Terrific Tarpon Times and.....

It's almost December and we've had two cold fronts: one following Hurricane Wilma and one last week. If recollection of years past (very past!) serves correct, it was colder earlier in the year. There were more fronts by now, and they would be colder fronts. The World Series in the sixties meant sustained cold weather as well as catching all the bluefish, mackerel, and pompano you wanted at the Sunny Isles Fishing Pier-people literally left with orange sacks and wheelbarrows full. These times coincided with the British Invasion by the Beatles, and the biggest scandal was a high school pregnancy. The aforementioned gamesters never make it this far south and this shallow anymore. Right now, there are some macks in forty feet of water off Miami, but Jupiter seems to be the stopping point for the really large schools.

What species survive may have climactic implications. The ladyfish-filled waters of North Biscayne Bay have passed into history and now hold year-round tarpon. No ones complaining, but it might suggest that such a presence of the tropically-originating tarpon may show a northward push of a warm water fish in a warmer water world. To wit, I went " five for five" on a school of backbay rolling fish-they ranged in size from ten to fifty pounds. These fish seem to never leave Miami anymore. They just go a bit inland in the presence of a cold front.. they make terrific tarpon times.

Don't want to wax morbid or selfish, but I hope the sick birds of Asia stay put and give Floridians a rest from catastrophe. We humans make hurricane preparations, but how do you position yourself for a mutating virus you cannot even see? It all boils down to the job a writer has for not simply writing soothing ink, but to find some distant, deep discomfort and drain it into daylight, despite the sight of it.

And, heck, the de facto-quarantined status of distant tropical islands with lots of flats are shrinking, with the jetliner-belched numbers of anglers seeking the getaway to places where I've already wished that I got away to. Maybe there's a cozy little place in the center of Abaco where I can hide my skiff and kayak and alternately fish Green Turtle for giant bones one day on the east side, and 'yak the Marls on the west side the next day. No need for a computer... just pencil, paper, and lots of makings for a few Tranquil Turtles on a sunny Bahamian afternoon, far across the Gulf Stream from all those masses and the rise of the concrete cancers- a flats fisherman gone survivalist not just for survival sake, but respite from the "too much" that life along the Gold Coast has often become. I'm also sure that if Saint Peter hears that you did roadwork in Miami, there's a red-hot future in store for you... far, far, below.

Jan