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"For the first time, I realize his weight, his strength, and his desire to survive, but mostly, I realize his anger. I am his nemesis, he is my passion."

   It’s slightly blue to the east as hints of a new day unfold over silhouetted mangroves, their blackness yet to be illuminated, but brushing contrast to the painting that’s unfolding before me, and perhaps unfolding before others that have taken the time to notice.

   An early summer’s morning crispness holds near the waters, soon to be replaced as Sol sings and mixing warmth into the coolness. I sometimes actually feel that swirled mix in the air. It began to rain softly, and while standing there, I thought of the movie, Forrest Gump, and a line from it when Forrest was in the jungles of Vietnam. “One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath.”

   I’m not sure why I thought of this, but it made me smile. Maybe it was because I had been through all of the types of rain Forrest spoke of, and I too, never enjoyed stinging rain, or big ol’ fat rain, or sideways rain. This was different. It was fuzzy rain. It was as if it really wasn’t raining at all, only barely visible, not even enough to wet my shirt, and surely not enough to cause dripping from my hat. It was…well, fuzzy rain. And like a soft-focus filter over a camera’s lens, it added its own element to the surroundings.

   The deep blue of morning transformed gradually first into peeks of burgundy low over the darkness of the mangroves, announcing the first hints of color, and then reflecting in the black mirror finish of the waters beneath. The day had begun, but I continued to stand motionless, absorbing it, recording it into memory, absorbing the spirituality of it, becoming it, nearly able to touch it through the hint of almost invisible, fuzzy rain.

   And through the burgundy, along its edges where it meets the now purple-blueness, a deep red began etching, then erasing the wine-colored hints. A faint line of high clouds materialized. In my mind’s eye, they should have been white, but as I watched their reflection in the waters, the pinks and golds began to overtake what the mind saw, true colors applied themselves to the canvas.

   The rain had lifted and raced across the estuary, escaping as though it were an apparition dancing away from the invading colors in the sky. It left behind a defined freshness in the cool air, and now the waters, tempered by the gentle rain, had smoothed into a perfect identical twin of the heaven above it, separated, not by birth, but by the wide gate of the still dark and black mangrove shore.

   A fingernail of brilliant orange-gold pierces the low-slung, purple clouds that hang over the grassy saltwater marshes to the east. Sol has finally risen.

   Rod still cradled in my arms and caught up by the unfolding painting, I almost didn’t see the slight dimple fifty or so feet away. As small as the edge of a nickel, nearly the size of a small twig, it pierced the water’s film, creating tiny ringlets of golden-red. Only a glint. Silent, then disappearing. I stared, hoping I had seen what I thought. I feared to look away. Ringlets faded, dissolved. Searching the surface for signs. Eternities passing as my vision blurs without blinking; inch by inch. I refocus, abandoning the possibility that anything actually existed, but too mesmerized by the thought to look back into the face of the sun. My eyes linger, but finally begin to lift towards the shades of red above the black shadows cast by mangroves.

   The tricks of light, smoke and mirrors upon smooth and quiet waters, and again, a light swirl colored by golden rings, not inches of where I first saw it. Again, the edge of his tail, wispy-like, gently rises from black mirrored surface. Reality of his presence confirmed, I ready my fly and rod and line. I steady my nerves. I slow my breathing, though almost impossible. Too close and I spook him, and he will surely panic and rush away. Too far and he won’t see the golden ruse. Too hard a presentation, again, he spooks and retreats. Concentration and deliberation.

   Before casting, I imagine where he is, what he sees, his black pupils, as his eyes rotate searching for the illusive shrimp or crab embedded firmly in the thin, green grass into which he shoves his blunt nose to dislodge his prey.

   As quietness becomes deafening, I can hear my heartbeat, I know I have only one shot at him. I focus on a dot of surface no larger than a small leaf. My fly held tightly between my index finger and thumb, my grip on cork, light, but firm. Orange line hisses from the surface as I come forward with my cast, the golden fly snaps from my fingers. I freeze the cast in midair, allowing the fly to gently float to the film as a golden leaf in autumn spiraling downward from its tree. The swindle begins.

   One strip of the fly, a detonation from beneath the slick film, a primordial instinct to devour. He tears the fly from beneath him and water erupts into red and golden showers of salty droplets and swirls; waves this time, not dimpling surface. The black and smooth mirror breaks, sending shards of reflected sunrise into my eyes, as the nine-weight buckles under his resistance. Line rips from around me as he goes to reel just shy of the speed of sound, or the speed of light. He realizes his mistake, his dilemma, and possibly, his fate. He’s mad as hell and exhibits it with sudden acceleration as I strike him once, then twice, as florescent orange line escapes the guides of the rod and follows him out into the river’s vastness. Silvery reds and golds and purples and pinks reflect from the sunrise and paint the surface into a Van Gogh masterpiece, full of swirls, twists, as baitfish scramble from his zigzagging flight. He’s pissed at his miscalculation, at the resistance of the thing in his tough, rubbery mouth, and demonstrates his anger, bullying and running, slowing and rolling under the pressure of a thin piece of monofilament leader. For the first time, I realize his weight, his strength, and his desire to survive, but mostly, I realize his anger. I am his nemesis, he is my passion. To him, whatever I may be… his enemy, his threat, the invader of his solitude.

   He is oblivious to the colors of this morning’s sunrise as he struggles and fights the leverage of the fly-rod, and the only color he is now consumed by, is the red of his anger, of his frenzy, of his exasperation, of his fuming outrage. The white sand and sea grasses rush beneath him, bits of shell and particles of sand boil as his broad tail fractures the surface sending geysers of water skyward. The sound of it sends the few wading birds to flight. Then suddenly he stops and roots his blunt head into the bottom, shaking his maw head trying to free himself from whatever has him. His entire tail emerges from the film that separates water from sky, and again the surface catapults upward in enormous and splashing blasts, as if buckets of the brine were being tossed out of a sinking boat. The entire area where we have waged war has become churned, torn apart.

   The point of the hook, at first, was an annoyance to him, a mere product of doing business with crustaceans with claws. He’s accustom to their feeble attempts at pinching his lips as he smashes them against the crushers deep within his massive throat, paying little attention to their nips. This was different, immediate and unnatural. It bristled every nerve in his brutish, bronze body.

   He begins to settle down and comes into view in the clear, shallow waters where I can see him now, all thirty-four inches of him. His butterscotch fins are fully extended like the back hairs on a surprised and unfriendly cur dog. I take notice of his colors, rich with the same tones of the morning. I see into his black pupils. I can see and feel the totality of his anger. Tired, but yet not ready to surrender, he blasts away again, swimming around to my left, encircling me as if trying to tie half-hitches around my legs in an attempt to break free. His copper eyes, like new pennies, flash forward, then back, searching for another route of escape. Strength has faded, but his desire to fight is still as strong as it was at the hook-set.  

   Gently and respectfully, I bring him to me. His dark and angry eyes stare into mine as we size each other up. He drums deeply; guttural uttering of ancestral communication. Black spots adorn his deep bronze and reddish skin, flecks of gold dust sparkle from beneath his scales, and an electric-blue outline handsomely edges his tail.

   My signature fly, the Golden Bend-back, is quickly removed from his gulping, turned down mouth and I, without hesitation, return him to the knee-deep waters of his domain. I hold him there, letting him regain the strength he has spent on my entertainment, and I thank him for this. His coppery eyes still locked onto me, cursing me, questioning my intent. And with a great surge, his anger, once again, triggers something deep inside of him, and his determination surprises me as he explodes from my unwanted compassion. I watch his wake as he swims away, thankful for him, thankful for his anger, and thankful he and I share waters in shades of red.

About the Author:
   His dad handed him the golden-bronze, shellacked cane pole, a tug at the old, brown cork, and from underneath it, a small bluegill was raised from the surface, perhaps all of four inches, dangling above Lake Canon’s waters. His first. He was barely three then.
   The man then pointed to the far side of the lake, not at the distant shore, but pointed to an invisible path that could only be seen by few; a path that had many branches, twists and turns. All because of this, a journey began.
   Gary continued this journey fishing the many lakes around the central Florida area, later moving closer to the eastern side of the state. His curiosity of saltwater led him to obtain his captain’s license in 1990. Also, around that same time, his interest began a new path in fly-fishing the shallow and beautiful flats on the Indian River Lagoon in search of redfish, tarpon, sea trout and snook.
   Captain Gary Henderson has now retired from professional guiding and chartering, but still continues to follow the paths his father pointed out to him long ago. His roots are still firmly embedded from his past, and as a reminder, he still fly-fishes in “the lake behind the house”. Here, he finds the spirit of his dad and the many friends that have passed to the other side. Here, he also finds inspiration for stories of back then, and now.