My room with a view was set up in short order after arriving at waters edge.
Fishing the evening bite put few bends in my rod as the water was very high and this particular spot is problematic when the water reaches far into the grass and mangroves. A few snook and redfish were caught prior to the dinner bell but the fly riod was never unstrapped. Tomorrow morning I kept telling myself, tomorrow morning.
The night was full of fishing tales and lies about women won around a moderate blaze.
After a fitful sleep interrupted by visions of redfish exposing themselves in an almost obscene manner in the shallows, I awoke to the stillness I had hoped for. Water and sky melded into one before the sun set them free from one another.
While my trusted camping partner drove off to correct his unforgivable sin of forgetting the coffee, I was left to set out to ply the now perfect tidal and wind conditions in search of the risqué redfish. I had thoughts of other things but my mind, and bowels, decided there might be a better time for such things.
So launch I did sans coffee and with a tightened sphincter to see if The Druid could find it's advisary. Not 15 minutes I to the fog did I see the tell tale rippling on the water edge. All was at the ready. Cockpit uncluttered and fly splayed out on the deck ready to be launched at an unsuspecting quarry. Indeed, the redfish broke the still plane of the water, busy searching for it's crustacean breakfast. In short order The Druid was on it's way to intercept the headlong path of it's target. For whatever reason, the perfect cast was denied, not once but twice. With renewed determination, through the thick mist again The Druid flew. A copy of the previous cast but for some reason this was the one. The innocent redfish rushed the feather and steel and was soon hooked. A short battle, a photograph, and a return to the muddy depths from which she came.
No, not nearly the largest fish ever to bless the endof my tippet, but all of them are very special.
