Little Boys and Baby Fish
It would be difficult to explain just how important fishing was to us boys. We were eleven-year-old boys growing up living across the street from the St. Marks River early in the nineteen-sixties, and fishing was our primary passion in life. While most other boys in town watched cartoons on Saturday morning, or rode bicycles out to the “Old Fort” to swing off vines, and hunt for musket balls and Spanish buttons. When other boys were swimming at the New Port bridge to cool off in the blazing North Florida sun, my best friend Larry and I would be somewhere on the river fishing. All of our free time after school and weekends was spent on the river. Fishing was our lives! Especially when we were catching fish. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn’t, but we always had fun.
Our favorite spot was Shields Marina. It wasn’t a very big marina then. It consisted of a small but cozy tackle and bait shop, a rickety dock, a boathouse and a small boat ramp. Mr. Curtis Shields was the owner. Mr. Shields was a true “Florida Cracker.” His skin was darkened by years in the sun. His hands were hardened from the years they had been exposed to cold and salt water. Old khaki pants and shirts were his dress for the day, every day. The modest bait shop and marina was his life’s work. The best part was, that I lived in what was then known as the “McKenzie house” just across the street from his marina. The old house was torn down in the early nineteen-seventies to make room for a boat storage building.
The tackle shop was barely large enough to hold what anyone today would consider a large inventory. The candy rack and the drink cooler were easily accessible. The floor and shelves were clean enough, and always free of dust and clutter. Mrs. Shields made sure of this, she always seemed to have a duster in her hand. Rods and tackle were neatly hung on the pegboard walls, surrounded by photos of fish caught by the customers. In the corner sat an old propane heater, serving as the shop’s only heat during winter. Sliding windows opened, provided a cooling breeze from the river and relief from the heat of summer.
Even though the place smelled like dead fish, and cresol, the old block building and adjacent docks were like a second home, where we could always count on Mr. Shields to give us bait for fishing as well as odd jobs around the docks. The money earned was used for necessities like hooks, lead, drinks and candy bars. Whenever we were there, Mr. Shields would supply us with dead shrimp from his bait tanks so we could fish from the dock. All he asked in return was for us to stay out of the way of the guides and customers that fished out of his marina, and maybe roll up a tangled rope or hose on the dock every now and then.
Shields’ dock was a special place for us. There were always fish there, sometimes big, most of the time small, but always biting. Naturally, we were trying to catch big fish, not small fry. This was the time of year when juvenile fish born in the river were on their way to the bay and Gulf of Mexico, passing Shield’s dock along the way. Our days were spent catching and releasing six-inch redfish, sheepshead and mangrove snapper, turned back at Mr. Shield’s insistence. We were there every morning as soon as we could be, and didn’t leave for home until someone came after us, sometimes past dark.
Even when we didn’t catch fish, we saw fish of every variety and size come into the cleaning station. The last part of the day at the marina was especially exciting. That’s when all the returning guides would be comparing the day’s catches and talking strategy for the next morning. Our young ears would be straining to hear their secrets, recording fragments of information deep in our memory banks for future use.
We worked hard, mowing and raking several lawns, we painted the porch of Larry’s mother’s store, Bo Lynn’s Grocery, and managed to make enough money to buy new rods and reels. Never mind a tackle box. We didn’t need one, all our tackle fit nicely into a coffee can with a piece of bailing wire attached for a handle. We didn’t know anything about drags, line weights or rod tolerances, nor did we care. All we did care about was catching fish, and we now had our own equipment with which to do so. We were now fishing with the big boys.
For weeks, we were the center of attention on Shield’s dock. Customers would stand there watching and laughing, being entertained by our eagerness as they bought their bait or launched their boats. Then one day, it was like all the fish had left the river for the summer. We tried, but didn’t catch anything for days. Our enthusiasm was slowed a bit, but not gone all together. By now, the only boys left on the docks were Larry and I. The rest had given up fishing to pursue other endeavors that little boys do on warm summer days.
We arrived early, seven in the morning. Early for us, but by this time most real fishermen had long been gone. We were given our dead shrimp, and were reminded to stay out of the way of docking boats. After a while, Larry caught a three-inch pinfish or shiner as it was commonly called back then. He started to throw it back, when I had an idea. “Let me have it. I want to try something.” I hooked the pinfish on my line and cast toward the middle of the river. It hit the water with an echoing splash. I had never made a cast so long, and I’d never used bait so large either. “What’s that supposed to do?” Larry asked. “I heard a fellow talking to Mr. Shields this morning, he said they caught a box full of trout out on the flats with these.” I replied. “I just want to try it out.”
The pinfish soon made its way downstream toward the boathouse pilings adjacent to the dock, wandering aimlessly, weakened by the hook and fighting the strong summer tide. Once it reached the end of the line’s slack, it lay on its side, a pectoral fin flipping above the surface; it’s tail pushing it in a tight circle. In the meantime, Larry was sure that I was scaring the fish off with such a rig. No fish in its right mind would bite such a large offering.
I left the pole in a hole drilled in the dock for that purpose, and went into the bait shop to get us a drink. Just as I stepped inside, the rod suddenly bent double, and an incredible screaming sound came from the reel. Something very large was pulling line from a drag tightened to the maximum. The 15-pound test line stripped through the black tannic water as if tied to a freight train, and soon all of it was gone, only the knot on the spool remaining. The slender yellow rod was jumping excitedly in its holder as it emitted cracking sounds from its base. The rod had been the cheapest one Gibsons department store carried, but the only one I could afford.
Larry started yelling for me, screaming that “Something has your rod!” I reached the rod just as it started to break at the base of its handle. Larry was jumping up and down and screaming in a panic. As the handle broke, I managed to grab the remaining rod with the Zebco 33 reel still clamped securely in place. The water near the boathouse erupted in an explosion of fury. The biggest redfish we had ever seen surfaced, shaking his head trying to dislodge the hook buried deep in his lip. The fight was on!
The fish had the upper hand, almost taking what was left of the rod and reel several times, but I scrambled down the dock toward the fish, keeping the tip of the rod in the air as the big redfish tried to go for the pilings of the boathouse. Mr. Shields shouted directions to me as he ran out of the bait house. “Loosen the drag son! Loosen the drag!” he yelled. I fumbled with the drag control and line screamed again from the reel. “Tighten the drag! Tighten the drag! Mr. Shields exclaimed at the sound of the drag. Before thinking, I answered back, “well make up your mind!” I quickly found the appropriate tension, quite by accident, and the drag stopped making noise.
My spool on the reel had not been full, because Larry and I had split our meager supply of line between us. As I gained some back on the spool, the fish would take more. Redfish are very powerful, and large ones will often make runs of 50 yards or more when hooked. As the big fish made its final break for freedom, it did something we didn’t expect. It turned from the boathouse and started toward the dock pilings and me. Cranking as fast as possible to keep the line tight, I soon had the giant at the bottom of the dock, with it running in circles around the oyster incrusted pilings. Mr. Shields and Larry were shouting directions, trying to help, but I couldn’t hear them. Finally the fish began to show he was tired, and by this time I was past tired.
Twenty minutes had passed while the fight raged on. By this time I had a large cheering section of fishermen and other folks passing by in boats. Mr. Shields brought a long-handled gaff out of the bait house and managed to pull the fish onto the dock. With Larry and me laughing, yelling, and jumping up and down, and the big Redfish flopping around on the dock, we drew a sizable crowd. Mr. Shields was just as proud of us, as if he was our father, hoisting the huge fish onto the scales. My trophy weighed sixteen pounds. My picture was taken with the fish, and was placed on the pegboard with all the other pictures.
Pinfish was our bait of choice from then on, as we continually hunted for larger fish. Catching the big Redfish was a turning point for us, as it meant that we would always be trying to catch one just a little larger. The days of fishing off Mr. Shields Docks would end as we grew older and got our own boats, but that day would always be remembered as the day that Larry and I graduated from little boys chasing baby fish, to becoming real fishermen.
Thanks for sharing, CSMarine. 
