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Date: Tango with the Mango
Date: 14 Jul 2006
Time: 16:03:06 -0400
Mango It was a day you wish you could buy for a later time when you just need ‘the’ perfect day. The sky was Carolina blue with high wispy brush stroked clouds filling in very little of the background. The spring air was cool; that temperature where you could slip on a light jacket but choose not to in defiance of memories of the blast heat of July and August. The Gulf was one foot rolling glass so clear you could pick out bottom features on the fly. Except for the loud knock of opportunity, the morning was still with purring Honda’s swishing us away from land into adventures. Days like this don’t happen often enough. My mind was exploding as to where to start. An epiphany came to me. “Ya’ll relax, we’ve got good road so we’re taking a long ride” I said to the crew of four young men Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. No kidding, I had the apostles on board. That could explain the perfect day… They were the sons of a preacher with a good sense of humor. They told me they invited Thomas but doubted he’d show up, just kidding. The ride was like taking an hour and a half bus ride down the interstate. All I had to do was keep a light hand on the wheel and watch for turtles which were popping up with regularity. When we’d pass them by, I’d push mark on the GPS and label the waypoint TURT1, TURT2, TURT3 you get the idea. Turtles hang around good bottom and I was using them like fish informants. Mathew, Mark and John with Little B did the bean bag flop for most of the ride out. I was jealous watching them cat nap. Luke kept me company on the captains’ bench. We chatted about everything. It can be so interesting simply listening to others. I’m finding that most people are more similar than different; it doesn’t matter black, white or somewhere in between. We should take more time to listen to one another and less time listening about one another. The long ride out didn’t seem much time after all. A tenth of mile before my waypoint I eased the throttles back to just a mild idle. Little B, our mate, got the marker jug ready, setting it at eighty five feet. The GPS zeroed out and the sonar sparkled with life below us. “OK” I said to Little B. He tossed the jug off the boat. The squared kitty litter jug roll flopped until the four pound window weight hit the bottom. I swung the boat around pulling back up to the jug to watch for the tale tail flow of water around the jug to help me guess the anchor heading. Splashing the anchor out south west of the jug, I powered back. The boat came to rest forty feet up current and ever so slightly right of the jug. Little B had pre-rigged four big spinning rods having a pair in the rod holders on either side of the boat. The rigging wasn’t complicated. He simply tied a short shank 5/0 9174 Mustad hook on the end of the thirty pound test main line. I was getting ready to explain to the guys what we were going to do as Little B pulled a bag of yesterdays bait from the bait cooler. He set the bag of bait on top of the cooler, slid a five gallon bucket in front of the cooler to sit on and played the role of a rough Sushi chef dicing the leftover sardines into small chunks. Most chunks were put in a plastic tray, some chunks he slung off each side of the boat. “Here’s the deal” I started. “We’re going to free line bait chunks out to mangrove snapper; we call them mangos.” “Where is the sinker?” asked Mathew. “Free line, free line, it’s French for no sinker” I joked back. “How will we know when we get a bite?” ask Mark. “You’ll see them eat it.” They all smirked at me. “You know that feeling you get when you stub your toe on the corner of a piece of furniture in the middle of the night going to the bathroom? It won’t feel anything like that” I quipped. “How do you know they’re here” John asked. I said “let’s take a look” as I glanced towards the sonar machine. The four of them clustered around the Furuno. I sneaked back to the stern. “Do ya’ll see anything?” I asked. “No” said collectively. “Look over here” I said pointing behind the boat. A horde of big mangos had already responded to the chum Little B started minutes ago. Down deeper, you could see more fish coming up for the chum. “Let’s go, we’re not going to catch a thing here. Do you think?” I said being a comedian. They didn’t pay me any attention. Little B hooked a chunk of bait on each of their hooks. “Gently under hand cast the bait towards the front of the boat” I coached. They didn’t pay me any attention. All four launched their baits off the back of the boat and off their hooks. “Relax; those fish ain’t going anywhere soon. Let me show you a trick” I said. I took Luke’s fishing pole and started in on a parable from the book of Brian, chapter 3, verses 3-29.. Ya’ll are having your last supper together at an upstairs restaurant and everyone is eating the same thing, steak and potatoes, and, of course, breaking bread together. Unexpectedly, a waitress lobs a single spare baked potato in the middle of the table. Thud, right in the middle of the table the potato hits. Well, everyone is startled and stops eating until ya’ll figure out where the flying potato came from. But if a bowl of potatoes was brought to the table and sat in the middle, no one would become startled or stop eating. Right? It is the same thing with the fish. Little B has got diner started, the chum. Now all you have to do is gently, so the bait stays on the hook, toss your bait towards the front of the boat and let the current serve your ‘potato’. “I’ll show you” I said. I flipped the sardine chunk forward and away from the boat. Me and the apostles watched the bait drift back in the sluggish current. The more it drifted back the deeper it got. “Pull line from your reel by hand so the bait drops back naturally without the jerking motion you would get if you whipped line from the rod tip. Mangos’ can be skittish” I told them. When the bait was behind the motors and ten to twelve feet down, a horde of mangos’ swarmed around it until one darted in and snatched it up. I flipped the bail on the spinning rod closed just before the line became taunt. The rod tip bowed down due to the fish and me setting the hook. The drag chirped a bit. I handed the rod back to Luke. “I told ya’ll you’d see the fish eat the bait” I said smiling. Luke landed a fine four pound mango. The race was on from there. Two brothers on one side of the boat and two on the other side all absolutely absorbed in fishing. Little B and I were either pulling a fish over the gunnel or keeping the chum line going during the mango melee. Twelve mangos’ from two to eight pounds were iced and just as many were lost in an hour of fast fishing. It ended when the mangos’ wised up and stopped feeding. I had prolonged the bite a bit by tying on a twenty pound leader, instead of staying with the thirty pound main line, when a fish broke off. The thinner leader line was a smidgen less visible to the mangos’ that were becoming more and more skittish. When the mangos’ stopped, we simply added a two ounce bank sinker to our rigs via a loop knot in the main line. The sinker took the baits to the bottom where we picked up a few keeper red snappers. They added more color to the fish box. We spent the rest of our day working back to Steinhatchee trolling from one bottom fishing spot to the next. Several grouper and one fine king fish joined the snappers in the fish box. It was a great day on the water. On the ride in I told the four brothers about marinating the king fish steaks in a half and half mixture of butter and soy sauce for fifteen minutes then putting them on a hot grill for a couple of minutes per side. It is a simple way to cook a king. The only thing else to do is say ‘BAM’ as you sprinkle coarse ground pepper over the steaks when you pull them off the grill. No salt is needed, the soy sauce has that part covered. At the dock, I told the guys to take the king and pick out two more fish to take with them. They gave me an inquisitive look. “I heard you knew some guy who can do a trick with three fish and some loaves of bread.” They laughed. Mathew said “He left for awhile, but said He was coming back some time later; so we need all the fish for now.” Thanks for taking your time to read this. Take care of yourself and the tackle. Capt. B I want fish from fishing, but I want a great deal more than that, and getting it is not always dependent upon catching fish. RODERICK HAIG-BROWN (1946)