Sam Demarco. If I
had a little brother, I would want him to be him.
Sam picked me up in
Miami for the drive to the Keys. Somewhere along the way he mentioned we might
have time to look for some peacock bass on the way back to the airport. I was intrigued.
The next four days
were a blur of boat ramps, thousands of casts, Cuban sandwiches and Budweiser
at various temperatures. Based out of Joe and Lindsay Babino’s house on Grassy
Key we had fished long and hard. Tom’s Harbor, Summerland, Ramrod, Colony Key,
Cudjoe, Key West; we covered a lot of water. We dealt with the wind and a cold
front as best we could. The fishing, or rather the catching, had not been what
we had hoped for but as there should be when three friends set out for
adventure with no specific plan, there had been some cluster-f moments that became
epic memories.
The morning of my
return to Boston the wind continued to blow. We opted for a casual breakfast
followed by a ceremonial beer (or two) and a bucket of bait at Robbie’s. Joe
had been given some Miami peacock intel by Alex Woodsum. We plugged the numbers
into Sam’s GPS, said good-bye to Joe and headed north.
We had two hours. It
was odd gearing up in a shopping mall parking lot and dodging traffic to get to
the water. But there it was. At first glance I was not optimistic. Sam and I
walked the edge of the canal for a while just blind casting. Finally we just
stopped and watched the water. We both found some peacocks hanging around what structure
there was on the bank. They were so close we were basically jigging flies in
front of their faces. They showed just enough interest to keep us interested.
And then I saw an
orange torpedo moving slowly down the canal. Sam told me it was a goldfish. I
had never seen a goldfish that big. Neither one of us knew if it would take a
fly. It didn’t matter. Dogs chase cars. And their own tails. I wanted it.
While I chased that
goldfish back and forth, Sam stayed on a pair of peacocks who were either
bedding or lying up. They only moved enough to keep Sam’s attention. For well
over a half hour Sam kept at those two fish. Giving up on the goldfish, I
watched him there on his knees literally staring those two peacocks in the
face. Persistence paid off. He finally got one to eat one of my nasty orange
striper flies.
And then I was back
on an airplane. Looking out the window at the day’s last light falling over
Miami I wondered if Sam had gone back to that canal, if he was there at that
moment stalking more peacocks.
I hoped he was.
From the library
27 January 2016
