One Shot - A Fishing Story from Belize

One Shot 

A Fishing Story from Belize
By Young-Bean Song
Feb 2014

“Here they come! Ten o’clock. A whole school of them. Get ready… steady… Shoot! Shoot it!! DO IT NOW!!!” The guide’s words take me to the top of the mega rollercoaster. I grab the rod in complete free fall.

Everything is moving. The fish are jetting shadows, the waves rippling everywhere, the boat bobbing and turning, the wind is absolutely howling. Per the guide’s instructions, I point my rod towards the fish.

“See’m? Point at 12 o’clock! Left, left, slowly… now right… slowly… THAT’S IT! You got it! Now hit that!! One shot. DO IT!!”

Problem is, I can’t see a damn thing. Even if a fish is there, I don’t know if it’s moving from left to right or the other way. I don’t know if he’s getting closer or farther from the boat. This is my sixth time on the podium, but it still feels like the bright lights of my first piano recital. That silent moment when everyone is waiting for you to start playing, and the panic sets in that you left the sheet music backstage.

“One Shot” reverberates in my head. The term refers to the fact that when the guide has put you in striking distance of a fish, you have one cast to get the fly in the right place. Clock starts at three seconds. Sounds hyperbolic, but it’s no exaggeration. In the saltwater flats, the big fish are on the move. Their world is more like the Savannah grasslands. Everything is out in the open. Everything is hunting or being hunted. The ground they cover is vast and structureless. They can come at you in any direction, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but always unpredictable. You just have to be ready. If the first shot misses, it doesn’t help your second shot because the fish are now in a completely different spot in both direction and distance. But now you have a bunch of line in the water that’s impossible to pick up all at once. By the time you get the fly back in the air, they could be out of reach or upwind. It’s best to make one false cast before making that 80 foot cast. Or better yet, none at all. Take a second false cast and you’ve halved your chances at the fish. Try a third, and you mine as well throw your rod into the sea. No more time on the clock. Game over. One shot.

“They’re gone. You missed it man! C’mon man… Jeeezus fucking Christ. You gotta take the shot when I tell you to shoot…” You can tell the guide is trying to soften the disgust in his voice.

This is the point that I might see something. A moving smudge amongst smudges. A shifting shadow. It could very well be brain trickery, a desperate coping mechanism. But I’ll take it. Anything at this point to taste a glimmer of hope, even if it’s a mirage. The shame thick, welling up in the throat, hot breaths under my face rag steam my glasses. I’m trembling.

“Bring it in. Check your fly. Organize the line. Get ready, they might come back around again… Ah Ya Yaaa… That was a huge school. 30-40 Permit. Big ones.”

I had no idea. This is not fishing. It is hunting. Like your life depended on it, even though it’s not. There is nothing relaxing or pastoral about hunting the tropical triumvirate known as Bonefish, Tarpon and Permit. You’re not enjoying the view, nor contemplating a swim in the crystalline water. The sun does not feel good, it’s a silent incessant killer, and you’re covered head to toe. Every loose piece of clothes is whipping like torn flags on a battlefield. We’re here to do one thing: stand on the bow of the boat, searching, seeking, scanning. Tense, ready to cast on a dime. Even when you’re not at bat, you’re still silent and searching. Always looking. Trying to see a flash, trying to help your partner. Trying to learn so when it’s your turn, you’re ready. Eight hours a day on the water, for five days in a row, all your lines re-tied before bed, boats leave at 6am. The food is delicious but is choked down as fuel. I’m sore and cramping – dehydrated, sunburned, wind-rattled, constantly hung over, and absolutely sleep deprived. I want more. Where did they go…? Give me another shot… please.

“OK here they come again! Get ready. They’re coming fast, 11 o’clock hit them at 2. Cut them off, show them that fly. You can do it. Go! GO NOW!”

Oh my God, I can see them now. They are so much closer and bigger than I would have thought possible. Dark eerie missiles, with black blade fins slicing out of the water. There are dozens, in tight formation, they are here to rumble. Every neurotransmitter in my brain is sizzling. The wind is ripping, but there is no oxygen in the air. It’s blowing into my back so now I have to backcast perpendicular to the wind. It feels terrible, loose, no control. I’m being bullied. I can’t take it anymore, so I just let my line go, and say a Hail Mary.

“SHORT! Fuck. You’re short. Hit it again. Fifteen feet further and to the right. Go, Go, C'mon GO!”

The fleet of aliens cruises by, most of them beyond any semblance of a cast. But the initial shock of seeing the fish fades enough to get the line in the air again. With clenched teeth I try and launch with as much authority I can muster. My fly line zings out, and I can’t believe it. But at the last moment my leader goes sideways and lands six feet behind the last fish.

“Short AGAIN! Oh man, finally a good cast, but fucking short. Jeeezzzus. But you saw them this time right?! That makes all the difference. Now you’re feeling it!”

Our guides are world class fishermen with the casts to prove it. They can steer the boat with one foot, spot fish, and re-tie your leader all at the same time. Their ability to see a fish 200 feet away is preposterous. They fish with best, expect the best, and want the best for you. They know this is a once in a lifetime experience for most. So they start with the biggest shots at the biggest fish and work their way backwards. This is macho stuff, big game, big guns and big cocks. The only way to get a monster tip is to land a monster fish. They want you to catch a fish, perhaps more than you do. They are extremely competitive with the other guides (who are often their family members). Cultural and communication differences and massive doses of adrenalin collide from beginning to end. Feelings get hurt, emotions run wild, tongues are bitten, egos devastated. But their generosity is obvious by the number of times they break their backs to get you the perfect shot. Over and over again, blunder after blunder. In their minds, no matter how much of a fool you just showed yourself to be, it’s worth everything to try again – to try harder – make it perfect. As long as there is time on the clock, they have a chance to win, no matter the odds. They know better than anyone, it can happen at any moment. They will create their own luck or will die trying. And teach you to do the same.

As I watch the armada of twenty pound fish sail away, I bask in the glory of my first decent cast in three hours – a backcast no less. Relief. It’s there, my long lost cast, I just need to calm down and get it. Find it. It’s there. I’m slowly stripping my fly back, savoring the moment shaking my head.

“STOP! Wait… WAAAIIIIT!”

My blood freezes. The very last fish in the caravan felt my fly hit the water and peels off the herd to investigate. Unbelievable, he’s tracking my fly!

“Wait! Strip. Strip Faster. Strip longer. He’s coming. Strip-strip-shrip-rip-ip. STOP! ”

I can see the foggy shadow of a huge animal curiously following the fly line, but I can’t see my fly or how close it is to the fish’s mouth. But it doesn’t matter. At this point, I’m just a robot following the instructions of my master. And I’m perfectly fine with that.

“One more strip…again…” I feel a bump, “Keep coming…” I feel another tug, “Ohhh man, c’mon man… he’s on it!! Keep stripping…”

My knees are bent at 90 degrees, I’m hunched over and on my tippy toes, for absolutely no reason. On my last strip, my rod pulses, my stripping hand slips, and all hell breaks loose. The fish flips over in the opposite direction and bolts like it just touched the Sun. All the loose line pooled at my feet is now a cloud of angry bees. The line is zipping through my guide finger like I just hooked a guy who fell out of a window. Hot HOt HOT! The friction of the line cutting my finger in half just might cauterize the wound. The hooked Permit spooks another school 100 feet away and the water erupts with frightened beasts scattering in all directions.

“Rod tip up! Straight up! Not to the side!! Stay with him. You gott’m man. Whoo-whooooo! No slack. Keep Tension!!”

My reel goes from zero to a thousand miles an hour in a tenth of a second. I’m afraid the handle on the reel is going to dislocate a finger. I have no idea how far out the fish is, or how much line I have left. I’m too afraid to look down. Then the line falls down as the fish careens around and streams back toward the boat. I’m too mesmerized to respond.

“REEL IN. REEL!! Too late, ahhh. STRIP! STRIP! As fast as you can! FASTER!!”

I start pulling line in like an Olympic cross country skier on the last mile, gobs of line are streaming behind me in all directions. I cannot feel my body. I’m going to slay the dragon, save the village. I imagine myself holding the fish triumphantly above my head, but what I really want to do is rip its heart out. The line goes taught again, slips out of my grip, and I almost fall out of the boat. My knee slams the deck hard while I frantically try to find the right line to bring in the slack. I’ve lost sight of the fish, but am aching to get tension back on the line. There’s just too much slack. An entire ocean of slack. I’m buried in tangles, and lumps of line sag between my rod guides.

It’s over. The fish is gone.

“Too much slack bro. You had’m. Boy, you had’m good. Those suckers are fast eh? Spooked to high heaven now… Bring it in. Switch the rods. We passed by a couple of eighty pound Tarpon right before that school showed up. I bet they’re still there…”

Five days, eight hours a day, lines re-tied before bed, boats leave at six. I’m in heaven.