Shep here. I am 42 years old. As long as I can remember I have loved to hunt and fish. And as long as I can remember I have been pursuing these enthusiasms with cobbled-together equipment. Don't get me wrong. My dad bought me a rifle that will shoot straight and kill anything in North America. That was in 1991. My first rod and reel were not the entry level Zebco 33's that most kids start with- they were a solid step and 1/2 up from that, and they landed more fish than I can hope to recall. Still, compared to the other outdoor enthusiasts that I have known, I have always felt a step or two behind when it comes to equipment.
I do have a boat now. Its a Sears Gamefisher of unknown vintage with a 1956 Johnson on the back. I wish I could tell you that it ran like a top- but the last time I tried to crank it, all I got was tired. Anyway...
Me and Scott (my brother) and Brian (my best friend from law school) were sitting in the rain. We borrowed 3 kayaks from a good friend of mine and took them to St. George Island for our much-anticipated annual fishing trip. We had multiple delays- drove all through the night and watched the sun slip up out of the churning Gulf of Mexico. That moment was meaningful in a way that I may try to describe in another post. But as I said, the Gulf was churning.
Crashing waves + novice kayakers = three broken rods, two reels out of commission, a frothing surf full of fishing tackle, and a decision that perhaps the bay would be a more reasonable location to catch our quarry.
And that is how we came to be hunkered down and huddled up in the Appalachicola bay. We had paddled almost all the way to Goose Island before the rain caught us. The wind was howling in off the Gulf, rolling across the slender spit of land that separates the gulf from the bay and slapping our kayaks around like a housecat playing with a freshly caught mouse. I don't know if they make anchors for kayaks, but I do know that we didn't have any. So, we slid the kayaks up into the thick marsh grass surrounding Goose Island, turned our backs to the wind and hoped that our makeshift docking station would hold. Behind us the sky grew darker as the clouds rolled one on top of the other, racing toward Carrabelle- afraid they would run out of ammunition before they made landfall.
I don't know how long we sat there with the rain running down our backs, laughing, cracking jokes about, "The Three Stooges Fishing Show," and actually mostly enjoying ourselves. You see, this was not our first rainstorm or our first fishing trip...or our first rainstorm during a fishing trip, and as any true fisherman knows, there is more that can go wrong with a fishing expedition than just about anything else devised by man. I think it has something to do with being unable to breathe under water. But I would be remiss if I didn't mention the beauty that was there. I am not from the low-country, but I have come to long for it. Watching the rain fall on the rising black ribbons of marsh-water, snaking through the sawgrass I could almost hear the call of the Seminoles that had gathered oysters here long before the white man arrived. I could smell the fertile aroma of salt and shrimp. And I sat huddled there with my brother and my friend.
At some point it became apparent that the storm was not going to grant us respite any time soon, and somebody finally said it. "Well, we ain't gonna get any wetter- Might as well fish." And fish we did, We bailed out of the kayaks, put some shrimp on the hooks and began slipping through the mud, drifting our rigs through the rising water that curled through the marsh. It was beautiful, watching that lone bobber drift, drift, drift and then get tugged under the surface by one of the many Redfish that call that bay home. And if you have never had an 8 pound redfish on the other end of a fishing pole, in about 4 feet of water, mud and reeds, splashing and pulling- well, you ought to some time.
Fast forward to Monday. I showed up to work early to try and catch up on the two days of work I had missed. 39 e-mails. Uncounted voice messages. And then it happened- I got hacked. My last 30 days worth of e-mails along with all my contacts got completely wiped out. All of a sudden my phone started expoding with caller after caller letting me know that my e-mail account had been hacked, and making sure that I was not actually "stranded in Madrid, mugged, without money, issuing a desperate plea for my 1,000 closest friends and colleagues to wire funds to an undisclosed account in Spain." That's right. Spain.
Well I dealt with that problem all day. I am sure my blood pressure exceeded safe levels. I had hoped to get at least partially caught up at work, and instead, I was dealing with wave after wave of frustration. Mercifully, 5:00 finally arrived, and as I was heading home I began to pray something like this:
"Lord Jesus I need your help. I am in an awful state. I need to be good for my family when I get there. Please help me. Thank you. All this stuff, God is just bearing in on me. I can't seem to get ahead. I feel like I'm letting folks down, and it doesn't look like the storm is gonna let up any time soon. I feel overwhelmed by things I can't control. Help me Jesus."
And whether by God's nudging, or my own longing, my mind drifted back to the Marsh, and I heard God say to me, "You are not going to get any wetter, son...you might as well fish. Find the joy, son. It's all around you. Look for the beauty...I promise its there. Stick your nose down in your daughter's hair and smell it. Take it all in. Fish, son. Its just a little storm."
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