The Frustration of Leaving: Giant Snook (pt. 3)

There was something deeply irritating about my last hours on our big Florida East Coast snook battlefield. I think I knew I wasn't going to accomplish what I wanted to, but was also still driven towards the end goal by a feeling of greed. There is something about feeling that I'm owed a fish that almost assures that I won't get one. It makes me fish poorly. It makes me panic in the moment when I need to be completely in control. It also makes me too arrogant. What is more arrogant than believing that a body of water and the fish within it owe me a sacrifice? I don't deserve a big fish or a new species or any noteworthy catch until I've put in my all and am relaxed and patient. It's then that I'm in the right head space to remember every little detail and get everything possible out of the experience of a remarkable capture. Now, in the last hours of our hunt, I was angry with the fish. I didn't deserve to catch a big snook while in that state of mind and I'm glad I didn't. I made poor choices that prevented me from connecting anyway, and even drifted right into a spot I was nearly certain a large fish would be in instead of patiently holding off and making a longer cast. With less than 10 feet of retrieve left and the largest snook I'd seen yet hot on the fly, my own shadow killed my final chance of the trip and I honestly deserved that outcome. I was due for a humbling. And Florida is a good place for that.

The next day we were still in a good place for big snook, but the conditions were terrible. They were terrible full stop, but they were notably terrible for the fly rod. I decided this would be the day I tested out a lure I'd had on me and been meaning to try the whole trip. Really, I'd expected Noah to use it, but he'd found success with small paddletails and that's all he cared to fish. So it was up to me to see if this secret lure would do what I thought it might. I wasn't especially interested in actually catching fish on it believe it or not, I just wanted to see how effective it could be, so I'd removed one of the hooks and the other was barbless so I cold just shake a fish off unless it was big enough that I wanted to boat it.

It worked, it worked exactly as well as I expected it too. I moved as many large snook with it in the short time I fished it as I had the entire trip leading up to that day. The sky was clear blue, the wind was up, there was significant chop, and the water was muddy. Under garbage topwater conditions I got numerous blowups from big snook. I didn't land any though I could have landed one. I intentionally shook it off. Not because I didn't want to catch it though. I shook it off because I knew I was being hunted.
Just minutes prior I'd hear a subtle lapping, swishing sound behind my kayak and turned to see the top 2 inches of a shark's dorsal fin slicing through the waves, keeping pace with me. I assumed it was a small bull shark, as Noah and I both had had pup bulls come in and check us out on more than one occasion this trip. But this fish turned and started to pass me, within about 10 feet, and rose up just enough that both it's dorsal and tail where breaking the surface. And, I have no better way of getting the feeling of the moment across so pardon my language... it was pants shitingly huge. I couldn't see the whole animal so I'm not sure what species it was but there are a very limited number that it could have been, and my guess would be hammerhead. That big shark proceeded to follow me around for about 20 minutes and it was close to the most uncomfortable 20 minutes of my life. No matter what species of shark it was an attack was very unlikely, but that makes it no less scary to be in a little sit-in kayak being followed around by an animal much larger than that kayak and much more powerful than myself. I thought perhaps it might be more interested in my loud topwater lure than me and the kayak, but multiple casts in front of it drew no response. No... it was definitely shadowing me.
That was humbling.
Though we were leaving this place that had sort of been home for a while, and it was immensely frustrating to have run out the clock there without accomplishing everything I wanted to, some of the best days of the trip were still ahead of us.

Until next time,

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

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