Greetings loyal TVAngler reader!
As most of you already know, I recently decided to ditch the Huntsville/New Market, AL, area for sunny Florida. It’s been a long, slow, arduous process so far – the tale of which, filled with excitement, romance, despair, anxiety, bureaucracy and copious amounts of rum would fill pages upon pages.
But I digress – THIS post isn’t about the journey. It’s about the signs…
As I started the process of moving down to Florida, things just seemed to line up perfectly. For those of us with Faith, this seemed like the will of the Almighty. For those agnostic type people, it was a long string of beneficial circumstances and situations that happened to occur just right, at just the right time.
Anywho, this soon turned to anxiety as I’m now waiting on TWO separate job offers. I know I’ll get one or both sometime, but until I do we’re in a holding pattern. And so, obviously, I began to doubt the Almighty’s will, questioning whether I’d made the right move or not. I was still wavering back and forth on the 4th of July, when my Brother-in-law suggested we go to Sebastian Inlet – a Florida state park he was fond of and that was close by.
Sebastian Inlet is just south of Melbourne and boasts a variety of accompaniments – a beautiful beach, boardwalk and store, surfing, boating and, yes, fishing. A large bridge hacks the park in half with the ocean pouring in to or out of the inlet, depending on tide. Matter of fact, when the tide’s really cookin, the water flow looks like a formidable white water rafting river. The inlet side, to the right of the bridge, has a great little lagoon area, with a nice sloping white-sand beach for families to relax and play in. The ocean side, one the left, sports some fantastic waves for surfers and more energetic beach goers.
As an aside, whether you’re wandering the beach or relaxing in the lagoon, the scenery is beautiful. Thank God for bikinis.
On either side of the channel connecting the ocean and the lagoon area are two large rock jetties, stretching a pretty good piece out into the blue waters of the Atlantic. To the left side of the channel, right beside the surf/beach area is a massive fishing pier, consistently lined with anglers plying the depths for whatever’s running that day.
We set up on the beach side, about 50-70 yards down the shoreline from the beginnings of the rock jetties. Surfers were battling body-boarders and other swimmers for good waves as set after set rolled in, with a few terse exchanges when the two (or three) clans intersected. So, to make things easier for everyone, we dove in right in the middle and joined the fray, chasing most of the surfers off further down the beach to a less populated swell area.
After a few hours of fun, swimming, body boarding and kayaking (manatee and small sea turtles were in view most of the day from the yak), I began leaning more and more to the ‘stay here’ side of the argument, thinking ‘The beach is free – what do I need with a job?’
Then, after a cold beverage and a few minutes under the shady umbrella we’d set up earlier, I thought more about my precarious situation and asked, one more time, “Lord, is this really what I’m supposed to be doing? Am I really supposed to be here?”
Sometimes when I ask God for guidance I get nothing. No tingly feelings, no ‘word,’ no signs, no nothing. In fact, lots of times I get the feeling He just gets tired of my constant nagging and shuts me off for a while. But then, every once in a while, He answers in a big way.
When I first heard the yelling down by the rock jetty to my left, I had no idea whether it was a man or a woman. It wasn’t the panicked cry of someone drowning or in pain or anything, but it certainly seemed urgent. Looking up to my right, I saw a young man scrambling down from the fishing pier, crawling over the rocks with a deft precision usually reserved for spider man. His screams – of agony, despair, longing and urgent HELP ME-ness – led my eys out to the water, about 50 yards from his perch. There, I saw his nice rod and reel floating in the surf. Quickly, though, I came to realize that couldn’t possibly be true. It wasn’t floating is. It was being towed through the water..
By the time I caught up to it another beachgoer had grabbed the rod and handed it to spider boy, who’d made it down to the beach himself. We followed him and his catch as they battled down the beach, hollering at the surfers I’d chased off earlier and at other swimmers to watch out – since we had no idea what was on the other end of the line. After a 20 minute battle, assisted by the surf and with the cooperation and assistance of hundreds of swimmers, he landed his catch – a 30 to 35 lb snook.
I know what you’re asking. A snook? What the ___ is a snook? Picture a 30 lb bass. Now change its color to silver and give it a big black line running down the side. VOILA! A snook.
We celebrated with spider boy as he smiled wildly for all the admirers on the beach. Children were running up to touch the giant fish, and older guys began reminiscing to anyone who would listen about how they had caught one just a little bigger earlier last week. Bikini clad girls watched from afar, with a little gleam of appreciation and admiration in their eyes (or whatever it was – this is a family site, after all). We helped him get the fish back in the water and, after a few moments to let it catch its bearings, watched together as it swam slowly off into the deep.
An answer, or just good timing? A coincidence of fortune for a guy who absolutely loves fishing, just at the moment he needed it? I’ll leave it to you to decide that. For me, though, there was no doubt. I mean, how often does spider man battle a 30 lb bass through a sea of angry surfers and bikini wearing hotties immediately following a heartfelt cry for a reason to stay? About as often as I need an answer, I suppose…
PS Immediately following this trip, I was hired by Lockheed Martin out at Kennedy Space Center. We close on our house in early August and have everything smoothed out. Almost like it was meant to be…
Matt
Congratulations on the job and the location. I spent many days in that area of Florida. The TV station in Melborne was one that carried my TV show (and Orlando and several others). I have fished that inlet many times but that was in the seventies. There are also some nice freshwater lakes near there including the begining of the St. John’s River. Fished offshore out of Cape C. many times. Theres the Banana River and other great places to fish all around you. I am happy for you and wish you the best. I’ll send you some saltwater flies when you get settled and send me an address. Good Luck.
James,
Thanks..it certainly was a blessing and I’m VERY happy it all worked out.
I’ll be glad to take and try some flies whenever you get a chance to send some.
So what was the show you mentioned? Obviously you know these waters well, so I need to hunt you down and ply you with cold adult beverages to learn where to go, what to use, and what to avoid.
Thanks amigo.. Drop me a line anytime.
First of all, let me correct an error. It was in the early eighties, not the seventies. That shows how old I am getting. What was the show, you asked? I did a nation TV show called Fishing with James Marsh for 5 years, 52 weeks a year from 1980 to 1985. I was the first to do a sydicated show on saltwater fishing. Curt Goudy did a very few inshore shows on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, but that was it before me. In 1986 I started doing videos.
I don’t drink adult beverages but I appreciate the offer. I want shut up talking about fishing sober as a Judge anyway. I had a new Foretravel Motor home furnished by the company for me and lived most of the time in it. I hung out over there often because Bevard Boat Sales, a sponsor, rigged out boats for me to use. There were almost no snook then. Mr. Bob Graham (for one lousy politician) allowed the citrus growers to use pesticides (and commercial fisherman to use gill nets) that destroyed the snook eggs. The oil based poison, made to stick to the trees, formed an oil film on the water and destroyed snook eggs. They almost disappeared. I did a TV show showing we were sending some of the last remaining Snook and Trout to Mars to interbreed them with the Marsian trout. We claimed we put them in the Mako live well and sent them aboard the space shuttle to mars. I swipped the footage of a space shot from Nasa and used it in the end of the TV show. Some people, mainly kids, beleived it and called the TV stations all over Florida upset about the fact there were no trout or snook left (that part was correct). I claimed that we were going to breed them into trout and snook that would cut through gill nets. Their favorite food would be orange tree poison. The show was called “Space Speckled Trout”.
SWEET! That’s cool stuff. Let me personally thank you, before I actually hook one, for helping to save the snook population down here. I’m supposed to be kayaking to an island somewhere out in the banana/indian river bay area this weekend, where I’ve been assured of catching something.
If you’re ever down this way again, feel free to stop by and visit. I’ll be glad to let you show me where to fish…
Matt, I am happy you are well. Congratulations on the job, I think. I will be sure to give a little notice before I come to visit.
Finally, FINALLY, got to go fishing this past weekend. We paddled out to an island in the middle of the banana river to camp out. Took damn near everything you could imagine including, of course, my fishing gear. The only thing I forgot? BAIT.
I did manage to get a couple fish to roll on a topwater I had, and Christian and I caught a ton of catfish night fishing with cut bait from the bank (he had a BLAST), but I didn’t get to hook up with anything noteworthy. Weirdest thing I caught was three puffer fish in my baitcast net that swelled up to softballs on the beach – kids got a kick out of that.
Anywho, a fellow kayak fisherman paddling by recommended DOA shrimp for my rod and reel, but had no idea what I should be using on a fly rod.
It was fun, broke the ice, but wasn’t enough. I want MORE…
Matt,
Take care,
Once you do all the hard work of figuring out how to catch those monster redfish down there, let us know. We’ll pack up and head down so you can guide us to them. Oh, and none of this bait stuff either. We’ve got a reputation to uphold here!
Nathan
Easy, you elitist pig.. I’ve already written one article on bait fishermen on this very site. Don’t make me come up there!
You know I’d use bait in a heartbeat, man. Since becoming a fly fisherman, I’ve been both amused and angered at the attitude some take toward bait fishermen. I do enjoy fishing with artificial lures better (whether flies or bass lures or whatever), but I can’t imagine not taking my kids (assuming I ever have any) fishing with a bucket of crickets.
Nathan