The first good wave we hit coming out of the
entrance channel to Matheson Hammock threw icy cold
salt spray into my face. Two things are wrong with
salt spray. For one, spray in your face means less
than calm water. For another, when the spray dries
on your face, it leaves a salt cake that drives many
people crazy. I’m one of those people. The fact that
the air temperature was hovering around 37 degrees
made the first two reasons all but disappear. It was
downright cold.
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 across
Biscayne Bay some five miles away. 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 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 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 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!
