Randy White - Seduced

“We’ve got to get some line back. You ready, Mrs. Gentry?”

“Tell me what to do, but hurry. I’m shaking like a terrier,” she answered, then told her husband. “Doug, darling, do me a favor-please stop chattering and sit your butt down. I need to concentrate. Isn’t that right, Hannah?”

I smiled. In the first minutes of hooking a big fish, emotions ebb and flow. The exhilaration of a hookup is fast displaced by dramas that guarantee the uncertainty of landing a big fish.

Using the push pole, I got the boat moving in a straight line. It was the product of selecting small variations in fulcrum angles, then bowing the pole with my weight like a gondola driver. I poled and Mrs. Gentry reeled, or surrendered line, in a seesaw battle, depending on the course of the snook. Her husband provided encouragement. He often changed camera angles but did a good job of staying out of the way.

Ten minutes later, the fish hadn’t lost any speed or strength. Worse, it was dragging us steadily toward a bank of mangroves on the east side of Patricia Key. Mangrove roots are loaded with barnacles and coon oysters, all razor-sharp, so we had to turn the fish or lose him there. I was explaining what we had to do when the husband interrupted, saying, “What the heck is that boat doing? They see us, don’t they?”

I’d been aware of an approaching outboard but had paid no attention. I took a quick look off the stern. Speeding toward us was a wide, flat skiff, with a black catamaran hull, and engines powerful enough to plow a rooster tail. The driver steered from a tower built over the counsel. A couple of passengers sat below, the boat half a mile away but closing fast.

“He sees us just fine,” I said, and resumed what I was doing until the escalating roar demanded another look. When I turned, the boat was still on a collision course and close enough I could see the driver. He was a big-chested man with a handlebar mustache, and he wore a green golf visor backwards. He seemed to be looking directly at me, grinning, while his stereo boomed out music loud enough to hear the vibrating bass.

Mr. Gentry lowered the camera and began waving his arms. “What the hell’s wrong with that idiot? Hey… Hey, we’ve got a fish on!” he shouted as if that might do some good.

It did not, so I hefted the push pole to get his attention. The driver watched me, still grinning. I used the pole to point at the fish we were fighting; the fish fifty yards out, and enough blades of grass fouled on the fly line to make that visible, too.

I shook the pole in an aggressive way, then pointed again. Only then did the driver alter his course a few degrees, but not enough to miss our fly line unless I did something fast. I jumped down onto the deck, yelling, “Grab your wife’s belt. Hold on, Mrs. Gentry, we’ve got to move.”

In a rush, I fired the engine before the propeller was submerged and slammed it into gear. My skiff shot forward. This provided a shield for our line, and the fish attached to it, but also put us directly in the path of the boat. The grin vanished from the driver’s face; he spun the wheel so violently, he nearly flew off the tower, but held on and glared through his bizarre mustache. This wasn’t punishment enough, so he swung the wheel in retaliation and swamped a wall of water over my skiff as he flew past, the roar of his twin outboard engines and stereo deafening.

An instant later, Mrs. Gentry’s voice pierced the din. “The boat… it snagged my line… He’s got my line! What should I do?” She was fighting to hang on to the rod as line peeled away while her husband clung to her belt, all attached to the stern of the speeding boat and its wake of mud and turtle grass.

The drama didn’t last. The line snapped-or so we believed until my skiff settled in the bucking waves. Only then was I calm enough to suggest that Mrs. Gentry reel in.

“I’m snagged on something else,” she said.

I had busied myself drying seats to hide the fact that I was furious. “Maybe it got tangled around a branch of something. Want me to try?”

“Deadweight, it feels like.” She lifted the rod, applied pressure, and gained a few feet of line. Over and over she did this until the object was too close to lift. It was Mr. Gentry, the taller of the two, who saw it first from the casting deck. “My god… they ran over your fish, Sher. It’s your snook! It is… but I think it’s dead.”

No, the fish was still alive. Barely. I went over the side into the water, scooped it up, and removed the hook. A single silver gash behind the eye told us the snook had been hit by the propeller. The color of the gills was good. They were still pumping water, yet the fish lay immobile in my arms, a great, dense weight.

“Any chance it’ll come around?” the husband asked.

“We can’t count this as a catch,” I replied. “Wish we could, but we can’t. That’s a shame. You did a great job, Mrs. Gentry. I can see from here it’s over forty inches long.”

I floated the fish closer to the IGFA measuring sticker on the gunnel of my skiff. “Forty-two inches, looks like, but I don’t want to lift her out-”

“I don’t give a tiddly bit about records,” the woman said. “Can you revive the poor thing?”

Unlikely, but I had to choose my words with care. I was still furious, and aware that anger is contagious. A successful charter has less to do with landing fish than keeping clients happy. Admitting the fish would die might ruin the rest of the trip. “I’m willing to try, but wouldn’t you rather move to another spot? Either way, we have to leave the fish here no matter what. Snook are out of season, and it’s over the slot, size-wise, anyway. Take all the pictures you want, of course.”

“Isn’t there someone you can call?”

I assumed she meant the police, so shook my head and lied to keep the day cheerful. “The guy driving didn’t mean us any harm. Particularly on weekends, it’s the sort of thing you have to just shrug and smile. Or”-I realized I’d misunderstood-“did you mean to help us revive this fish?”

“Yosemite Sam, and people like him,” she said, referring to the driver’s cartoon mustache, “find ways to punish themselves. Isn’t there a wildlife rescue organization of some kind?”

I smiled for the first time in a while. “Not for fish, but I like the way you think. Sure, we can keep trying. Why not give it shot?”

A nice couple, the Gentrys. An hour later, they were wading along beside me, taking turns babying water through the great fish’s gills. By then, my drifting skiff had led us to the back side of Patricia Key, an island that had once been farmed by early homesteaders.

“Are those grapefruit?” the woman asked.

I had failed to notice, or even think about, the wild citrus trees I had described to Kermit Bigalow last night. Near shore, where pilings had outlasted a dock, was a cluster of heavy yellow fruit amid a wall of green.

“They’re not as sweet as modern Duncan grapefruit,” I replied, “but they’re pretty good. I can pick some, if you like. The chef on Useppa might fix them in a salad-don’t forget, lunch is on me.”

“So typically thoughtful of you, Hannah. Can we stay with the boat while you forage ashore?”

Her tentative manner told me Mrs. Gentry didn’t want to give up on the fish. The snook’s gills were still working, the color good, but otherwise the fish behaved as if it was in a coma.

I didn’t have much hope, so grabbed a bag and slogged to the island. As I returned, my mood brightened. In a slick area near the couple, water rippled with a splashing swirl. A huge gold-tinged tail breached the surface. The tail lashed, then vanished beneath a tunneling wake. Husband and wife hooted and embraced.