On their first cast beneath the swooping and screeching birds, they both hooked small trout, which they released. Their next casts brought keepers—beautiful fish that would yield perfect pan-size filets. After they drifted the slick, Shep pulled in the parachute, started the engine, and repositioned the boat to drift it again, putting out the underwater parachute a second time. The following casts proved just as productive as those of the first drift, and after a few minutes, having drifted the breadth of the big slick, which was beginning to break up, they had each nearly limited out on keeper-size trout.
A few fish stowed in the iced fish box were still flopping around as they washed their hands in the bay water and dried them on their clothes. Merlin produced a small container of hand sanitizer and offered some to Shep before taking some for himself. They dried their hands a second time on a clean towel Shep pulled from a dry box, and Shep looked at Merlin matter-of-factly and said, “Lunch?”
With unguarded enthusiasm, Merlin brightened and responded, “Yes!”
Lunch was dressed roast beef po’boys with a spicy chopped pickle and mayonnaise spread, some cracklins (a few chips of which Merlin deftly placed inside his po’boy for added flavor and crunch), and apples for dessert. Shep drank water, and Merlin opted for his favorite: Dr Pepper.
“You know, Magic Man, some folks who maybe fish five or four times a year can go a lot of years without getting into a hungry school like that.”
“It was almost surreal,” Merlin replied. “Like magic.”
“You said it! Hey! I got the Magic Man in the boat!”
“Well, you saw the birds and put us on an ideal perpendicular drift right across the middle of the slick.”
“But we’re in Louisiana, and we never discount luck over here.”
They ate in silence for a minute, and as they drifted toward shore, Merlin spotted two strange-looking animals and pointed.
“What are those?”
“Nutria rats.”
“Rats?”
“Yeah, they’re like big water rats, but they got nice pelts that they used to make fur coats out of. On top of that, some people say they’re good eatin’ but they still look like rats to me.”
“They’re big.”
“Yep. Biggest rodent you’ll see around here.”
“Looks like they see us.”
“Yeah, momma and poppa nutria out for a walk, having a look at what’s going on in the neighborhood.”
“You think they are a male and a female?”
“It wouldn’t be two males or two females together. You lookin’ at Mr. and Mrs. Nutria there.”
Merlin continued to watch them, and Shep saw his opportunity.
“You know, Magic Man, that’s kinda the way it’s spose to be—momma and poppa out for a walk together.”
Merlin nodded and continued to look at the nutria.
“And that’s the same for us, too. Out there somewhere, there’s someone for each of us. Even no matter how different we think we may be from most folks. There’s somebody just as different, or different in a compatible way, for every single one of us.”
This time, unlike when Dr. Swearingen tried to engage him on this subject, Merlin didn’t protest. Maybe it was the setting and the soul satisfaction of just having caught a mess of trout. Whatever it was, Merlin just sat and nodded and listened as he watched the nutria peering out from above the salt grass on shore.
“What about you, Shep?”
“I’m still trying to get up on plane after ma sweet Clothilde.”
“How long has it been?”
“She passed away five years ago. Five years next week.”
“So, you are still feeling loss.”
“I’ll always feel it, Magic Man, but there’s a time and place for everything.”
Merlin nodded.
“See, Clothilde changed me. No, really, I changed by being with her. She made me a better human, and I realized, after a long time with her, that that’s what she was angling for the whole time in her own gracious way.”
“Really?”
“Yes. For sure. And you know what? It stayed with me.”
“It did?”
“Yes, it did. Even after she’s been gone these last years. Maybe even got stronger.”
Merlin looked at Shep with wonder.
“Yes, sir. Not just someone for everyone, but the right someone. I guess the right someone can kinda bring you into yourself or a better self you didn’t have no idea you could be.”
They sat in silence for a moment and finished their lunches. Shep took a big drink of water and wiped his mouth.
“What you say we go for a ride and look for some reds back in the marsh?”
It took Merlin a second to snap out of his reverie, but snap he did. “Oh! Yes! That sounds great!”
Shep started the motor, and Merlin hunkered down in front of the console for the run. In a flash, they were skittering across the water at speed.
They neared the marsh and headed toward a narrow, winding slough. Shep slowed the boat, and Merlin pointed at a small structure on the shore covered with dried sticks, salt grass, and weeds. He queried Shep, “Duck blind?”
Shep answered, “Yeah, you right, Magic Man. That’s where you come back in winter and bring wit’ you what ole Justin Wilson used to call a double automatic twice-barreled over-and-under twin carabine shootgun!”
Merlin wasn’t exactly sure how to process Shep’s recounting of the famous Cajun humorist’s quote, but it made him smile just the same as they passed the blind and entered the twisting slough.
After a quarter mile or so, Shep cut the motor, and they anchored in the middle of the waterway. They switched lures from shad heads and rubber tauts to weedless silver spoons and started casting to within a foot or so of the shoreline grass, working the spoons carefully to attract feeding redfish. They fished for a while, then Shep used the electric trolling motor to move farther into the slough and anchored again. This time, during the course of forty-five minutes or so, they caught some nice keeper reds within the slot limit of sixteen to twenty-seven inches. Louisiana law allowed them to keep one bull red over twenty-seven inches, but the bulls were running elsewhere. They moved again and didn’t catch any keepers over the course of twenty minutes or so.
Shep asked Merlin, “Want to try one more spot?”
“Sure!” Merlin replied with the enthusiasm of a kid asked if he’d like to ride the roller coaster again.
Merlin pulled the anchor and washed the silty mud from it in the opaque marsh water. Shep started the outboard, and they cruised farther into the marsh. After rounding a sharp bend, Shep cut the motor abruptly. He saw something. The boat drifted, and he continued to cast an eagle eye on something at the water’s surface. Without looking at Merlin, he said, “See that dark spot over there next to the right bank where I’m looking?”
Merlin looked and after a moment said, “Yes. It’s kind of round.”
“Yep,” returned Shep, “looks kinda like a hole. Go ahead and drop anchor.”
Merlin deployed the little anchor, and it caught bottom and spun the boat around slowly until it stopped.
“Okay, Magic Man.”
An idea came to Merlin. Instead of grabbing his bait caster with the weedless silver spoon for redfish, he selected his saltwater fly rod. It was an even stranger move because the line was rigged with a special shrimp-pattern fly he usually threw for speckled trout, not redfish. Shep looked at Merlin dubiously, but something kept him from quizzing the big fisherman on his choice of tackle. They were a judicious distance from the hole; a strong cast with a bait caster could reach it, but Shep thought it might be too far for a fly line.
Merlin had not seen Shep’s befuddled expression. He was completely focused on the task at hand. He stepped onto the platform that was the foredeck, unhitched the fly from the hook keeper just above the rod’s grip, and with a grace that belied his substantial mass, began to build his loop for the cast. He double hauled the line the wa
y bone fishermen do, building a beautiful looping length of line moving forward and backward over the water in perfect rhythm, like a thin littoral metronome. He made the cast, and the lure alit atop the calm water at the far end of the hole. He let it sink a little, then began to strip line and work the shrimp pattern through the water with quick double pops of the rod between line strips. For a few seconds, the only thing disturbing the calm of the green hole was the lure dancing through it.
Then it happened. Something major blew up on the fly, gobbling it in one resolute bite, and Merlin’s 8-weight rod doubled over as it strained against its adversary. Shep’s mouth dropped open when he saw the bite and stayed open as he realized what kind of fish it was. Merlin fought the fish resolutely but carefully as he knew something special was happening. Instinctively, Shep put the handheld net within Merlin’s reach on the fore deck.
Shep found himself in continued mute awe for several seconds and with enthusiasm increased by the delay in his response, he yelled, “It’s a trout! A huge spec! What he’s doin’ back here?”
Shep’s thrilled outburst somehow served to focus Merlin even more intensely on the fish. The writhing spec breached the water’s surface a couple of times. Shep counseled, “Careful, steady, let him run just a little, mais, ne lache pas la patate!” Merlin complied as the fish stripped line and started reeling when it finished its run. The trout made several runs, but Merlin held it.
Shep had the presence of mind to grab his smart phone, pull up the camera, and put it on video mode. The camera recorded as Merlin worked the trout closer and closer to the boat. Then Shep said, “Okay, Magic Man, I got a feeling about this one. The net is right next to you, so you can boat him all yourself.” Merlin looked at Shep and down at the net near his feet. He held the rod and reel as high as he could in his left hand as he squatted to grab the net with his right hand. He passed the twine loop at the end of the net through his hand and let it dangle from his wrist as he worked the massive trout closer to the boat.
The water at the boat’s side boiled with intense thrashing as the big man stepped down from the foredeck next to the mid-boat gunwale. He slipped the net under the fish with authority, like he was sliding a sheet of paper under a door. As Merlin raised his catch out of the water, Shep took a step backward but kept the video on his friend and the fish. It was the biggest speckled trout he had ever seen. Shep was at a loss for words for a couple of seconds, then began to shout in utter glee while instructing Merlin on what to do.
“Okay, Magic Man, I got this all on video. Now hold that fish up for the camera—real carefully.”
Merlin embraced the fish, doing his best to throttle its thrashing so Shep could continue his video documentation. Shep opened the fish box, and Merlin dropped it inside. Shep slammed down the box door, and Merlin fell backward onto the fishing platform, his posterior hitting first and the inertia of the fall splaying him out with arms wide, supine on the foredeck. The trout percussed the box’s interior like there was giant popcorn popping inside it.
“Ho! Merlin! You okay?”
Merlin raised only his head and nodded in silent assent that all was well.
“We gotta weigh him and measure him, but I think you got some kinda trophy on your hands, ma fren.”
Merlin looked up at Shep again and lay his head back down, staring at the immense cumulus clouds of the coast. Shep walked forward in the boat and put out a hand to help Merlin to his feet. Merlin accepted the help, and they celebrated with double high fives and double fist bumps that they both blew up like fireworks with wiggling fingers. The celebration was short lived.
The upright rods in holders on both sides of the center console began to buzz and whir. Shep hadn’t paid attention to what was going on in the heavens during the drama of the surprise lunker trout, and on hearing the rods begin to sing he looked up to see threatening cumulonimbus clouds moving toward the boat. He shouted to Merlin, “The anchor! Get low and pull it in as fast as you can!”
Merlin bounded to the front of the boat and knelt; he hauled in the rope line, then the silted chain, and the anchor. He stowed it all in a forward hatch on the foredeck. Shep pulled all the rods and reels from their holders and placed them on the lower deck’s walking space at the bottom of the boat between the gunwales on both sides of the console. Merlin heard the outboard start as he stowed the anchor.
Shep yelled to him: “Get back here and get as low as you can! Lie down next to the gear!”
Merlin’s eyes were at full aperture as he obeyed orders and lay prone on the boat deck while Shep turned the boat.
Shep yelled over the motor, “Hang on!” He jammed the throttle forward as he crouched low behind the center console. Thunder was rolling and the lightning was almost on them. Shep negotiated the twists of the slough at precariously high speed. He spotted a straight trenasse to port that provided a short cut to the open water in the direction of Lumbeaux Jump and away from the storm. He veered into the trenasse and pushed the outboard to its limit.
Big drops of rain began to pepper the two fishermen. When they reached Spirit Lake, bright lightning flashed and almost simultaneous thunder clapped and jolted them in the boat, but Shep was not deterred in his mission. He glanced backward and saw that the duck blind they had passed when they entered the slough was on fire. He figured there must have been something metallic protruding upward from the blind and that, if it wasn’t for that trenasse, they might have been passing the blind about when the bolt struck.
They continued to run fast for several minutes with Merlin acting as forward ballast and Shep hunched behind the console and peering out over its control panel. The rain slackened, then stopped, and Shep stood and took in the view. The storm had moved on, and they had dodged potential disaster. Shep yelled over the whining motor, “Dey’s a lesson in dat, Magic Man.” Merlin looked up the way he had a few minutes earlier when he was supine on the foredeck fishing platform after landing the trout.
“Never let your guard down,” Shep said.
Wide eyed, Merlin nodded in assent, then got to his feet and returned to his seat on the cushioned cooler in front of the console.
Their quick getaway had them running on fumes as they approached the little Cajun outpost. Next to the Lumbeaux Jump public boat ramp and docks, a crude, hand-painted sign outside Jupiter’s Bait, Tackle, Fuel & Supplies read “The best little bait shack on the planet.” They needed to officially weigh, measure, and document Merlin’s catch.
The portly Jupiter Robichaux sat at his post on a high swivel chair behind a circular counter in the middle of the store. Jupiter barked orders at his diminutive assistant, Callisto, who ran wide circles around the store getting things as Robichaux pivoted this way and that calling for them. A couple of officers from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries happened to cruise by, tie off at the dock, and enter the shop to add an even more official air to the proceedings. Jupiter’s orders to Callisto began anew.
The scale and yardstick did not lie, and Jupiter pronounced that the trout was likely a state record for the year thus far. A quick internet search indicated that Merlin’s catch might even be the biggest spec taken in Louisiana waters over the preceding five years. Jupiter asked Callisto to take a photo of Merlin and Shep, the game wardens, and him with the fish.
They all laughed about a seriously dangerous situation when Shep made light of it, saying that thenceforward he was going to call Merlin’s 8-weight “the lightning rod.” There was a moment of quiet, and Shep broke it with a decisive “I think this occasion calls for a beer.” Jupiter Robichaux agreed, but the officers deferred that they were on duty. Shep cajoled them a bit, and they capitulated, agreeing that it was indeed a very special occasion and their shift was almost over. Merlin opted for a big Barq’s root beer as the other men told fishing stories from decades past and sipped ice-cold Abita Andygators. Jupiter and the wardens reiterated that this was indeed a very special afternoon, and they would be glad to be able to tell folks they were there fo
r the weigh-in.
The men finished their libations and Shep, Merlin, and Jupiter said goodbye to the Fish and Wildlife officers. Shep went outside and filled the boat’s gas tank as Merlin placed the rods back in their holders. Merlin stepped inside and paid for the gas over Shep’s protests. They unmoored the boat from the dock and putted at a no-wake pace over to the little covered boat slip at Shep’s family’s fishing camp. As they unloaded the boat and began to hose it down, fatigue hit them like a sledgehammer.
• Thirty-seven
Eating lunch at his desk, Junior Trust Officer Curtis Bumpers moused around a regional hunting and fishing enthusiasts’ website on his desktop computer. Under the Latest Reports tab he saw the heading “NEWSFLASH!” followed by a few lines: “Reports of a potential season-record speckled trout (spotted sea trout) caught near Lumbeaux Jump, Louisiana. Details to follow on official confirmation.”
“Probably a pro guide on his day off,” Bumpers mumbled aloud to himself.
• Thirty-eight
That evening on the deck above the canal in front of the house where Marie Mado and her daughters lived, the oil was boiling at a roll in a deep metal pan. Around the pan’s edges, spread newspapers fanned to catch errant spatter. Although the flame from the propane burner and the heat of the oil increased the already high ambient temperature on the deck, Shep commented to his supersize sous chef that the cooking setup didn’t seem to disperse the mosquitos a bit.
They took a break and went inside. Merlin closed the sliding glass door to the family room as he and Shep entered the cool of the air conditioning to confer with Marie Mado about timing for supper. Her twin daughters, Pélagie and Thétis, were chasing each other around the room and nearly collided with the men when they were a couple of steps inside the doorway.
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