LAST CAST

HOOKED ON THE MOTHER SHIP

FRED GARTH

For the past 25 years, Fred D. Garth’s articles have appeared in numerous books, magazines and newspapers around the world. Read his blog at: GuyHarveyMagazine.com. My fi shing world has gone completely bonkers. Last issue I Our plan was ambitious. We were using a 45-ft. exwrote about catching mullet on a topwater fl y. Very bizarre. lobster boat, the Flauna II, as a kayak “Mother Ship.” Captain A bunch of readers thought I was full of bull, but my wife, David Ellis had traveled all the way to Prince Edward Island, who is a terrible liar, will confi rm my story. Plus, she has Canada, to buy the perfect yak-hauling boat. However, we photos to prove it. Then a few days ago, my universe got had not tested the vessel’s yakability until Hobie showed stranger than the movie Interstellar, in which Matthew up. This was our inaugural kayak expedition. On paper, McConaughey travels through a wormhole into a black hole everything looked brilliant, but when you add water, waves, to arrive at a fl oating wooden bookcase in space where weather and human stupidity, anything can happen. he sees his younger self in his daughter’s bedroom and Unfazed, we strapped fi ve Hobie yaks on the roof of the somehow moves the secondhand of her watch so that she wheelhouse, packed up a variety of fi ne meats, cheeses realizes it’s morse code and understands that her father and cold beverages, loaded up the camera equipment from the past is communicating with her in the future and along with about 50 fi shing rods, and pointed the bow out that everything in life will into the Gulf of Mexico to work out fi ne. Well, on …On paper, everything tempt fate. second thought, maybe looked brilliant, but when In case you haven’t my fi shing world ain’t heard, kayak fi shing is quite that weird. you add water, waves, magma hot these days.

Nonetheless, this Yet, even with effi cient latest craziness began weather and human stupidity, pedal drives and trolling when the Hobie Kayak motors that can transport TV guys came to visit us anything can happen. yakkers long distances, at Guy Harvey Magazine. there are still some places My buddies, Keeton Eoff and Morgan Promnitz, from Hobie, too far away or too risky to go. Like 20 miles out into blue showed up with their camera crew to fi lm the extraordinary water. I guess you could paddle a kayak out there, but that’s fi shiness around what we like to call Flora-Bama-land . . . idiotic (even on paper). The Mother Ship concept is much the borderline between northwest Florida and Alabama. saner. It gets you there safely and in style, and allows you to It’s here that the states are separated by Perdido Bay, a move to other spots quickly or cruise back to the near-shore lovely body of water that means “Lost Bay” in Spanish. grass fl ats to catch a sunset trout and/or redfi sh. All while Apparently, explorers in the 1600s couldn’t fi nd the bay they enjoying fois gras and a dry martini, or perhaps a stale saw on their maps because the pass had closed up after a cracker and a Bud Light—whatever ticks your clock. hurricane. Years later, another storm shifted the sugar white Keeton made it clear that catching fi sh was imperative sands again, opening up a new cut, and the Lost Bay was since, after all, we were doing a TV show about fi shing. eventually rediscovered. For the geographically challenged, I guess that kind of brainpower is why Hobie entrusted Perdido Bay is near Pensacola. him with the marketing budget. If there’s any fi sh that’s

As the crew looks on from the Mother Ship, Morgan Promnitz shows off a blackfi n tuna he caught 10 miles off shore from Pensacola in the Gulf of Mexico.

guaranteed in the northern Gulf, it’s red snapper. They’re so thick you can almost walk to Mexico on their backs. So we hit a few spots off shore and got some sweet footage of bottom fi shing for the coveted snap daddies. Even in choppy seas, the kayaks performed beautifully until Marty Mood, our local Hobie Fishing Team dude and super-fi t fi shing freak, decided to switch to light tackle. You know, catching 15-lbs. snapper on a lightweight spinning rod makes for snazzy TV. Keeton grinned with approval. So, well, my apologies in advance, but you’ll have to wait till the show airs to see what happened to Marty, but let’s just say we witnessed an epic battle between a P90X pumped-up human and a large gray fi sh with very sharp teeth. All on a spinning rod. Marty survived, but I heard he hit the protein shakes hard when he got home.

Later that day, Morgan and Marty tagged into some angry bonita and one very tasty blackfi n tuna, making Day Uno an awesome fi shing and fi lming extravaganza. On the way back to the dock, we put some very fresh tuna on the Big Green Egg grill that’s mounted on the stern deck of the Flauna II, threw on a few cow steaks, too, and cracked open some cold ones to wash it all down. A jam of Texas country rock blasting on the stereo put a smile on our faces and we all decided that mother shipping was the primo limo ride.

Oh yeah, my weird fi shing stuff . Hold on, I’m getting there… We had plenty of off shore footage, so on Day Two we patrolled the inshore grass beds for trout and reds. We blasted out at sunrise and fi red

up the Green Egg for scrambled eggs, bacon and hot coff ee during the transit. There’s nothing like bacon and coff ee to make fi shing dudes happy.

Keeton hooked up fi rst with what looked like a hoss bull red. His pole bent over and the blissful look on his face said it all. Plus, cameraman Cody Prather was zooming in on the juicy footage. That’s when I saw the whiskers. Yep, big ol’ catfi sh. We call ‘em sailfi n, gaff top sails, channel cats or danged-ole catfi sh. Whatever the name, it’s a lowly creature. In fact, I wrote an article last year about Keeton catching a catfi sh in Captiva Island and called them “Florida’s most shameful gamefi sh, the butt-ugly sailfi n catfi sh.” Now, the Texan had gone and done it again, opening the door for more unabated grief.

Morgan bagged a couple of redfi sh and I sitecasted to a big red with my fl y rod but spooked it. Oh, and did I mention that Keeton caught another catfi sh? Ha! Being the local expert, I turned the nose of my kayak toward a hidden cove and boldly told the boys to follow me to the trout. We pedaled hard for 10 minutes when something blew up the water about 30 ft. from my yak. My local knowledge had paid off and I was ready to prove it. So, in a fi t of madness, I grabbed two rods. First, I tossed a green

DOA shrimp into churning water and let it sink. Then, I threw a Rapala Skitter Walk topwater into the fray. It had barely hit the water when WHAM! Fish on! Within two seconds, I got doubled up when a big-un’ crashed the DOA. Cody moved in close to get the beads of sweat dripping down my face as I celebrated having two bull reds on at once. They peeled out line like reds, fought like reds, but when I got the fi rst one to the surface, it looked a lot like a freaking catfi sh. What? A few months before, I caught a mullet on a topwater lure and now a catfi sh—also on topwater? My sweat turned to tears when I realized that the DOA had a big cat, too. Unfortunately, I have become an expert at catching trash fi sh on topwater lures.

I could hear some loud cackling and didn’t have to look up to know that it was Keeton laughing and was offi cially off the hook, so to speak. I had out-buttuglied him.

It’s hard to stick to the truth when you’re fi shing, but in this case, honestly, our trout hunt was a bust. As Keeton and I pedaled back to the Mother Ship, two shameful catfi shers, we refl ected on fi shing’s most profound question: What is fi shing all about anyway? We agreed that catching anything is better than catching nothing and that catfi sh fi ght as hard, if not harder, than redfi sh. From a sportfi shing point of view, there’s nothing wrong with catfi sh. Sure, it sounds like two losers justifying failure, but there’s a little bit of sad logic in there if you look real hard.

Back at the Flauna II, with the kayaks all packed away, we realized that we’d caught 10 diff erent species of fi sh in two days. No one had died, gotten maimed or puked. Nobody got impaled in the butt by a treble hook, and we returned with the same number of rods we started with. Not bad for an inaugural cruise. I fi red up the grill, got a cold beverage and thought about the kayaking wormhole our Mother Ship had blasted through. Hopefully, the only black holes we’d be exploring in our future would be the kind that holds fi sh. The ones without whiskers.

Next issue, Fred installs outriggers and radar on his yak and trolls the Gulf Stream for something big. Author Garth with a double hook-up.

Coming home to the Mother Ship.

Cody Prather records Morgan’s egg cooking skills.