Last September, I was on our property on the South Newport River, one of the state’s most pristine. Up river: nothing, no industry, no houses. It wanders serpentine like to the Atlantic, through miles of Spartina-grassed marshlands, heading for St. Catherine’s Island and Blackbeard before the mighty Atlantic. But our purpose was to work on a dock for property we had for sale, so that my time spent enjoying it was limited.
Nevertheless, we thought we’d put crab traps in to see if we could catch some delicious Georgia blue crab to take back home with us. We had a few chicken scraps, but not enough to attract a large number of crabs. And they’re such work, you want a mess of em to make it worthwhile to fool with em in the first place.
Obsession Begins
I quickly grabbed the five-gallon bucket I’d meant to put river water in, dropped the fish in the dry, white well, and it flipped and flipped, moving so I could see its large white underbelly. The next flip I caught a flash of rust back with white spots. Never seen such a fish. Never caught a big fish, period. But I didn’t catch it. It tossed its body and pulled the bucket down on its side facing the edge of the dock, thrust toward the dock and then—gone!—over the side, down into the brown water it had been stroking along in before the net descended upon it.
I was transfixed. I knew that the tide was coming in fast. That meant the fish might have travelled inland from miles away in a single tide. And maybe there were more to be caught. But I didn’t have time. I had to work. I couldn’t spend time hankering after a fish.
Still, identity eluded me. “Maybe a speckled trout?” my husband asked. “Sounds like a red drum,” a fisher friend said. I was intrigued. Redfish is what they called it in South Carolina. Redfish are big game in that state. We know a fly fishing guide there who helped anglers stalk redfish, an art akin to sculpture, I believe.
Got a Plan
All day as I did my work I eyed the waters, tried to guess what the tide was and tried to guess when the next low tide would be. Wonder if I could catch another fish like that? Regardless of the fact that in years of crabbing and shrimping, I’d never caught a fish like that. But low tide would bring more fish, more crab, more shrimp. So all I needed was a low tide. As I did other work, I stole a peek at a tide chart, adding two hours to the calculations for the water to recede in our area. And I kept looking at the river, wondering if it was full flood, late flood, turn of the tide or what at each point.
After I’d finished painting our dock box an appropriate hunter green, and I’d fed my husband and myself, and it had turned dark, I figured I’d earned a chance to try again. It was definitely low tide. I took a super high beam flashlight and the lucky net, and went down to the same dock. I threw. A couple of small shrimp. At least there was food. I threw again, admiring the good, open wing look of the white poof, visible even in the dark, as it descended to the water. My heart sank, though, as I watched the tether line go with it. No longer attached to my wrist, it followed the rest of the net, down, down to the bottom of the river. Dang!
Tidewatch
Obsession. It makes you do crazy things. I shouldn’t have risked a night time throw. But I was driven. I had to try to see what I could catch in those magnificent waters.
I bided my time, not telling my husband I’d just lost his shrimp net, because I knew he’d be upset. And I knew it wasn’t lost. I knew the shape of the riverbed, and there was a high slope off the river bank under our dock. And the mud bottom pinned things to her chest with a determination a two year old could admire. I knew, because on that same slope of mud bottom, I’d given a river burial to the carcass of a large turtle we’d found mysteriously stuck in our crab trap, and kept bringing the turtle’s carapace up in the shrimp net weeks later.
So I waited a day, waiting for the low tide to put a pole in the water and see if I could retrieve the hundred-dollar net. Alas, low tide was hardly visible, due to very high, full-moon driven tides and a northeastern wind. I call low tide the empty bath tub, and high tide the full tub, and this day full tide was washing out the bathroom and the whole house, hungrily covering what was usually high ground. I waited for the next day, and in the meantime told my husband matter-of-factly what had happened and what I was going to do about it. He was by this time intrigued with how I was going to get the net back.
Redfish is gone--now what?
I put a nail in one of the long poles we had for the construction project that had brought us here when red drum hunt distracted me. I went on the low tide down to the dock, drug the bottom for the net. There, if I’d just stretch my arm out, I could feel the edge of the net, feel the lead sinks keep it snug against the mud bottom slope. Again I trolled, and I snagged it good, then pulled gently. What good would a shrimp net with a giant hole be? But it was as if the net were built with the unexpectedly large catch in mind. I could drag it across the bottom and up on the dock without tearing if I was careful. And I was. And I did.
It came up, slowly, in one piece. It was heavy with mud. But it was intact. I had the net and the memory of a big, exciting fish. I decided next time I will try to fish with someone who knows what they're doing.
Obsession is one thing. Owing my husband a hundred dollars is another.
Pros catching redfish
