidity – even while indoors! While others are busy in their garages -  sharpening their augers, preparing their clams, tip-ups, sleds, vexilars, and all their other gear, eagerly anticipating the beginning of the hard water season, when the ice is thick enough for them to safely venture out upon the lakes - I have retreated to the relative warmth of my home.

There is just something so entirely unappealing about the prospect of sitting over a six inch hole in the cold waiting for baitfish like perch or crappies to bite. Some of my friends spend their weekends on the ice chasing perch and walleye, spending thousands of dollars on equipment to go out and catch fish that can basically be bought at the fish market for $1.49 per pound, without having to drill a hole in the two foot thick ice or freezing in the process. I know, I know, that’s not the point, it’s not about the fish, and there are great benefits on any day spent outdoors with friends and family, even freezing on a sheet of ice. When people learn that I’m not a big fan of ice fishing they actually seem quite surprised, often questioning a second time to make sure they heard correctly.  It’s not that I don’t like fishing, for I will fish open water in any kinds of foul weather, preferably at the other extreme of the temperature spectrum, but rather that I hate the cold. My aversion to the cold dates back to childhood, when I was five or six years old and my parents sent me outdoors to play in the snow. That wasn’t really a problem except that, for my own protection, they tethered me to a dog leash attached to the handle of  the garage door, just out of range of any point of independant entry back into the house, and often forgetting me outside in the freezing cold for hours. In today’s enlightened world, most parents would be reported to youth protective services for committing such an act but back in the sixties it was not uncommon to torture your children and was perfectly acceptable, and an entire generation of presently well adjusted baby boomers had all been subjected to similar forms of parental rearing, a la Dr. Spock gone wild. I once shared with a filippino friend, terrified by the imminent prospect of his first winter, that I too hated the cold. He looked at me with a strange look in his eyes and replied, b-b-b-but you were born here. Just because I was born here doesn’t mean I like winter, eh?  As my body ages, so does my proportional aversion to the cold. As winter’s icy embrace is at its peak, I become increasingly envious of the bear’s ability to hibernate for the entire winter, putting itself into a state of suspended animation, missing the worst weather this country has to offer.

The first time I ice fished was in the early seventies, when the only equipment available to the ice fisherman was a hand auger and some ice fishing rods. Most of the tip-ups were all hand-made. There was not much else to the sport, no electronics, clams, portable heaters, or any of the creature comforts that are the mainstay of todays modern ice fisherman. We  were out on the Bay of Quinte in Southern Ontario, on a vast windswept bay more suited for kite skiing than ice fishing. The exercise seemed somewhat futile, for there was so much water to cover it seemed absurd to be fishing from ten or twelve random holes in the ice, covering a total of about five square feet of water. My friend explained that we would wait for the fish to come under our holes, with the best bite occuring around sunset, another eight numbing hours away.  The temperature was minus 20 and the winds gusted relentlessly all day, the wind chill factor dropping the temperature to minus 30. At one point my boots actually froze to the ice, leaving me under the distinct impression that I would remain stuck there until the spring thaw. It was so cold that the snot froze and hung from your nostrils, likes icicles from the eaves of a rooftop. We caught three fish that day, suffered mild frostbite to our feet,fingers, and faces, and needed to have our car boosted when we reached shore. It was not a fun day.

It seems that alcohol can often be an integral part of the activity, and this would seem to make some sense to me, for at the very least one can always rest assured that the beer will always be served cold. Besides, a frozen lake is a great place to go on a bender for how much damage can one do to themselves (or to the fish) while drunk out on the ice? So while alcohol may be an inducement to some as another great excuse to get drunk, I don’t drink enough for this enticement to sway my feelings about the sport. Two beers and I’m done, again, something truly un-Canadian! Besides, for some strange reason I hate exposing myself in minus 20 weather, as my genitalia tend to withdraw and not re-emerge until the spring solstice, but maybe thats just me. While my friends attempt to convince me that ice fishing the greatest cure for cabin fever, I find it somehow ironic that they this miraculous tonic for winter sees them spending a day in a cabin on the ice, and a cold one at that.  Why would I trade my warm house for a cold cabin? Don’t get me wrong, or write me any hate letters, as I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for those hardy souls willing to brave the worst elements to practice their sport. Winter is long and brutal in this country, particularly if you live up in Northern Sakatchewan or Manitoba, where quite frankly, what the hell else is there to do in the winter but ice fish? One of my friends, both extrmely resourceful and lazy, equally averse to the cold, cut a few holes in the floor of his camper and fishes all winter out on Lake of the Woods from the comfort of his living room while watching television in his underwear on his sofa. He is my ice fishing hero…

I am alone in a canoe, skimming effortlessly across a tranquil lake shrouded by a cloud of fog that closes in on me from all around. It is deathly quiet, the silence occasionally punctuated by the cry of a loon somewhere out on the lake. My fly is trailing about two hundred feet behind the canoe. I am fishing a Magog Smelt tandem streamer tied by a friend who understands a thing or two about ounaniche.  The surface of the lake is completely flat, with white wisps of fog mist rising off its polished metal surface like cumulous clouds travelling across the sky. There is silence all around. All of a sudden my line straightens and I gently raise the rod tip to set the hook. For an instant there is nothing, the line is slack, but then a series of wild splashes echo through the thick fog as the fish jumps for his freedom. The line begins to peel off my fly reel at an astonishing rate. It is a big fish and we settle into each other for a long and protracted battle…

This is my favorite recurring dream.

The Everglades were decidedly not a safe place for two inexperienced Canucks.This truth had been quickly established during the drive through the park when we stopped off to prospect for bass in one of the many ponds along the Tamiani trail. In shorts, wading out towards the ledge of the limestone shelf and casting towards the deeper water that seemed to hold such promise, the subtle shapes that slid off the island and cruised towards my location went largely unnoticed until a sudden feeling of paranoia overcame me with the realization that the trail of bubbles honing in on me belonged to alligators looking for an easy meal. I hightailed it out of the water as fast as I could and stood at a safe distance from the shoreline while one of them surfaced a few feet away and inspected me like a piece of meat at the butcher’s counter at the Winn-Dixie supermarket.

Where the hell did Mr.Harry send us? The man in question was Elkwood K. Harry, President of the I.G.F.A. in 1975 and from whose offices we had just arrived. We had corresponded months earlier and as members of the association he had invited us to meet with him at his office on East Las Olas boulevard in Miami when we arrived in town. He probably never expected the two young men to show up but it was our first stop after we left the Avis rental counter at the airport, and while surprised at our impromptu arrival, he received us like royalty in their dusty old offices with paint chipping off the walls, a place which was rapidly becoming the basis of the largest angling library in the world. The office was cluttered with shelves and shelves of books and other fishing publications from around the world, antique and modern tackle of all kinds, paintings and sepia photos of early nineteenth century fisherman with their prize catches, photos depicting some of the halcyon eras of fishing. There were some personal photos of Papa Hemingway in Cuba,  Zane Grey with a gigantic marlin in Australia, and Lee Wulff with he first sailfish he caught on a fly rod. It was a cathedral to the sport, a repository to its tradition and the day was spent lost in its history, poring over its literature and accoutrements, tackle and equipment, lore and tradition. Within the confines of those dusty shelfs was the entire history of the sport, since its very beginnings. It was a great experience to be amidst of such a superb collection of piscatoria. At the end of the day we gathered in Mr Harry’s spartan office and discussed our plans for the next three weeks. He seemed sincerely interested in our adventure and when we disclosed our original intention to fish Okechobee for largemouth he suggested we might be better off in Flamingo, where we could fish for largemouth in the Glades for bass as well as enjoy the inshore opportunities for salt water species. It was the first time we had the chance to fish in the ocean and when he called up a friend and made arrangements for him to guide us for a few days out of Flamingo we were sold on the idea.

The Everglades was not unknown to me and its name conjured up vivid images of mosquito ridden, snake infested, forsaken and inhospitable swamplands that were among one of the last places you would want to find yourself lost. It was a place that was largely unknown, where ten thousand years ago sabre-toothed tigers once roamed and hunted for large prehistoric mammals, where airboats were mandatory for travel in the shallow marsh, where the Spaniard Ponce de Leon searched in vain for the fountain of youth and where alligators have ruled the water since the beginning of time, a place where dead corpses from drug deals gone bad were the flotsam and jetsam of the tides and where sightings of the legendary hominid cryptid known as the skunk-ape were still reported; a chaotic jungle of mangrove and sawgrass that held root everywhere, a place where real rednecks lived and where clouds of insects were known to devour a human in a day, a harsh land where everything conspired to make human life miserable. A place unforgiving of human error. One of the most inhospitable places on the face of the earth.

The Everglades are the subtropical wetlands in the southern portion of the State of Florida, a vast and complex ecosystem of marshland, estuarine forests of mangrove and cypress, upland pines, interlaced channels and swamps, a river of sawgrass that is over sixty miles wide and a hundred miles long. Travelling at an average rate of a quarter-mile per day, it is essentially a slow-moving river flowing over a limestone shelf originating from Lake Okeechobee and the Kissimmee River near Orlando which flows southwest towards Florida Bay.  To understand the importance of the Everglades is to comprehend the unique geology of the area. The properties of the rocks underneath the Everglades, layers of porous and permeable limestone, formations that developed from calcium carbonate, sand, shells, and coral as the sea levels fluctuated, created the Biscayne aquifer which is essentially a storage center that acts as a water filter and cleanses it of all impurities. It is natures water filter and distills it over long periods. The water in this system travels at an average rate of a quarter-mile per day and because it can often get trapped for years in sinkholes and other different strata of the aquifer, it can sometimes take years for the water to flow from its original source through its entire length.

The twentieth century saw the industrialization of this unique hydrological system by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with the development of a complex canal, levee, and drainage system throughout the wetlands that was undertaken as both a measure of flood control, to provide fresh water for over half the state, and as economic driver for the development of this area into agricultural farmlands, the primary crop being sugar cane. But the management of the system, largely dictated by the best interests of Big Sugar, have often had devastating impacts on the wildlife and environment. While the politics of Big Sugar and the management of the Everglades have always been an issue of contention in the state, the tide began to turn in the seventies when UNESCO declared the Everglades as being one of only three wetlands of global importance and in 2000 U.S. Congress passed into law the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the most ambitious and expensive environmental repair attempt in human history.

The Calusa and Tequesta tribes were the first to inhabit the area over 15000 years ago and early contact with early Spanish colonists during the age of exploration led to the decimation of the indigenous tribes through slavery, disease, and warfare. Recent history had also been harsh on the remainder of the Indians, particularly to the Seminoles who populated and earned their living in the Everglades when forced there by the U.S. military during the Seminole wars of the nineteenth century, launched by president Andrew Jackson when he attempted to annex Florida to the United States. Succesive Seminole wars throughout the century pushed them further into the swamp and by 1913 records indicate there were fewer than 325 Seminole Indians living in the Everglades. We stood as much chance of meeting a real Seminole as we did running into a florida panther.

On the advice of Elkwood, we had picked up some basic supplies and headed off in the direction of Flamingo, a ghost town in the middle of nowhere on the southernmost tip of Florida that faced Florida Bay. We were as far away from civilization as possible. It was perfect. This area had first been settled after the Seminole wars when settlers made a living by selling fish, vegetables, and charcoal to early settlements and fishing villages in Key West. The early nineteenth century saw the construction of a fish house and commercial fishing became the primary occupation of the town until  Prohibition, when moonshining also became a popular occupation in Flamingo. The present day town consists of Flamingo lodge, a restaurant and café, marina, and campground. It is as laid back as you can get while still registering a heartbeat. It is a place where the rhythm of daily life flows almost imperceptibly, like the tides of the ocean or the clouds in the sky. The place was deserted and we rented a small cabin near the water for twenty-five dollars a day which included free continental breakfast in the café. It was rustic and dilapidated but had the two requisite cots, a small kitchenette with table and chairs, a nightable with a glass ashtray and a fresh copy of Gideon’s bible in the drawer.

The next morning we wandered down to the marina to see if our Captain was anywhere in sight. A man wearing a black apron covered with blood waved at us from the fish shack where he was gutting some triple tail and cobia, unceremoniously tossing the nasty mess of fish heads and offal through a chute in the table that dumped out into the water below the dock. Swirls formed as fish moved in and picked off the remains, competing with the seagulls and pelicans that were to also be familiar with the drill. The bait shop was a rickety and weatherbeaten shack that stood on stilts and had an uneven floor that creaked eerily with each footstep. A broken glass display counter that had probably survived the last hurricane held some terminal tackle, mostly weights and stainless steel hooks and a nice assortment of Mirr-O-lures which the man behind the counter told us the gold and black ones were great for snook. Little did he know that I had no clue what a snook was. We picked up a few things, some shock tippet and line and then headed back out onto the dock.

A man in a crisp blue shirt, neatly pressed beige chinos, Sperry topsiders and a hat that covered his ears approached us earnestly and asked if we were the two guys from Canada. A thick hand stretched out as he introduced himself as Bouncer, former Sheriff in Dade County and born again Christian turned full-time fishing guide after suffering a burnout from witnessing five years of human depravity and violence while patrolling the streets of Homestead. He was a strange sort of character, a bit of a neat freak on the boat, didn’t drink or smoke or swear, really worked hard to clients into fish and was upset if he couldn’t locate them, preferred guiding flyfisherman and was best suited for experienced anglers that knew what they were doing, was somewhat intolerant of error, had latent anger management issues, constantly checked and re-tied his knots, and would probably not think twice about drowning a paying client and feeding them to the sharks if they really pissed him off.

As the Boston Whaler and motored inland through a maze of channels bordered by mangrove forests and hammocks, he explained that despite certain other occupational life hazards of guiding in the Everglades, it was infinitely much safer than a career in law enforcement in the Sunshine State. He believed in four things: guns, Jesus Christ, capital punishment, and fishing, although not necessarily in that order. He knew the back country well and despite his general disdain for most humans, mostly those that didn’t fish, he had a great respect for wildlife and every now and again would slow the boat to show us something in the water, perhaps a manatee or giant sea turtle, and his eyes would shine with reverence. We travelled for a long while until gradually the channels opened into larger bays and we cut the engine and anchored in one of them, casting live shrimp into the current.

The strikes were lightning fast with several break-offs and we realized we were into a good-sized school of toothy Spanish mackerel. As neophytes who were ignorant and didn’t know any better, we used our ultralight trout gear, with four and six pound test on rods no longer than five feet. This was the same equipment we had been using earlier in the season in the small creeks back home fishing for brook and brown trout. Bouncer laughed at us as our gear was clearly inadequate and many of the fish simply broke off at the hook, as we had no wire or shock tippet. There was a  slight tick on your line and it was all over. Bouncer looked increasingly annoyed with us as the pile of hooks he had left on the deck diminished rapidly before we even managed to land a few fish.  But despite the damage we did to his tackle supply, by the time the school dispersed an hour later, he reluctantly conceded that he had probably just witnessed us break several line class records for Spanish mackerel.

Our next stop was a deep channel in a tidal inlet where he said there was usually a good sea-trout bite. We rigged up with large styrofoam bobbers with concave heads that when jerked by the rod, popped in the water and which acted as a sound attractor for the bait below. Bouncer had a cooler with fresh live shrimp he had netted earlier that morning which we baited on the hooks and sent drifting out into the current. A few pops later and my float vanished and a ladyfish launched itself all over the bay, its iridescent colors glittering as it danced under the sunlight at the end of my line. It was an interesting fish and the feat of landing it was only slightly diminished when Bouncer explained that ladyfish were not the type of fish that was targeted by fisherman.  As we drifted through expansive sand flats covered with scattered clumps of brown turtlegrass, a flock of wading pink flamingoes took flight over our heads, a raucous blur of pastel splashed against a turquoise sky.

The hot sun beat down upon us without relent and our clothes were soaked through from the sweat. The sand flies were also making their presence felt around our ankles and necks, the areas open to exposure. When a dip in the water was suggested Bouncer strongly advised against it and casually mentioned that an eighteen foot hammerhead shark had been caught in the vicinity a few weeks earlier. Swimming was definitely out of the question and I wasn’t about to argue with Bouncer, who had a .44 magnum strapped menacingly to his side at all times while on the boat. It is never a good policy to trifle with a man who has a bible in one hand and a gun in another. The gun was ostensibly for protection against alligators but, as he admitted with a wink and smile, could also serve other useful purposes out here in no man’s land. 

In places like this, on the very outer fringes of society, there is a certain culture of anarchy where people are prone to take the law into their own hands. Or seriously infract it. Its isolation, vastness, and location made it an ideal area for drug trafficking. There was all kinds of activity going down in the Glades and he had fished out several half-eaten bodies with their heads blown off.  The drug smugglers flew in small single engine planes  under the radar and dropped shipments of cocaine and marijuana in water tight crates equipped with GPS tags, that were later picked up offshore by speedboats. Bouncer warned us that if we on our own and discovered any suspicious looking packages in the water to steer clear from them and file a report with authorities upon our return to shore.

On the outgoing tide we caught a few jack crevalles and mangrove snappers near some small keys before returning back to the marina. The sun was just beginning to drop into the ocean as we stepped onto the dock and headed towards our cabin, anticipating a well-deserved supper of fresh grilled snapper, mackerel, home fries. and a bottle of Chablis we had picked up before leaving Miami. After the meal we sat outdoors and polished off our bottle of wine under the gathering darkness of evening, listening to the strange sounds of the dark forest behind us that had suddenly come to life. The sky was clear and slowly millions of stars emerged brilliantly from their slumber and formed into constellations that danced in the night.

The next morning Bouncer greeted us at the dock with a cryptic smile and indicated he had something special planned which he wouldn’t disclose until our arrival at the destination. An hour later we found ourselves in one of a thousand nondescript bays surrounded by thick mangrove forests when he slowly backed the boat in towards the shoreline, anchoring it so the transom was a few feet away from a gargantuan mass of gnarly  mangrove roots. The mother of all mangroves. He then proceeded to remove a thick long pole that had somehow until this point been inconspicuously stored under the gunnel. At its base it was a good five inches thick and slowly tapered to a few inches at its tip, set up with a single strand of 500 lb test airplane cable and 10/0 saltwater hook. He explained that this was called a Calcutta pole, so named after the dense and unyielding wood from which it is made, and used primarily for hauling large fish such as grouper out of their lairs once hooked. It was an old-fashioned jiggering pole and it weighed close to sixty pounds, and barely manageable by a strong adult without a fish on the end of it. He quickly explained the protocol. We would hook a live three-pound mangrove snapper to the business end, the three of us would simultaneously hold the rod and drop the bait in the hole, and when the fish hit, our single task was to keep lifting the rod no matter what until the fish surfaced. It sounded simple in theory and Bouncer confidently assured us that there was indeed a fish in this hole and that it would take all of five seconds for a hookup. We looked at each other incredulously as he impaled the snapper and we slowly dropped the bait into the lair.

Sure enough the hit was instantaneous and the three of us struggled and cursed as we battled against some great  immoveable force to keep the tip of the pole as high into the air as possible. The weight was unbelievable. When it was all said and done, about thirty seconds after the battle began, we all collapsed onto the deck of the boat, sweating and laughing over the insane debacle that had just taken place. The fish flopped around the deck with us and when we saw its size, caused us to laugh even harder. It was a baby grouper that bottomed out the scale at only thirty-two pounds. It was hard to imagine what a big fish would have done to us as these things grow to well over six hundred pounds!

As we recovered from the exertion, Bouncer recounted the story behind the huge replica mount in the Flamingo café which took up the whole wall. It seemed that several fishing boats had hooked into the fish but had been unable to pull it from its lair. They had tried everything, until a few of them got together and came up with a plan. They would tie a hook onto some rope and then attach the rope to a transom boat cleat and when the fish took the bait, would throttle the boat forward and pull the fish out into open water. The plan worked exceptionally well but the fish almost sank their boat as it dragged them back and forth in the bay for close to six hours before finally surfacing.

In the afternoon we went tarpon fishing in the channels and while we managed to hook a few small ones they proved difficult to land. The closest we came was bringing one up to the boat and just as we were about to grab it decided it still had another run left in him and broke us off in some mangrove roots. They were the most exciting yet frustrating fish we had ever encountered. A few days later we met a guy in the café who told us not to feel too bad over our results as he had hooked into over fifty tarpon before he manged to land his first one. The day was cut short when we ran into another fisherman who had blown his engine and had been marooned for close to eight hours in the hot sun and was beginning to show signs of dehydration. He had not seen another boat all day and feared he would be stuck on a sand bar at night on the outgoing tide. There was no way we could leave him without assistance as death from exposure was a real possibility so like good maritime Samaritans we tied his boat to ours and towed it the two hours back to the marina at Flamingo. 

On our last day, probably because he felt bad for us losing a few good hours the day before, Bouncer he gave us some directions to some canals that could be fished from shore at night for cubera snapper, tarpon, as well as snook. There were hundreds of them, most of these were military canals, all identifiable by number, and could be found along Alligator Alley. Above the spill water dams drained the freshwater of the Everglades where largemouth bass, tucanare, and tilapia could be caught. In the brackish water below, where sweet and saltwater mixed, a variety of large saltwater predators came in to feed on shrimp and mullet with the rising tides. Our first night alone in C-102 was quite an experience. The eerie silence of darkness was punctuated by watery detonations that echoed up and down the length of the canal as fish corralled the hapless schools of mullets that had nowhere to escape but in the air. We hooked into a big cubera snapper that after ten minutes broke our line off in the sharp coral rocks along the edge. As the tide rose larger tarpon began cruising up and down the canal and we had a huge one on the line when a pick-up truck came careening down the canal road, spitting rocks and sand in all directions. They were drunk rednecks that whooped and hollered it up like good old boys from a Deliverance movie, blasting signs with high-powered rifles standing from the bed of the truck. Local wildlife. Momentarily distracted by their presence my resolve wavered and the fish, like all those other tarpon before him, got away.  

It was on one of those nights at the canal when we  first met Brian who was fishing alone with a six-pack. He was roughly our age, lived in the area, liked to fish and drink beer, was raised in a religious household and was studying to become a game warden. Brian was a hardcore fisherman and in him we sensed a kindred spirit, made friends with him quickly and tagged along with him for a few days on a fishing adventure. He lived in nearby Homestead where his father owned a small commercial avocado farm and his mother worked nights as a nurse. One night we headed out of Homestead and took his father’s boat out onto the ocean for a night of beer drinking and shark fishing and caught several hammerheads. When the sun rose we headed further offshore, out to an area known as the hump where large amberjack hung out. We had never even heard of amberjack as we lowered the baits down to the bottom. Brian told us once we caught one we would remember its name.

The waves were tossing the small skiff about like a piece of driftwood and before long I was seasick and started vomiting over the side. We  all figured it would soon pass but after a few hours was still feeling wretched and ready to die.  The beer turned into bile and with each heave felt something inside me had died. At that moment my rod doubled over and an amberjack was on the end of my line. Despite my protests the boys strapped me into a harness and the fight was on. The struggle for both of us was painful and every few minutes my head was over the side chumming the water. The fish was stubborn and would not budge. Every foot of line was a battle in a war with no winners. After forty-five minutes of gruelling pain I pleaded with my buddies to let me break off the fish and bring me back to shore. They simply laughed at me and about a half hour later, on the verge of dehydration and fainting, the fish rose to the surface and was summarily gaffed and pulled onto the boat. We headed inland to the closest pier and it was only when my feet touched terra firma that my recovery was complete.

The next  day we rented an air boat at the marina and Brian took us onto the river of grass through Shark River. It was a paradise of lush green vegetation, pine scrublands, cypress hammocks, and forest of mangrove. We travelled up sloughs through the sawgrass marsh, saw great flocks of wading flamingos. These wet prairies held an enormous variety of wildlife and we saw several alligators and snakes in the sloughs, or channels in the sawgrass fields. While we hadn’t intended on fishing much we did stop to catch a few bass in the sloughs, had a water moccasin try to climb aboard, saw some nesting turtles, and snagged into a good-sized alligator but broke it off when it reached a few feet of the air boat.  It was an unforgettable experience.

For the next week we had decided to rent a boat, purchase some camping equipment, and live out on the thousands of islands that dotted Florida Bay. We would live on the water and fish as much as our bodies would allow. The days passed quickly, marked by long hours on the water exploring the vast bay and falling into the rhythm of the tides and the influence they exerted on all life around us. We awoke with the sunrise and slept as soon as darkness fell around us, the sound of waves lapping against the shoreline as our lullaby. We ate fish for breakfast and supper as we had little else to sustain us. Mackerel, permit, pompano, redfish, snapper, trout, jack crevalles - some were good, others not as much. My favorite was snapper grilled over a nice fire. One day, desperate for something other than fish, and ignoring the possible danger of redneck retribution, we pulled up a few lobster traps and emptied their contents, which boiled that night on some unnamed key made a meal which to this day remains as a vivid memory on my palette.  

The days were marked and planned according to the high tides, two of them per twenty-four hour cycle that offered the best opportunities for actively feeding fish. We ate and we slept and fished by the rhythm of the tides, with the rising tide providing the best bite. There were so many different types of game fish we caught, most of which we were unable to identify or even determine if they were edible. Our most interesting catch by far had been the metamorphic puffer fish which as a defense mechanism when out of water, inflates its prickly body full of air like a balloon. It was quite a comical creature and we amused ourselves by playing volleyball with it for a bit before returning it back into the clear water where it quickly deflated and disappeared. It is also a delicacy but if prepared improperly can kill you. At night we left out night lines with cut bait and were often awakened to a reel screaming with the take of a large shark. We caught several nurse sharks like this and a big bull shark that we fought for a few hours but could not land.

 Each day was marked by a new adventure, a new lesson learned about the ecology of the bay, a new respect for the fish that swam in its waters. We were like children in a candy store, everything was new to us and seen with such amazement. One day while we drifted along an inland channel, two manatees swam directly under the boat and seemed to follow us around, perhaps seeking the comfort of the shade it provided or maybe just curious with our presence. They were at once the oddest yet most sympathetic and intelligent looking creatures we had ever seen. With almost overgrown human eyes full of intelligence and empathy, it was easy to see how from a distance early Europeans colonists interpreted their first sightings of these mammals as being mermaids.

On our last day a violent tropical storm blew through and we barely made it back to shore where we found refuge back at the café in Flamingo. All our money was spent and had only enough for gas to get us back to the airport the following day. We were exhausted, sunburned, and hadn’t washed  in a week. We must have looked like rescued castaways or boat people as the waitress at the café was sympathetic to our predicament, paid the meal from her pocket, and kindly allowed us to spend the night in the café free of charge. We moved a few tables and chairs around and made a space on the floor right under the giant grouper mount. Sleep came quickly and the great fish was the last thing I remembered seeing before closing my eyes and dreaming about a slow-moving river of grass that time had forgotten.  

PS : This was the last time we fished with Brian and while we kept in contact for a few years after we eventually lost touch until somehow the horrible news about the accident reached us years later through a mutual friend. It was during the devastation of hurricane Andrew and although the family had evacuated their home and was safely inland, when hearing stories about looting in back their neighbourhood, Brian volunteered to go back and protect their home. It was during the night that the hurricane tore the roof from his house and caused a wooden ceiling beam to crash down on Brian’s spinal cord, leaving him a quadriplegic for life.

THE LAST FEW YEARS  have seen me pay much more attention to the weather system in the days prior to any given fishing outing. I’d like to think that after forty years you tend to learn something about what’s going on around you, even if you are paying attention to something else most of the time. Enough time on water or in the bush will teach you, even through osmosis, certain truths about wildlife and its cycle of activity. Certain tendencies seem to stand out in particular and contrary to what fishing tackle manufacturers will tell you, success in the practice of catching a fish has always been first and foremost a problem of natural science. At the risk of sounding like a heretic to the fishing industry and foregoing any future possibility of product endorsements, my position is that biology and meteorology are more important factors to success than the choice of lures.

All biological of life on this planet, both land and sea based, lives on or close to the edges. This is true for humans as well as all animals and fish. Globally, over two-thirds of the worlds entire population lives in coastal areas. There are important reasons behind this phenomenon. At the basest anthropological level, at the dawn of mankind as a  social animal, the edges offered greater opportunity for food and migration. Areas where land met water were among the first areas to be settled by nascent semi-nomadic communities.  The reason is economic opportunity as well as means of sustenance. There is always life on the edges, where it seems to collect, like a natural highway or lay line. This became manifestly evident a few years ago when upland bird hunting in some corn fields where the birds were all greedily feeding at the edge of the fields. The edge was a safe place for them to feed as they were within meters of the safety of the forests should any predatory danger arise. While there was risk there was also opportunity. My hunter friends assured me that it was generally the same pattern in deer hunting season as they were located in the scrub at the forests edge before venturing cautiously out into the apple orchards or open fields to feed.

This was a lesson learned from the water as well. Both salt and freshwater fish love edges as well. The great pelagics of the oceans migrate up and down the continental shelf along coastlines or followed current or temperature breaks in the water. Inshore fish move like stripers or bluefish moved up and down the coastline. Freshwater fish are no different and also have a preference for edges. Physical structure in its many forms is key to locating game fish. Riptides, weedlines, rocky points, temperature breaks, seams in rapids, breaking waves, tidal breaks, eddies, currents, underwater humps and saddles. The places where water meets land are the areas where most activity takes place.

But there are other edges as well, less visible to the eye, equally important as the physical edges towards the the understanding of wildlife and its cycle of activity. The edges of weather. The understanding of how weather patterns can have a significant impact on all life and sometimes be the critical factor determining the level of success or failure on any given day. Here once again there is a correlation between human and animal behaviour. A perfect example is how all life tends to seek shelter from a rain storm or cold front and hunker down until the system passes or they adapt to it, as we do in winter. It withdraws from the edges and seeks structure for refuge, a safe haven from the elements. But inclement weather can sometimes also have a way of increasing activity and getting things to react, particularly during changing and unstable weather patterns, both before and after its passage. Rising barometric pressure, high humidity levels, prevailing wind directions , lunar cycle, heat, cold, cloud cover, intensity of sunlight, precipitaton in all its foms - all these things play a critical role in determining the level of activity.

Certain things hold true in my experience with certain species of fish. Largemouth bass tend to be more aggressive in certain weather conditions, particularly unstable weather patterns after a long period of stable weather, high heat and humidity, with barometric pressure rising over a hundred kilopascals, when skies are generally overcast and dark and prevailing winds are from the South or Southwest, and with severe thunder storms in the forecast. This is the best type of system to look for before going fishing for largemouth. Other fish species may respond equally well to this system but also have different preferences. Most esocidae for example, pike and muskellunge, while they will also respond positively to shifts after a prolonged stable period, can also become more active than any other species when a storm blows through from the North East. High winds, cold weather, rain, snow, and general inclement weather can really start a feeding frenzy. These same conditions could otherwise be very difficult for bass, trout, or most other freshwater species.

And while the sometimes severe thunderstorms of the summer months can often be key periods that trigger activity, in the late Fall or winter, approaching cold fronts can also have the same effect on fishing activity. This phenomenon was made manifest one late December many years ago when we found ourselves drifting large suckers minnows for muskies in one of our favorite holes. It had been warm all week and the morning temperatures were idyllic -  sunny with clear skies, unseasonable warm at 14 celsius, with 0-5k winds from the South. It was great weather for fishing but horrible for catching until the system changed radically toward late afternoon when a cold front set in, winds shifting and gusting from the North bringing temperatures down to below zero and dropping the first white blanket of snow across the landscape. 

Before the first snowflakes hit the water, we both had simultaneous hook-ups, two good fish that we estimated were close to thirty pounds before we released. We baited new minnows  and dropped them over the side of the boat and one was immediately taken before we could fully let out our lines. A third fish had been sitting under the boat, probably aroused by the activity of the other two fish. It fought well and after a few good runs managed to throw the hook.  We continued our drift and once again the ratchedy drag sounded off indicating another fish had taken the bait. This time the hook was solid and after a brief yet intense battle was brought alongside the boat. It was another thirty pound fish. The action was incredible that day, with two other fish coming next to the boat before we headed home. The storm had without a doubt triggered this incredible feeding activity in a place where one good fish per day was the norm under ideal circumstances. Since then, fishing the structure that lies within these meteorological patterns, the edges of weather systems, have been responsible for many great days on the water and many trophy fish.

The sun had not yet risen on a cold, late November morning as we headed down the dark highway towards the boat launch near Sorel on the St-Lawrence river just East of Montreal. It is the fourth oldest city in Quebec, once a major industrial sector with oil refineries and steel mills and processing plants and other heavy industries that were built on the shores of the river. There had once been giant shipyards that built frigates for the Canadian Navy and most of the industries that remained were  involved in metallurgy, heavy equipment manufacturing, ethanol and grain processing plants, most with needs requiring their own dockage along the river to both ship and receive materials. These factories were surrounded by small,tough, working-class francophone communities where most of their inhabitants, like the generations before them, toiled in the industries along the river. It only seemed fitting that we would be fishing for the toughest fish in these waters.

The excitement in the air was tangible as we were with one of the best musky guides in North America, Marc Thorpe.  As past National president of Muskies Canada and with his continued involvement in research projects with biologists and conservationist groups across the continent, Marc brings with him a wealth of scientific knowledge about the species, coupled with an uncanny ability to locate the big fish. He has been fishing these waters for over three decades and knows them like the back of his hand.  His catch rates are excellent but no matter how many fish you catch during an outing you will also benefit from the added bonus of walking  away with a greater knowledge and respect for of these fish. Part of our day’s agenda, discussed between copious sips of steaming coffee, was that any fish we caught would be subjected to DNA analysis and sampling for a research project he was currently involved in with fisheries biologists from the Ministry.

The public ramp was deserted and within minutes the boat was in the water and was headed out towards the channel. The sky was grey and ugly and threatened to break as we throttled down to drop our lures into the clear water behind the boat. In late Fall the most effective method of covering water and capturing these fish is by trolling big lures in deep water near schools of suspended bait fish, perhaps mooneyes, suckers, or even walleyes. At this time of the year the fish are feeding heavily and the cold has slowed down their metabolisms. The baits are generally worked at slower speeds as the fish aren’t inclined to chase them down as they would during the summer months. Some baits, particularly those with an exaggerated action at slower speeds – such as Kwikfish, Grandmas, or Believers – tend to be very effective when the water temperatures drop below fifty fahrenheit.  The best colors in the gin clear waters of the St-Lawrence tend to be the natural colors, in variations of perch, walleye, and sucker patterns.

On the other side of the island a freighter blasted its horn as warning of its impending approach in the channel. It was a giant rusted hulk of a ship with white stars and a Russian marking on its hull. A lone sailor waved at us from high up on one of the aft decks, no doubt thrilled at the prospect of being back in port after a long ocean crossing. Historically, the woman in Montreal have always been the highlight of many a merchant marine’s  shore leave in this city and several have wound up finding their soul mates and establishing roots, never to leave the country again. Since the beginnings of colonialism and the New World, the economic lifeline of this city and its history has always been connected to  the river and its harbour, where most of our ancestors, immigrating from all parts of the world, fleeing wars or famines, first set foot in this country. To this very day the port of Montreal is the largest inland port in the world handling 26 million tonnes of cargo annually and remains Canada’s most important ports as it is a vital transhipment port for sugar, grain, oil, and certain other manufactured goods

The area which is today known as Montreal was first inhabited for more than 8000 years by the Iroquois, Algonquin, and Huron people. In 1535 Jacques Cartier became the first European to reach the area now known as Montreal, where he met with the local Hochelaga people. His passage had been blocked by the formidable Lachine rapids, so named as it had been thought that somewhere above them lay the route to China. The same year he renamed the river, which had previously been known as the Hochelaga and Canada River, in honour of the Deacon Lawrence. 

As Montreal is an island surrounded by both the St-Lawrence River and Riviere des Prairies, water has always played an important economic role in the lives of Montrealers. It was here that the fur trade was first established in the New World by explorer Samuel de Champlain along what is today the Lachine canal. The St-Lawrence seaway – a complex system of locks, canals, and channels allowing the travel of large cargo ships from the great lakes to the Atlantic ocean – was officially inaugurated in 1959 at a cost of 479 million dollars and Queen Elizabeth II and president Dwight Eisenhower formally opened the seaway with a short cruise aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia after addressing the crowds at the new locks in St-Lambert. Since then the seaway has become a major economic driver of the city and a playground for people who enjoy all types of water recreation, including what could arguably be some of the best trophy musky fishing in all of North America.

The barge’s wake finally rolled in like a tsunami and sent the twenty-foot Princecraft bobbing up and down in the water like a float, although it was nothing the boat couldn’t safely handle. Other than getting hit by one of these iron mastodons of the seaway, the biggest nuisance associated with their passage was the weeds their massive propellers churned up to the surface that got snagged into your line and worked their way down to the lure. To prevent this from happening Marc had tied a neat rig above the eight foot leader, a rigid piece of plastic tubing that had been spliced and folded outwards, its splayed arms picking up the weeds before they travelled down the line and reached the lure. It was an ingenious device and although simple, worked quite well, as evidenced by the cabbage weed they kept picking up in the water.

The first strike -  brutal and sudden and unanticipated, as is always the case -  came on the short rod which was positioned on the inside ledge of the channel in about thirty feet of water. The fish surfaced almost immediately and began thrashing about like an alligator, shaking its head and rolling in the line to escape from its invisible enemy. But the fish was well hooked and was eventually coaxed into the large net that Marc stretched out into the water. The fish was remarkably obliging as we quickly worked to cut out the hooks and begin the revival process in the net. She had a tremendous girth and while we guesstimated the length to be around 40 inches the tape indicated that she was 43 inches.  A solid 25 pound monster.

As she revived in the net, hanging from a cleat over the boat in the frigid water, Marc prepared both the equipment and paperwork required for the DNA study. A special tool to take a small flesh sample was used with surgical precision, then dropped into a vial of solution for maximum preservation, and marked with a small white label. The small incision was then covered in an antibiotic gel to prevent risk of infection. All of this took less than a minute, including the paperwork that needed to be filled out with the specifications of each catch, including length, girth, sex, and location of capture. Using a needle gun we also tagged the dorsal fin of the fish with a numbered code to identify it, and should it be recaptured and reported by another angler, there is a data trail on this fish to follow. This was all done while the fish was still recovering in the water. A quick photo and the fish was released over the side of the boat. It was an incredible experience to partake in the scientific aspect of this marvelous fishery, the results of which would ultimately play a critical role in future regulations concerning the fishery and ensuring the conservation of this remarkable species.

Then we realized we had a problem. The released fish had suddenly re-surfaced on its side about fifty meters behind the boat. This was not a good sign. We brought the boat around, both of us deeply concerned with her welfare, as we motored back in silence and simply grabbed her by the tail and held her upright in the water. She seemed strong but slightly disoriented, unable to maintain herself upright in the water, as though she had lost her sense of balance. Marc had seen this before in muskies caught from deep water, a condition arising from an air bladder problem from having ascended to quickly to the surface. It was like the musky bends. A second release attempt ten minutes later proved equally futile as the moment she dove down rolled over on her side and floated back up to the surface. She seemed really confused and unaware of what was going on as she repeatedly attempted to sound, but floated back up. It became an issue of grave concern and we brought her into shallow water, where a deep swim would not be an available option. The strategy seemed to work and we kept a vigilant eye on her for a half hour as she swam around the shallow water and then rested in some weeds and regained her balance before she finally slipping back off into the deep water. Total time on this release was over an hour and a half and admittedly, for both of us, far more of an accomplishment than its capture.

The rain finally came but only in the form of a slight drizzle instead of the rain showers that the weatherman had predicted. Our flame orange floater suits were more than enough to keep us warm and dry under the misty blanket of the river. In this country there is a saying that the weather is a given and if you don’t like it, wait another five minutes and it will change. Besides, as a general rule with these fish, the worse the weather got the better the fishing would be. Musky fisherman are not unaccustomed to foul weather in their pursuit of these legendary fish. Not long after the rain began one of the rods angrily sounded off with a good fish. It was a smaller fish but gave a great account of itself until we battled it into the bottom of the net. It was a fully mature male, close to twenty pounds, with green tiger stripes running along its cream coloured belly. It was a superb fish and was released without encountering any of the same difficulties as with our first fish.

The sun quickly dipped below the horizon in a fiery splash and darkness began to gather its grip around everything . It was time to go home. The flashing lights of the markers, as well as the honed instincts of somebody who has done this more than once,  guided us through the darkness towards the parking lot. It was not even 5. p.m.when we trailered the boat up the ramp and drove back out onto the highway. It was rush hour and there was more traffic on the roads as long lines of cars pulled out of the steel mills and refineries after a hard days work and headed home to their families. Big trucks with heavy loads grumbled by, their drivers looking down at the boat with all the heavy-duty fishing gear, several honking and waving at our good fortune for playing on water while they had been toiling on land all day. It had certainly been a great day on the river.

IT WAS SOMEWHERE AROUND LAKE HURON that we decided to drive south towards hogtown and spend our last day fishing with Greg Amiel’s Fishing4Tails charter service for steelhead and king salmon before heading back down the final leg of the highway towards home. After one month of fishing everyday, we needed a little fishing to break the trip up and it was the perfect opportunity to finally fish with Greg. We had initially become acquainted  through a variety of internet fishing social networks but this marked our first occasion to meet in person and fish together. Despite the sketchy last-minute arrangements, mostly exchanged through text messages as we worked our way across Northern Ontario, he was incredibly generous with his time and created a hole for us in his busy schedule.

The rendezvous was at his place at 4:30 a.m. and as we pulled up in front of his house, a familiar figure was already in his driveway inspecting his boat and changing a rear light bulb on his trailer that had burnt out the night before. Within a few minutes the repairs were made, the gear loaded into the boat, trailer ties re-checked and we were headed down the DVP towards downtown Toronto where we would put the boat in somewhere near the harbour front area. The ramp was deserted save for a few empty cars and a police cruiser idle in the parking lot. A flock of seagulls had laid siege to a pile of garbage bags whose contents were scattered all over the ground.  An older gentleman was fishing for carp off the dock with his grandson and sheepishly admitted to not being a very good fisherman as they had not yet caught a fish.

The city of Toronto is one of the oldest cities in the country with a long history. People have lived here since shortly after the Ice Age when First Nations tribes like the Seneca, Mohawk, and Cayugas lived peacefully along the shores of beautiful Lake Ontario. The modern urban city dates back to 1793 when it was established as a military post as part of Upper Canada to improve the defences against an American invasion, which it later did, playing a pivotal role in the War of 1812 successfully repelling American offences. At that point in its early modern history less than five hundred souls inhabited the area called Fort York but because of its continued importance as a colonial capital it attracted institutions, such as banks and schools, which brought people with them and in the era of industrialization just after Confederation, the city grew at a rapid pace. It was incorporated as Toronto in 1834 and became the main destination for most immigrants to the country. The city known as Hogtown (because of its meat processing plants) eventually supplanted Montreal as the country’s financial and cultural capital, and in 1976, the year the separatist Parti Quebecois party was elected in Québec, a massive internal migration of anglophones (and their institutions) saw Toronto overtake Montreal as the largest city in Canada and the economic driving force behind the country.

It is also the city that most other Canadians, particularly Montrealers, for a variety of reasons, love to hate.

We motored across calm waters just as the sun began to rise over the city and light up the skyline of downtown Toronto. The familiar postcard landmarks of the city  – the CN Tower, Rogers center, and the tall mirrored skyscrapers along Bay street, the financial epicenter of the country – soon came into view, resplendently bathed in the soft morning light. While mostly deserted at this hour of the day, the downtown streets would soon be bustling with noisy traffic and businessman in sharp suits and silk ties seeking their fortune and glory as they struggled their way to the top of the corporate ladder. Having never really bought in to the conventional thinking that wealth and all its trappings led to happiness, and both us of being somewhat free-spirited fish bums, we had other plans for the day and the only riches we sought had silver scales and slime and could only be mined somewhere in the depths of the turquoise lake that lay ahead of us. ( Somewhat ironically perhaps, Greg is a silversmith and jeweller by profession but prefers fishing for silvers)

In about four hundred feet of water, the first set of lines were dropped down, four long rods in total, running flasher boards and flies on downriggers and dipsy-divers at varying depths from twenty to a hundred and twenty feet under the placid surface. Massive schools of alewives or ciscos showed up on the sonar like dark clouds and just below them some larger markings, which were the salmon. It would soon be go time. All eyes were focused intently on the screen and on the rods, waiting to strike silver. Greg kept an eagle eye on the screen and each time we marked a good fish he quickly adjusted the line depths to the readings to get our passing flies across their faces, but the fish were decidedly uncooperative.  A few minor adjustments were made with the terminal tackle, flasher boards switched from chartreuse to silver holograph, flies and spoons also changed, but after a few passes through the same lock-jawed group of fish we reeled up our lines and moved to prospect another area across the harbour. The markings here indicated a deep trough where upwelling currents mixed, holding heavy concentrations of bait fish. Some of the flashers and flies were switched again for different colors and the lines went out again on their mission prospecting for silver. One of the rods was set up with a cut plug herring and while it didn’t always produce numbers like the flies, it tended to attract the bigger fish – he called it the meat stick.

The first fish hit the starboard side downrigger, the one with the steel line and fly, peeling out a good three hundred feet of line on its first brutal run. It was a real screamer wand ith the sensitive steel line you were so connected to the fish that you could literally feel each shake of the head. Unlike monofilament, there is zero stretch in this line and all energy is transferred directly to the rod. According to the line counter on the reel, it surfaced a two hundred and thirty-five feet behind the boat in a silver boil and tailwalked across the clear blue water before sounding back to the safety of the deep. There could be no doubt that it was a King salmon. Nothing else that pulls like this out here. The long downrigger rod was bent into a deep arc and each foot of line re-gained back on the reel was a brutal tug-of-war. These fish are really strong and they will hurt you and make your arms ache. They are indeed brutes and need to be worn down on their own schedule, and within fifteen minutes the fish lay on the deck of the boat, glistening like a giant bar of silver. A small lamprey mark, while healed, had left a slight scar on its belly. The hook was quickly removed and after a quick snapshot it was released back in the water.

It was another hour or so before the next fish hit and it gave me an opportunity to discuss strategy with Greg and get an introduction to the various patterns and techniques involved in Great Lakes downrigger fishing, the equipment and methods of which I was entirely ignorant of, if not in theory at least, certainly in terms of practice. It didn’t take long to realize that Greg really knows what he is doing and is one of the most passionate anglers I have ever had the privilege to meet. He is a master of his sport, self-taught, winner of several prestigious salmon tournaments, holder of  I.G.F.A line class records, and multi species angler to boot. He is also very patient and humble about his numerous fishing accomplishments and serves as a great role model and mentor to others seeking to unlock the mysterious alchemy of Lake O silver.

The next fish hooked was an airborne steelhead that hit the short line and almost jumped itself into cardiac arrest before we could pull the rod from the holder. We counted close to ten jumps before we even touched the cork. It was a good fish with beautiful scarlet markings but nowhere near as combative as the mighty King; that was like hooking into a passing semi truck on the 401. The steelhead had completely exhausted itself from its acrobatics. As we released it back into the water I looked around and noticed that other than a sailboat in the distance there were no other boats on water. We were two miles from shore in the largest metropolitan city in Canada in a lake full of salmon and we were virtually all alone. The thought crossed my mind that if it wasn’t Toronto this place could actually be heaven….

Hunched under the canopy of a large elm tree that sheltered us somewhat from the deluge, we waited for what seemed an eternity for the violent tropical storm to relent. We hadn’t even had a chance to wet our lines before the skies parted and the downpour began. The ominous grey clouds in the darkening sky painted a gloomy forecast as they raced over the treetops , as if impatient to reunite with the distant horizon. The torrential summer rainfall cascaded in vertical sheets that undulated across the waters surface,  now whipped with such wind-driven force that it bubbled and frothed like boiling water. Off in the faraway distance, thunder claps resonated and shards of lightning splintered across the sky in delicate fingers that spread out and touched the ground, momentarily caressing the earth in its electrostatic embrace. There was an atmosphere of instability in the air and optimism in our hearts and we hoped this was the weather pattern that would see a reversal of fortune in our hunt for the big bass that had mysteriously disappeared for the last two years.

As we sat under the grateful protection of the tree and waited for a break in the weather, we kept ourselves occupied eating sandwiches and drinking coffee  as we speculated about the mysterious disappearance of the big bass that we used to catch on a consistent basis almost every season for the last two decades. Where had they gone? So many big fish had been caught over the years that until it stopped happening altogether for no apparent reason we didn’t realize how lucky we had been, nor had we questioned our success as there was no failure to weigh it against and give it perspective. Theories formulated to explain the bass enigma abounded ranging from the plausible, logical, and usual suspects - changing water and ph levels in the last two years, increased fishing pressure with no catch & release being practiced, fertilizers from the nearly farm lands in the water table that has drained into the river, phosphorus from pig farming operations above some of the lake tributaries, industrial pollution, too many pharmaceutical chemicals being flushed into the river and altering fish libidos -  to the inane and ludicrous. Chief among the absurd rationalizations was a theory we termed the bass apocalypse, a worse case extinction level event where for some inexplicable reason there had been a massive die-off of all the big bass. Perhaps they had all died of old age. Nothing other than the tongue-in-cheek bass apocalypse theory could satisfactorily explain what happened to our once great fishing hole that each season produced fish that were uncommonly large for water this far north of the forty-ninth parallel.

After an hour the rain let up enough for us to finally get into the game and begin fishing. On Mark’s very first cast, a pike boiled at the surface but somehow missed the lure. Not long after there was another blast off the weedbed, this time the hook sticks and he reels in a six pound pike. A good start but not what we are here for – get with the program buddy I reminded him. A few minutes later and another pike greedily hammered the bait and as he is reeling it in a musky appeared from underneath, breaching like a submarine and followed it right up to the edge of the boat, eyeing it with a mixture of both malevolent intent and simple curiosity. It moved with the slow and deliberate grace and confidence of an apex predator, not at all disturbed by the presence of the boat, which it barely seemed to notice as it was focused on the erratic behavior of the hooked pike. It was so close to the boat we could have reached over and petted it like a dog before it instinctively sensed that it was in fact the hunted party and then vanished into the comfort zone and camouflage of the thick vegetation.

As a result of record precipitation for almost two full months early in the Spring, the water levels, which the year prior had been at a disconcerting twenty year record lows, were estimated to be close to four feet above normal levels. This was a year where was water everywhere and the fish were much more spread out and difficult to locate in any great numbers. The weed lines were also now submerged and harder to locate. As the water was higher it was more difficult for the sun to penetrate the riverbeds and there had been significantly less photosynthesis occurring early in the season so the deep water cabbage beds hadn’t fully grown and were next to impossible to locate visually - and that was where we needed to put our baits. Twenty years of fishing here had taught us a few basic lessons about this place. There seemed to be three immutable laws when it came to big bass. They were caught during high pressure periods of barometric instability, they were mostly all caught in the middle of the day, and the biggest fish were all caught on a deep water weedline pattern, often as deep as twenty feet. That being said we had also caught a few monsters in as shallow as two feet of water, at both dawn and dusk, and during stable weather patterns so despite what experience indicated to the contrary, there are really no set rules or best lures, only what the bass decide they want to do at any given moment.

The next few hours were uneventful, as we drifted uneventfully along where we thought the outside of the weed edge was located and while we did manage to pick up a few fish, they were mostly small fish that didn’t really warrant the trouble of a photo. That was soon to change. The sun soon reappeared, cicadas and crickets began to sound off in harmony and were soon joined by the giant bullfrogs that bugled their hidden presence in the tall reeds. We had stripped back down to shorts and shirts as we let the current take us through the channel between Ile de la Commune and Grosbois and another series of canals that formed the outline of the islands in the seaway. This archipelago separated the main river from the central shipping channels of the St-Lawrence seaway. The seaway side of the river, highlighted by the picturesque skyline of the city, formed a major shipping route of entry to the eastern seaboard and was always bustling with giant iron steamships that carried oil, grain, and other manufactured products from all over the world to the Port of Montreal. In the distance, on the inside of the green marker buoys that marked the channel, several ships were anchored in the current as they waited for their signal from the Port Authorities to enter the port with their pilot escorts and either load or unload their cargos.

The Boucherville islands, so named in the seventeenth century by seigneur Pierre Boucher who wished to honor of his families ancestral name, were composed of a small chain of islands located in the center of the river that had once been exploited for agricultural production by a French commune that inhabited the islands centuries before the archipelago became established as a National Park by the Quebec government. They were not the first to exploit the islands as the native Iroquois of the Hochelaga tribe had also used the islands as campgrounds during the summer months where they gathered birds eggs and harvested certain types of medicinal flora used in both their diets and traditional rituals. A few hundred years later and there was still plenty of wildlife that lived on these islands of great ecological biodiversity. At any given time one can expect to see Virginia deer, red fox, otters, raccoons and host of other mammals and bird life that use the sheltered islands for nesting. The many interconnected channels and coves are easily accessed by any fish coming from the main river and its waters were constantly being refreshed by the constant flow of current moving through, bringing with it fresh schools of fish that moved in and out to feed. It was a primary spawning area early in the year and in the summer the variety of both predatory and bait fish seeking both refuge  and feeding grounds in the maze of canals and bays was incredible. Bait fish were often seen being crashed to the surface in a watery explosion of a school of feeding bass or a musky. It always held fish no matter what time of the year.

The irrepressible inflatable nosed its way into no man’s land via a shallow channel that would ground most boats to an expensive halt, but then its path suddenly opened up into a huge hidden back bay partly covered with a colorful field of beautiful white lily pads and purple hyacinth that grew in the clear tannic water. Minnows  darted from under the boat in silvery explosions, like underwater fireworks. This was the golden hole. On the third cast near the familiar pads the top water bait was furiously inhaled and the battle was on, fought with great intensity at close quarters by both parties until the bass surfaced next to the inflatable and was lipped by my partner. In a rare display of apoplexy, he stared up at me with a look of wild excitement in his eyes before he pulled the fish out of the water and held it up it to my dumfounded scrutiny. It was huge and there was no doubt that it was perhaps one of the biggest largemouth bass we had ever caught, certainly among the top five in the last two decades. It was an ecstatic moment and like happy little children playing in the water, we both immersed ourselves waist deep in the bay and snapped some quick photos before releasing the fish back into the clear water.

The sky began to rumble its discontent once again and soon an even angrier set of dark  clouds loomed on the horizon and raced towards us at breakneck speed. The wind began to howl as it began to gust through the treetops, collecting leaves that spiralled off in dust devils that swept across the water. We had barely managed to get our rain suits back on before the second storm came crashing down around our heads. It was a monsoon like rain, a hard pelting rain that forced you to keep your head down and away as it hurt your eyes and stung your face. There was no sign of any clearing in the sky and the rain showed no signs of tapering. We decided to fish through it and kept stubbornly working our baits. In the corner of the cove there was a thick weed mat with a slight hole in the middle and Mark cast his Spro frog right next to the shoreline and began working it seductively over the thick mat. As it reached the opening in the carpet of thick mat it was suddenly engulfed by a huge musky that furiously tore through the mass of weeds, his line slicing like a knife through clumps of vegetation, leaving a trail of cabbage leaf that floated loosely upwards to the surface. The powerful runs tested both angler and equipment but in the end it was the angler this time that held the upper hand in this battle. The great fish soon lay next to the boat and we quickly unhooked it and held it upright in the water for a few minutes before it slipped through his fingers and swam away.

In almost robotic fashion, under the strong effect of fish fever, we continued casting like men possessed through the rain, working the weed line but without much result, other than disturbing some resident wildlife. An overzealous cast towards shore caused a  great blue heron to fly out of her refuge in the tall grass, and was obviously annoyed by our presence and none too happy with having to relocate in the deluge. She  screeched her discontent as she flew barely above our heads, beating the air with its huge wings that flapped like sails in the wind as she sought to break the gravitational bonds of inertia and its comfortable nest. It flew at low altitude over the water and landed a few hundred yards ahead, somewhere in the thick growth of broadleaf cattail that stood swaying along the edge of the shoreline. The unstable weather system continued to play havoc and barely a few minutes later the gusting winds suddenly died down and the menacingly dark clouds cleared gave way to a bright cerulean sky. Other than our clothes that were still drenched and a few inches of accumulated rainwater that swished around the bottom of the boat, there was nothing else to indicate the recent passage of a violent storm.

The next fish came as a total surprise. It had followed from under the weeds and then swam off somewhat disinterested under the boat. At first glance it was almost dismissed for a carp as it seemed way too long and corpulent to be a bass. Even a big bass. But then the profile and color wasn’t right for a carp and only then did the mental image suddenly register that it was indeed a gigantic bass. – bigger than any I had ever seen. It’s odd how our perception is conditioned by our experiences and how the brain doesn’t register what a giant bass that big looks until you have actually seen one that big as it tends to reconfigure conventional notions of perspective. Besides, as the little voice in my head told me, when was the last time you saw a carp follow a bait? The lure was flipped out on a hail mary hope and prayer that was soon answered and this time there was no hesitation as the fish nailed it almost immediately and raced out towards deep water. It quickly switched gears and changed tactics and remembering it was a bass, charged back towards the thick vegetation where it surfaced against the pressure of the rod, thrashing its strong tail wildly before taking a final dive into a clump of weed. With as much force as the ten pound mono could withstand, I reared back on the rod and began slowly reeling the heavy and indistinguishable clump that was part weed and fish towards the boat. A powerful shake of it’s leviathan head and final thrash towards freedom and the vegetation parted from the line and the fight was on once again. But the old girl as spent and save for a few more perfunctory head shakes, quickly rolled next to the boat. Mark looked up at me and shook his head in amazement as he muttered something barely intelligible about it being even bigger than the first one.

We found a shallow bay nearby and kept the fish in the water to revive it as we prepared the camera for some photos. Not a word was spoken between us as we were too excited by our good fortune and focused on both achieving the best results with the camera without causing harm or distress to the big fish. It wasn’t as long as the first fish but had a tremendous girth and a huge head and shoulders. She was the hunchback bass of the Boucherville Islands. After the photo session  we watched as she swam off under the dark cover some lily pads. The moment was celebrated on shore with a cold Heineken and soggy cigarette. We laughed easily, like we did in our youth when we first discovered this secret place, without a care in the world and living in the moment, living the dream and being free. The big bass were back and for a few moments we felt like kids again, transported back to a time when our lives were simpler, free of worry and responsibility. We waxed nostalgically about old times, friends that have come and gone out of our lives, some by choice while others by death, the rapid passage of time, and of course some of the other exceptional fish we had caught in this place. It was one of the best days and while only time will put things in perspective, we both departed with the feeling that maybe the day was a harbinger that marked the end of a long drought and a return to the good old days. At least we were now pretty certain that the giant bass zombie apocalypse had not yet come to pass.

This is neither a cautionary tale nor a work of fiction. Rather, it is a factual account of the activities that took place a week ago last Friday, as all official records will indicate, during my latest trout adventure. Little did I know that the roles were to be reversed and that it was the fisherman was to be the catch of the day.

For one almost fateful morning my person was the subject of a joint manhunt co-ordinated by agencies of both the United States of America, land of the not so free anymore since the passage of The Patriot Act, and Canada, land of the timid politicians who do not want to ruffle the feathers of the bald eagle. And then there was little old me, middle-aged, fish-addicted, and somewhat still suffering from two months of cabin fever who needed to feel the tug of a fish the way a junkie needs a fix. I was a trout junkie. A trout terrorist…..the Una-Trouter!

The day started quite inocuously, the sun was shining, birds were chirping in the treetops, squirrels played and life was finally returning after a long winter. Then it began to turn into a hellish nightmare which had nothing to do with the fishing. You see, I was fishing border waters and had parked my suspicious black truck at the end of a dead-end country road in the middle of nowhere, not fifty feet from a snowbank and large obelisk shaped stone with U.S.A. painted in red across it that demarcated the borderline between Canada and the US. This border is the longest unprotected border in the civilized world and many parts of it, like this one, are basically patrolled by squirrels and crows.

But on this particular morning, an unusually warm and unseasonably early Spring day, I knew instinctively something was afoot as a helicopter was doing fly- bys along the border as I parked my car. Naturally, a black SUV with a lone guy donning his waders, sipping coffee from his Thermos, and rigging up his rod was all highly suspicious activity to the uber paranoid forces of freedom and warranted further investigation. I waved at him from the middle of the road in plain view as a pre-emptive gesture of my innocuousness and to impress upon him that I was not trying to conceal my presence,  but this apparently wasn’t sufficient to allay his fears that I would soon be terrorizing the drop-down brown trout planted originally by the New York State Fish & Wildlife Dept. As I trudged through the deep snow in the wooded valley that led towards the river, the helicopter hovered above me like a pesky insect for the next three hours, every so often dissappearing beyond the treeline for a few minutes and then returning quickly, as if to catch me in some felonious act, like priesting a brown and chucking it in my creel, or pissing in the middle of the river. It was like a cat and mouse game.  It was beyond certainty that somethng important was going down although what I didn’t realize at the time was that it was me that was the center of all this activity. Standing in the middle of the river, helicopter hovering above me every few minutes, scaring the piss out of every trout for miles, I began to think that maybe they had been tipped off about some smuggling activities or perhaps the transportation of illegal aliens, remembering something like that that had appeared in newspapers a few months earlier.

It would not be the first time this area had been used for smuggling. Historically, this area had once been a notoriously prominent smuggling route during the era of Prohibition in the 1920’s in the U.S. and it was rumored that Joseph Kennedy, the scion of that great American political family from Massachusetts, built his family fortune from the booze smuggled along its dirt trails.

The water was still quite low, almost still at winter levels and there were no fish in the best pools, at least none that I managed to catch, perhaps  none quite bold enough to feed with a giant pterodactyl hovering above their lies. After a few hours of fishing without any success and somewhat disconcerted with the airborne activities, decided to call it a day and return back to the car, hastened when the helicopter seemed to land near the area where my car was parked. This was not a good sign, nor a positive portent of what was soon  to transpire. I cut across a wooded field as short-cut to the dirt road that led back towards my car. It was not longer than a few minutes after reaching the road when a black GMC Envoy pulled up quickly behind me, doors flung open, and two agents jumped out with their pistols aimed at my head. It was a scene right out of Cops! I almost shat in my waders as I raised both arms, steelhead rod in one and camera case in the other, towards the sky. Holy Shit! I thought to myself – what did I do now? I hadn’t even managed to catch a goddammed trout!

It sounds cliché but for a nanosecond my life flashed before me, like single frames of old super 8 movies that had been spliced together in a collage of my earthly existence, and one thing stood out as I stared at my fate down the barrel of cold steel as a victim of mistaken identity that eventually becomes part of the fabric of fishing lore and the stuff of urban legend. Hear the story of the poor bastard got shot fishing for trout on the Chateuguay? One thing stood out above everything, which was that the story could not yet be over as the end had not yet been written and there was more to accomplish. I was not ready to die on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere and like all creatures cornered, immediately went on the defensive.

Whoaaaa!!!WTF is going on? I stammered, careful only to move my lips.

Is that your car parked at the end of the road?

Yessir, but what’s the problem? I’ve been parking there for thirty years.

I’ll ask the questions here. Get in the car!

Uh-OK…

They holstered their guns and my sphincter immediately loosened forty newtons of pressure. One of the officers opened the door for me after I had broken the steelhead rod into halves, trying to avoid more tragedy by snapping them in the door or something equally stupid. The driver – a young aboriginal, a definite asset for police forces in this area of Mohawk reserves that lie across both borders of the St-Lawrence river – radioed ahead and confirmed that they had got their man and would be arriving momentarily. I sat silently in the back, stunned that I was their man, yet secure and certain in my innocence and that I had not committed any infraction other than fishing poorly, and grateful that what brains I had weren’t lying splattered all over the gravel road behind me.

To my complete and utter amazement, when we arrived in view of my car, there were several other vehicles swarmed around it, like a pack of ravenous wolves surrounding their helpless prey, ready for the kill. The helicopter had landed in the farmers field next to the road, its rotors idle and shining in the sunlight and standing nearby were a total of twelve agents (they work in pairs in case somebody’s shoe becomes untied) with their hands on their waists, handguns menacingly visible in their holsters at their side, and none smiling like they were waiting to audition for a toothpaste comercial.

Look what I caught said the native enforcer, somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

This was my welcoming commitee: Canada Customs, R.C.M.P., Homeland Security, I.N.S, A.T.F and F.B.I. – and not one of them thought to bring some Tim Horton’s cofee or donuts! The whole gang had showed up just for me, who hadn’t even managed to catch a decent trout that could be offered up as proof of my innocence. After twenty minutes of interrogation and the establishment of a reasonably credible alibi for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the atmospheric pressure in my underwear let up, the boys cooled down and laughed amongst each other at their error, realizing perhaps that they had acted somewhat prematurely and how they would ultimately have to write off the expensive manhunt in their report as an exercise. That was basically what my plan was as well and a few minutes later we were all laughing about it and drinking hot coffeee from the Thermos that my wife had brewed me earlier in the day. When I inquired about the sudden presence of activity on the agent replied 9/11 which I reminded him was over a decade ago. There were not too many Al-Quaida fishing this section of the river, at least none that I had come across. I had fished this section of the river for several years since then, both early in the season and in mid-Winter when it was at its best and most desolate of other anglers, and had never had any incident nor seen any human being at all, including other fishermen. At one point one of the agents conceded that the river was also used to smuggle drugs into Canada and it was ususally people disguised as fisherman that would pick up the drugs on this side of the border. It seemed their modus operandi was to float valuable bricks of cocaine downstream with a gps chip attached so that it could be located by the recipient somewhere downstream. Sometimes they never made it across the border, perhaps  blocked by a deadfall in the middle of the river, or sucked into a whirling back-eddy, or maybe get lodged under a rock at the base of a rapid on its nefarious journey towards the destruction of some Canadian user’s septum. This was usually done early in the season when the river was in spate and smugglers dumped it in the water somewhere below Sam Cooke bridge in New York State a few miles upstream and hoped the package made it across the border, otherwise they needed to retrieve and attempt once again. It was not an entirely sophisticated system and we all had a good laugh about it. About twenty minutes later, when the agents finally cleared away and the helicopter dissappeared over the treeline and left me once again alone in the woods, I began laughing aloud at the absurdity of the singular thought that immediately popped into mind. It had suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the fish weren’t active because one of those packages had ripped open somewhere upstream depositing its contents into the clear waters and that the fish were too coked out and were way beyond the pedestrian lure of worms!

Fishing as a sport has often been described as an activity mostly consisting up of long periods of boredom followed by short and intense periods of exciting activity. While this proposition is not entirely untrue, the statement misses the point of the exercise entirely and fails to underscore the importance of the events that happen outside those moments of intense activity – which for many is a big part of why they fish. The down time between catching fish allows us those requisite moments of respite from civilization for solitary reflection and introspection, observation and thought about the quarry and nature, or of time to talk and further deepen a close friendship. If one takes a moment to think about it, if we only fished to catch fish that the whole enterprise could logically be viewed as an exceedingly productive way to waste ones time.  The scientific method and catch statistics can back me up on this. Should one be so inclined to do the mathematical calculations of catch rates vs. effort or hours fished they would also quickly arrive at the conclusion  that ninety percent of their time was spent staring at their inert lines and not much else.  In the real world people get fired for such a lack of productivity. But here is where logic and mathematics fall to the wayside and where statistics hold no currency.

The numbers always fail to recognize the existential moments that occur during these long periods of inactivity, the perfect moments of life that exist between the lines of motion, the crack of light that emerges through the shadows, bringing with it both hope and meaning. The statistics don’t account for the satisfaction of  casting perfect loops of line that unfurl like poetry over a page of unwritten water, still brimming with hope and promise. Or for the way a sunset moves us all to silence and wonder about the magic that is our world. Nor do they recognize the memories that are built and the friendships that are forged during these periods of boredom:  they cannot explain the prose that is all flowing water, or the breath-taking sight of an eagle soaring high above in the sky. Nor do they explain a myriad of other individual reasons that keep all of us drawn back to waters of a sorts. Sometimes it really doesn’t matter if we don’t catch fish.

Fishing is one of those enigmatic activities in that most thoughtful people who have been doing it for a while will tell you that catching fish is not always paramount to the activity of fishing. A recent study in Alberta seems confirms this by noting inadvertently during a study on catch rates that anglers were not necessarily attracted to high catch rate fisheries, and suggested that angler behavior is very complex and not driven by catch rates alone. This perspicacious  finding was a by-catch of  a creel analysis study on catch rates and as such the reasons behind this complex angler behavior were not included in the study parameters, only briefly commented upon by the research team. As their research on the subject deepens, they will no doubt discover that there are far more subtle factors at work determining what makes up a good day of fishing that can’t be accounted for by statistical analysis or catch rates.

It was not only the hottest day of the summer but the highest on record in the last twenty years, the mercury at a blistering 108F with the humidex close to ninety percent and severe storm warnings in effect, further proof that global warming  was a reality.The entire week Environment Canada issued warnings broadcast on the radio advising both the elderly and infirm as well as the very young to remain indoors and drink plenty of fluids during the heat wave. The heat was infernal and while most sane people sought to find some respite in their air-conditioned homes or swimming pools, we revelled in the torrid heat that was a harbinger for the massive numbers of gar that congregated during summer in the Bay of Quinte. This heat signalled the prime time for gar and we waited impatiently near the marina in downtown Belleville for my friend and guide extraordinaire Glen Hales to show up with his boat and take us out for a few days on the Bay of Quinte. The Gar Wars were about to begin and the force was with us.

Once the area of an ancient Indian settlement, it is a town founded over two centuries ago by the United Empire Loyalists and which lies at the halfway point on highway 401 between the cosmopolitan cities of Montreal and Toronto. It is a small town, a mix of both historic and modern, or tradition and novelty, the perfect breeding ground for quiet revolution in fly fishing that was taking place on the gar flats of the Bay of Quinte. It was the first time we had fished there and the sheer numbers of fish we encountered as we drifted into the first bay was incredible. There were hundreds of fish milling around the shallow water, terrorizing huge schools of shiner minnows, and dotting the surface with their long snouts as they rose to gulp air. The water was slighly stained and cabbage and pondweed covered portions of the sprawling bay.

Glen was the first to hook up, a three-footer that jumped twice and landed square in the bow of the boat and then bounced back into the water. It fought close to the boat and a few seconds later we had it in front of a camera lens as we admired its impressive dentition and beautifully patterned, armor-like skin, once used by the native Indians for arrowheads and chest armor plating. Like all members of its genus (Lepisosteiformes) the spotted longnose gar is basically a contemporary of dinosaurs, a holdover of the jurassic period. They are evolutionary models of perfection, with an ability to breath air outside water, and whose eggs are toxic to all mammals and other fish which ensures successful spawning rates. Other than man they have no real predators. Nobody wants to mess with them. They are fearsome in appearance, nasty in temperament, and can grow to over six feet long – the stuff of horror flicks and nightmares. Expect to shed some blood if you go fishing for these guys.

The flies we were using had been both conceived and tied by Glen who operates Castaway Fishing Guides and is a master tyer of all types of flies, particularly those mean greenies such as gar, pike, and muskies. His gar flies are unique in that he uses very specific materials and design - mostly icelandic sheep wool – for his minnow imitations and an improvised stinger hook tied with eighty pound spectra. One of three things would invariably happen with these flies. The gar would either get his teeth caught in the wool, get hooked in the narrow mandible with the tiny stinger treble, or their narrow and long snout would simply get lassoed and locked in by the gaps in thetrailing stinger. It was quite an effective system and the hookup and land ratio stood around fifty percent with these flies, an extremely acceptable average given the nature of the beast.

Our next fish was a bit larger and as we snapped a few quick shots it thrashed out of my hands and nicked my friend on the upper forehead near his hairline, causing an immediate laceration that poured blood over his face. It looked worse than it really was and within a few minutes the bleeding stopped. It seems this was an occupational hazard as this was not his first gar scar and he showed me several other lacerations on his legs and arms, some requiring stitches, that he called the badges of honour of a gar fishing guide.  This is not fishing, this is war.

The sun got hotter still, more pods of fish appeared, fish at ten o’clock, fish at eight,our fly lines suddenly swishing through the air like light sabres as we tried to reach the fish. More fish on the boat which was now covered in slime and reeked of gar, a smell so foul and rancid that the words to do it justice do not yet exist in the prolific lexicon of the English language. But we couldn’t care less as we were catching fish. More blood, more slime, more gar. We were surrounded by hundreds of prehistoric fish on a giant flat that we had all to ourselves. We hopped out of the boat and cooled off by wading the flats, catching several more fish before checking out another shallow back bay where some large fish had been spotted a few days earlier. Big on the Bay of Quinte here is real big each year there are credible sightings of six footers roaming the bay and the upper stretches of the Moira River whch runs through the center of town.

We motored past a rock island with a solitary tree covered with hundreds of raucous crows that perched ominously from the drooping branches like christmas ornaments from a Tim Burton movie. In the Autumn the duck-hunting was excellent here and several hunters would set up their blinds on the rocks and wait for the inevitable arrival of the migratory birds. On the other side of the island a large bay extended far beyond our vision and we pointed the nose of the boat directly towards the middle. A few moments later we cut the engine and lazily drifted into another endless shallow flat, scattering a few gar that shot away from the boat like arrows released from an underwater bowstring. It was a good sign and the further in we drift the concentrations of fish became thicker and the competition for our flies was fierce. A big fish gulped audibly somewhere out to the starboard side of the boat and suddenly rods are loaded and two lines are shooting out simultaneously to intersect its path. It takes a look at my fly, slashes once, missing its target and then dissappeared under the boat. Glen blindly released a short backcast, stripped twice and the fish exploded into the air a few feet from the boat. One quick run, two more jumps and it is boatside but still not very happy. As we attempt to unhook it with the pliers it slashes me in the arm as it convulsed angrily on the deck. More blood. Glen is laughing at me, his earlier scar having coagulated the hair to his forehead, making him look like an extra in a cheesy b-rated horror movie. Return of the apocalypse zombie gar guide. The heat, the gar, the blood – all are conspiring to make us fish crazy. Gar fever has set in. The war has begun and the fresh blood goes on my fly in a ritual that seals my brotherhood with the fish. We are no longer blind casting, now we are on the hunt for the big fish, focused on finding the enigmatic six footer that he saw earlier in the year, the one that can send us to the hospital. War has been declared.

It is late in the afternoon and both of us are now suffering from mild sun stroke and heat exhaustion, despite the gallons of fluids we have been consuming to keep us hydrated.  But there is no turning back and time has fallen of the clock.  We have blood on our hands and reek of gar. At the end of the bay we spot a large solitary fish sunning in a few inches of water. My first cast falls just ahead of it, strip once and - as if performing on cue  – the fish slashes at it and takes to the air like an Inter Continental Ballistic missile with a serious trajectory problem . It is big and takes a few stubborn runs before it can finally be subdued near the boat. It is almost four feet long and almost half of it is a mouth lined with hundreds of razor-sharp teeth. While not the fish we were looking for it was nevertheless worthy of being called a Jurassic gar. We snapped some quick photos, released the fish back into the water, and made a decision to call it a day. As we headed back to the marina at full tilt it felt like we were like the warriors of antiquity, returning from a year long war campaign, tired and broken yet victorious. We are brothers in arms, bonded in sweat and blood and gar slime.