The fish made it to the next bend and, to our amazement continued down stream. If I stood on the bow of the boat, I could see the snake pattern of the creek as it twisted left and right, sometimes turning back on itself like a hairpin. As Jim stood on the bow he could see over the stretch of marsh grass the wake of his fish, now moving from left to right in front of him, one turn in the creek away.
As the fish made it to the next bend we both said enough is enough. Just crank down on the reel, point the rod at the fish and let him have the grub and old leader. So Jim did just that. And the line tightened, almost singing in the breeze. But the fish continued left to right, and the line did not break. The fish turned toward the next hole away from Jim. And the line still did not break. But as the fish turned and again tried to run directly away from Jim, it rolled and turned back. Jim had actually turned him! But now what?
Jim had a 20 pound redfish turned, two creek bends away and across the grass - and on an old rod with rotten line that refused to break. Knowing we could never get to the fish, we began to handline him. Obviously on the backing, we began to drag the fish toward the bank of the creek, trying to break the line. Surely the tippet would break under enough strain, we thought. But on this day we would have to think again. Not only did the line not break, it appeared that it was strong enough to drag the fish up into the marsh grass. And so began a debate on the relative merits of attempting to drag the fish across the marsh, versus simply letting it continue to swim in the creek next to the grass. By this time, the concern was for the fish and making sure that we could somehow release him. Do we wade over and attempt to traverse the marsh grass to get to him? Do we wait for the tide to come in and float the boat?
The marsh grass route was quickly dispatched. That grass is growing in mud waist deep and we would never get through it. Waiting for the tide was an option, but we figured it would be about 2 hours before we had enough water to float. It was then that we decided on what turned out to be the idea of the day. Well, it was good in theory.
How do you float a boat in very shallow water? Take the weight out of it. So Jim and I both slipped over the side of the boat, Jim with the flyrod and I with the anchor rope. The boat did come up a little bit, but it still was wedged in the sand/mud/oyster shell bottom.
A few heaves and shoves got the boat into the deeper part of the creek, and it appeared that our plan might work! Excitedly, we began trudging down the creek toward the bend, with the boat half floating and half sliding across the bottom and shallow water. Thirty minutes, several slips, multiple oyster shell cuts, and lots of sweat later, we had the boat at the bend in the creek. Around the bend we went, dragging, grunting and bleeding, headed for the fish - oh yes, remember the fish? While we were making every effort to get to him, he was calmly swimming around in that part of the creek. It was almost as if he knew what we were doing.
Jim left me behind pulling the boat and began wading the shallow water toward the fish. Amazingly, the fish did not make a run. A few short spurts, and a couple of head shakes and the fish was at Jim's feet. As Jim bent down and grabbed the leader to release the fish, the leader broke! The fish sat there for a few seconds, and then calmly moved off with the tide, bulging a wake ahead of him, a chartreuse grub on the side of his mouth. Jim and I just stood there and watched, and then looked at each other and grinned. We both had the same feeling of accomplishment. Standing there muddy, bleeding and sore, we both knew we would have done it again.
I've caught a lot of fish on fly since then, a lot of redfish, in fact, a lot of them on that same old rod in that same creek. But none of them match the thrill of that one day when Jim decided to catch a redfish on an old flyrod!
