I guess at some point in time, we all have our little love affairs with a particular species of fish. Some of them are just spring flings, but some last a lifetime.
My dad has been engrossed with flounder the past dozen or so years. It may have to do with how well they fit on a dinner plate, or the fact that he does most of his fishing now from a pier. Whatever the reason, he’s been thorough in his regular reports from beach trips since the turn of the century — the days he caught particularly good fish, the rare days he caught a limit of keepers, the days when the wind blew the wrong way and nothing seemed to go right. He’s built rod holders to fit on the boards that rim the pier, learned to throw a cast net after age 70 and can discuss the vagaries of baiting minnow traps for mud minnows the same way the guys from Goldman-Sachs can talk — to each other but not to Congress — about taking the unsuspecting public’s money in some worthless investment. If he caught a 20-inch flounder next to a certain pier post in 2001, I’m sure he remembers the fish, the post and what bait he was using.
I can’t begin to count how many guys I know who are infatuated with the largemouth bass. If you don’t believe it, just go to a public ramp on one of South Carolina’s bigger reservoirs — on a weekend — and see how many bass-boat trailers are lined up in the parking area. Crappie fishermen come and go, usually between February and May. The catfish guys and striper guys are pretty much year-rounders now, but their numbers don’t come close to matching the bass boys.
The bluewater has its own stable of thoroughbred fishermen with the big, diesel-powered boats and the thousand-dollar reels, but the gas bill for running to the Gulf Stream for tuna, dolphin, wahoo and billfish certainly tends to cut down on the number of fishermen who can enjoy a tuna steak from a yellowfin. The mackerel boys (and girls) are a dedicated lot, always trying to figure out a better way to troll a Clark Spoon to catch more Spanish or present a live menhaden to a smoker king.
I have been stuck most recently on redfish. It might be because I didn’t catch my first one fairly late in life — around the time I turned 35. As I recall, I was fishing a point where two canals met, where an oyster bar ran up against a sea wall. The fish hit a hard-bait, some kind of Rebel imitation mullet, and it went about 18 inches long — but it fought like a much bigger fish.
I was reminded last fall and earlier this spring just how much I love catching reds. Last November, I finally broke my jinx and caught three bull reds — 35, 38 and 42 inches — after having several near misses. I returned to form this spring, breaking off a nice over-slot red I’d hooked on a soft-plastic swim bait. My sin? I was too convinced of my fishing abilities to give the fish the respect it deserved once I’d hooked it.
There is no explaining, to my way of thinking, how a 5-pound, 22-inch redfish can stretch your string like a fish twice as big. I guess it has something to do with the fish having the heart and soul of a rodeo bull — doggedly determined, never wanting to give in.
I love to catch speckled trout, flounder, Spanish mackerel, crappie and bass, and I caught my first big blue catfish this spring. But my No. 1 fish right now carries black spots on its tail, a reddish tint along its back and is out there somewhere, waiting to suck my bait off the bottom.
My wife, I hope, is understanding with regards to this latest mistress. At least I never bring her home.
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