It seldom drops below 40 degrees in the winter in Miami, but when it does, it can be the most numbing cold an angler can face. Today was one of those days as we headed for the vicinity of Marker 23 some five miles away, across Biscayne Bay. It was cold; I was wet; and, the north wind was breathing down our necks at a steady 20 knots.
It’s the winter of 1957 and it’s Spanish mackerel time in Biscayne Bay. While other parts of the country tend to shut down their fishing for the winter, South Florida lights up with the annual run of migratory fish. Biscayne Bay just happens to be the wintering grounds for tons of one of those species, the Spanish mackerel.
The mackerel fishing technique of the day was trolling spinning tackle with white nylon jigs tipped with hard, salted, piece of shrimp. Once a hook up was made, we would try to anchor the boat and “jig up” the school. Most of the time the school was scattered and we simply continued trolling.
The boat we fished out of was a wooden fourteen-foot Chris Craft open skiff. It was a kit boat that my uncle had built, and it served us for a number of years in all kinds of fishing. It had three bench seats and a small bow cover. The ten horse Johnson was a tiller model, and it could actually get a skier up if there was only one person in the boat.
Today was a day I wished we had stayed at home. As we made our way east, across the bay, every wave we hit would throw spray out from the bow. The north wind would catch it and blow it right back into the boat soaking both of us. By the time we reached Marker 23, we were both wet and more than a little miserable. Times seemed to be different back then. What I look upon now as stupidity seemed perfectly logical to us then. The fish were there, and we had the means to reach them. The logical thing to do was go find them!
Trolling meant sitting in the wind, with cold hands on the rod and reel. It meant that the wind would find its way in, around and under every piece of clothing we wore. It didn’t take long for innovation to get the better of both of us.
We caught a few mackerel, and as we sat with numb hands, we both decided we could take the wind no longer. A quick rearrangement of tackle and ice chest left room down each side of the boat.
Almost without speaking, we both decided it was time to get out of the wind. John lay down on one side of the boat, I followed suit on the other. Neither of us could stand it any longer.
The warmth of the sun began to reach our faces as we lay there out of the wind. The boat was rocking, the wind was blowing, and that wind was pushing the light boat along at a pretty fair clip.
I think it hit both of us at the same time as we each took a rod and while still lying down, cast it to the windward side of the boat. It turned out the drift of the boat was fast enough to allow us to drag two jigs along in the water.
As we lay there working our jigs, we both hooked up with a mackerel. Never even sitting up, we fought our respective fish to the side of the boat. A quick sit up put the fish in the boat, and we tried it again. Friends and neighbors, it was actually working!
To this day, I think about that trip. How silly we must have looked to any other boats in the area. How embarrassed would I be today to try that?
Youth, I think, brings with it either the courage or stupidity - I'm not sure which - to do some very strange things. I’m not sure which description fit this day, but one thing was for sure. We caught fish!
I remember my father looking at us when we returned home. Our heavy coats, soaked all the way through, reeked of fish smell. It occurs to me now that the thoughts going through my head right now were going through his back then. But I remember telling him as he shook his head, that it’s never too cold to fish!
