As
usual, the forecast was way off. It has been blowing a steady
20 mph all week and, as usual, you are on your yearly fly
fishing vacation in Florida. This trip, however, is a lot
different. As you watch the redfish you've just released
dimple the surface as it glides away through the turtle
grass, you feel a calming satisfaction you rarely get on
your fishing junkets. You feel like you can afford to listen
to your growling stomach. "How about we hit Moretti's for
lunch today," you tell your guide. "After we eat I want
to have another try for a snook in the mangroves."
A few
minutes later the tiny fishing village of Matlacha (pronounced
mat-la-shay) is laid out before you, its wooden shrimp boats
and brightly colored, board-and-batten buildings bespeaking
of its old Florida charm. You can see the bed and breakfast
where you are staying and the small dock at Moretti's Restaurant.
All around, pelicans stand on pilings while seagulls twirl
overhead. The smell of marinara is in the air and you smile
to yourself as the skiff pulls up to the dock. Vacation,
at last.
Hidden
away behind Southwest Florida's premier tourist destinations
of Sanibel and Captiva Islands, the town of Matlacha is
a forgotten nook overlooked by cash laden tourists and corporate
America. There are no beaches here, no fishing fleets, no
health spas, amusement parks, fast food restaurants, or
exclusive nightclubs. This is a genuine old Florida fishing
village where the bars are in the backs of restaurants and
the boats are made by the water. For the odd, straying tourist,
Matlacha is a lucky discovery of what Florida used to mean
before Mickey. For you, the traveling angler, Matlacha is
simply a quiet place to disappear and fish.
Once
out on the water, you find it easy to get lost in this undiscovered
fly fishing paradise of grass flats, tidal creeks, oyster
bars, and secluded mangrove backcountry. Although sheltered
by a layer of barrier islands and the entire seventeen-mile
length of Pine Island, Matlacha Pass is by no means a stagnant
backwater, but rather, as the name implies, a vibrant pass
with strong currents and a fishery that changes with the
seasons. In the winter the water can be gin clear offering
bonefish-like sight fishing for the spooky redfish and snook
that sun themselves in the shallow, dark-bottomed backcountry.
In the summer, rains dirty the pass with sediment and freshwater
pushes out the more delicate baitfish, leaving behind the
hungry redfish, snook, and tarpon. A hookup often requires
a precise choice of fly based on the depth and clarity of
the water. In the fall, the redfish school up on the wind-protected
grass flats, tailing and crashing bait. Of course there
are the ever-present jacks, sea trout, and ladyfish, but
also occasional opportunities for cobia, mackerel, and even
bluefish. A wealth of species and scenarios all within a
kayak paddle of civilization.
After
lunch, the guide points the skiff south, under the bridge,
maneuvering the boat carefully through crescent-shaped oyster
bars and small mangrove islands. Soon, you are idling up
a small mangrove creek that looks more like a mountain trout
stream than any salt water environment you've ever seen.
It is the middle of an outgoing tide and the roiling current
and standing waves let you know that there is a lot of water
trying to squeeze through a very small space. It pours forth
from the mangrove forest and the guide, now poling, struggles
to push the boat forward. You hear a hollow POP as a snook
explodes on something in the current. Relying on skills
honed on western trout streams, you cast the tiny shrimp
pattern immediately upstream and before you are even aware
of what has happened, your fly rod is deeply bent and the
guide is turning the boat into the current to pull the fish
out of the bushes.
"Clamp
down on the line. Don't give him an inch!" admonishes the
guide.
This
is obviously no brook trout and you hold on tight, marveling
at the wonders of a straight thirty-pound leader. After
three jumps and a small boat-side tussle, you are finally
able to appreciate up close the sleek, striped creature
clamped to your now frayed leader. This is the snook, the
fish with the chromium soul and a face that could pry off
bottle caps, and you've beaten him . . . this time.
On
the way back to the dock at the bed and breakfast, the guide
points out some wadeable flats and oyster bars. You are
thankful for the advice as tomorrow you plan to rent a kayak
and go it alone. As you pass under the Matlacha Bridge,
you decide to ask for one last piece of guidance.
"What's
there to do around here at night?" you ask.
"Well,"
says the guide smiling, "Matlacha is a quiet place. If I
were you, I would stand in the middle of the bridge and
listen. If anything is going on, you will here it from there."
Later,
after a shower and a shave, you do just that. And, true
to your guide's word, between the buzzes of car tires on
the metal grating of the drawbridge, you hear music. Moments
later you're sitting at Bert's Bar chatting it up with the
locals over a certain beverage you heard someone refer to
as a "wobbly pop". You find yourself surrounded by boatwrights,
crabbers, and cast netters. You share fishing stories and
jokes and talk of life, love, and politics. You get to know
some of the honest, hardworking people whose livelihood
is the very water you've come to cast your fly in. You look
to the water for sport; they look to it to make a living.
You feel at once embarrassed by the frivolousness of your
hobby and deeply indebted to it for bringing you here to
this place, among these people. So much so that, as your
new acquaintances start to filter out of the bar, you feel
an odd trepidation that when you return home at the end
of your vacation, the whole town might vanish forever like
some blue-collar Brigadoon into the suburban fogs that frequently
roll in from Cape Coral.
As
you walk across the bridge on the way back to your room,
you are surprised to see people lined up along the sides
of the bridge with various types of fishing paraphernalia,
talking, staring, and smoking cigarettes. You had heard
upon your arrival in Matlacha that this was "The Most Fishingest
Bridge in the World," but until now you had seen no evidence
that anyone else had heard that. As you step over and around
fishing poles, nets, tackle boxes, and bait buckets you
come across two headless bodies stuck in the guardrails
of the bridge.
"What
are you looking at?" you ask realizing too late that in
many places these are considered fighting words.
A head
comes out from between the guardrails and you recognize
the face from Bert's.
"Snook,"
he whispers. "Take a look."
You
are not sure whether it is pure curiosity or one too many
wobbly pops, but you kneel down and stick your head through
the rails. Looking over at the now bodiless heads, you cannot
help but think of the three stooges; your receding hairline
making your chances at being Moe a veritable long shot.
"Stare
into the dark side of the shadow line. Let your eyes adjust
to the darkness."
You
stare down into the black brown current for what seems like
minutes, your self-consciousness starting to get the best
of you. Then, all of a sudden, like an optical puzzle out
of the Sunday paper, shapes begin to appear. You squint
and stare until your eyes fully adjust and you have some
sense of scale, for there, below you, in the shadow of the
bridge are some of the most enormous snook you've ever seen.
They are lined up along the edge of the darkness, their
noses pressed to the light. After a while you spy a shrimp
drifting in the current towards the line of fish. As it
nears, you see the fish move up to inspect it for hooks.
As the shrimp becomes aware of its impending doom, it jumps
frantically out of the water. Inevitably, the current gets
the best of the crustacean, its final departure from this
world signaled by a heart-stopping thump and a huge, splashy
boil in the water below. As the commotion on the water's
surface slips away in the current, you see the snook back
in formation. Your guide had recommended a night trip; next
year you will take him up on that.
The
morning air is calm and the lingering taste of coffee and
gentle sounds of water against kayak hull invigorates you.
Your fly rod is fastened to the side of the boat, your fly
box somewhere at you feet. As you paddle south down the
pass you glide by dolphins, manatees, and birds. Lots of
birds. There are egrets and herons and you even see your
first roseate spoonbill, its shocking pink color making
it stand out boldly from the dark green mangrove backdrop.
You also come across birds diving on baitfish pushed up
from below by hungry fish. Casting your fly awkwardly from
your seat in the kayak, you are able to land a nice jack
before the fish sound and both you and the birds move on.
As
you approach the wadeable oyster bar that your guide had
recommended, you pass a mullet boat working the adjacent
mangrove shoreline. The men are focused on their work and
seeing the huge, perfectly formed circle of net that is
being thrown expertly in the air, you are reminded of that
first time you saw someone cast a fly rod.
With
the kayak staked off on the bar, you begin fly casting,
performing your own special fishing art. There is no great
longing for success this morning; nothing depends on you
getting a fish. Your only aim is to enjoy the beautiful
last day of your vacation with a fly rod in your hand. The
tarpon caught you completely off guard.
The
first jump was a complete somersault; the second, a head
shaking vault. You tried desperately to come tight enough
to get a good hook set, but it wasn't meant to be. You stand
staring at the water for a moment, your heart pounding in
your ears as you replay the encounter in your mind.
"You
know what they say about tarpon . . ."
The
voice startles the crap out of your already shaken demeanor.
You turn around to find the mullet boat close by.
"It
is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved
at all," the cast netters say in mocking unison. More familiar
faces from the Mulletville Bar. You talk for a few moments,
then they go back to their work and you go back to your
play.
You
feel charged now from your encounter with the tarpon and
you find yourself waving your fly rod now like it was some
sort of magic wand that can make a redfish appear in your
hand and a tarpon levitate in mid air. But you're also aware
that it possesses an even greater power - the power to transport
you to places where the deeper truths inherent in the simple
act of fishing are obvious and untainted.
