2004 Issue

I grew up under the roof of a fly fisherman, a well-respected guide whose father—a guide himself—was a pioneer on his native Snake River. I remember him as a skilled caster who could throw a line more that 90 feet and make it seem effortless. I remember him, too, as a superb oarsman, getting his low profile raft into the tightest of positions. But more than anything, I remember him as a fly tier.

What to do when a fish morphs from gills and guts into something larger—a memory that splashes across three generations of anglers, alternating between dream and reality? Born to my grandfather, this fish swam through my father Charles and landed with me. Even before I hooked her one cool April morning on Georgia’s Soquee River, I dreamt of her—a big rainbow on light line.

The ancient Mako 17 lounged beside an Indian River fishing camp. Amid the rusted trailer and decaying leafy interior clutter was her magical and somehow readable stern message merrily announcing, "Reds R Us."

I chuckled at the irony of that sun-bleached clunker’s name as I wheeled a friend’s sleek, carbon-and-fiberglass Maverick down the ramp. Almost single-handedly, redfish have CPR’ed life back into the light-tackle fishing markets of the inshore Gulf and lower East Coast. Reds R Us was built over 30 years ago, in the bad old days, even before Cajun Chef Paul Prudhomme’s blackened redfish craze reached epidemic proportions. Thanks to proactive anglers and the multi-state Coastal Conservation Association, species-devastating commercial netting was reduced, and now even old time crackers are surprised at the booming redfish numbers.

"A brook trout wouldn’t last five minutes in this water," I say to Haroldo as he leans over the gunwale and washes the slime off his knife. "Never mind the water temperature—he’d be dead before he ever felt the heat."

Haroldo looked up, smiled, and nodded like he understood. "You believe in natural selection?" I ask.

Another smile—perplexed—and then a blank stare.

"You know...Charles Darwin—survival of the fittest?"

"Eh?"

"Never mind."