Adventures of the Saltwater Cowboy

Lying up high in the JW Marriott overlooking Caxambas Pass, the last inlet on the west coast of Florida, Thomas slept through the alarms and wake-up calls. The turquoise green waves lapping on the beach were too serene. Or it could have been the Wild Turkey. Regardless, we were late meeting our guide in Chokoloskee.

Thomas, my lifelong friend who is closer than a brother, which is too bad because I couldn’t estrange him if I wanted to like people sometimes do with siblings, had been on a quest to catch a trophy tarpon for years. He’d been to many notable spots with no luck: Boca Grande, Homosassa, and Key West. “You know we have tarpon down here?” I asked him rhetorically.

“You said you never caught any,” he said, with cutting authority that he’s known for.

“Well, I haven’t,” I admitted, “except as bycatches when snook fishing.” It’s true, I’ve never taken the time to learn to tarpon fish in the Everglades - a travesty. At least I’m honest. “I didn’t say I’d be the guide, mi amigo,” I asked a friend to hook me up with the best tarpon wrangler out of Chokoloskee. Enter Dan Bennett.

Captain Dan Bennett, strapping young lad, hailing from Ohio, had been briefed about me and the infamous character from Louisiana, Thomas Woods, I had with me, and therefore wasn’t surprised that we were late. Thomas is a memorable dude, hence why his likeness and namesake are models for one of the main villains in Gulfstream, my first Captain Max Dean novel. That nefarious character is named Thomas Woods – a NOLA native, drug dealer, button-man, state penitentiary recidivist, and right-hand for the head of the Cajun Mafia - who’d kidnapped the brother-in-law of my protagonist, Captain Max Dean. Said brother-in-law was an arms manufacturer in Bossier City, Louisiana.

Around the crack of nine-thirty, we loaded up in Dan’s seventeen-foot Hell’s Bay with a live well full of pass crabs and idled out of the basin and into Chokoloskee Bay, hollering hello to my compadre, “The Midnight Rider,” Captain Ron Hueston, along the way.

The ride thirty miles southeast to Lostman’s River was something out of dreams. An equivalent might be crossing a flower-filled meadow on horseback in a valley between two mountain ranges in Montana or Wyoming in the summertime—one-hundred-percent wild and devoid of human intrusion and molestation.

The air is crisp and clean. A sea spray slips over the bow, slapping me awake as Dan banked into the river mouth. Deep in the Everglades National Park, the mangroves along Lostman’s towered over the ones further north. Fifty to sixty feet high, lush, and slapped full of birds and wildlife.

We shut down in an elbow that had feeder creeks flowing into it, as Captain Dan pointed out a mud slick on the bank – home of an American Crocodile. There we sat and floated live pass crabs under corks while tarpon rolled, gulped, and popped.

Three hours later, I was sitting on the poling platform, having switched from a live crab to an artificial swim bait because I’m impatient, when Thomas’ cork went under. The barely visible braided line on Thomas’ rod moved rapidly west (ninety degrees left) for several seconds before the tranquility was replaced by violence and mayhem when the water erupted and six feet and one hundred and twenty pounds of prehistoric silver fury tail-walked on the surface before plunging back in like a Beluga whale at SeaWorld.

That’s what I’m talking about… I reeled my line in, stowed my rod, and stayed out of the way while the rodeo commenced. Accepting the coaching from Capt. Dan, not unlike a boxer’s ring man, Thomas moved along the gunnels with the grace of a country boy from the cotton fields along the Mississippi River Delta in Northeast Louisiana, imbibing in the great outdoor endeavors the area offers.

Thomas did a good job of not reeling against the drag during runs, the sweetest sound in the world when braided line tears off of a reel and rips through the guides of the rod, ZZZZZZZZZZ. Pulling against the tarpon’s massive back, turning its head, and switching direction at strategic times, Thomas went round and round with the Silver King.

Thomas and Dan had the fish to the boat five or six times, but the tarpon caught his breath before they were able to land him. Once, Thomas was laid perpendicular across the bow, chest over the port side gunnel, holding onto the fish, his toes hooked and clamped onto the starboard gunnel. I remained on my perch on the poling platform, laughing, while he pleaded, “Hold my feet! Hold my feet! Jed! I’m serious! This MF’er is about to pull me in!” Thomas let go when the tarpon slapped his tail like Thor’s hammer and cut a rusty, peeling drag, making a beeline towards the Gulf.

At about the sixty-two minute mark, they landed the fish, took photos, revived the leviathan, and released him back into the tannic water flowing out of the Glades that he has probably roamed close to one hundred years.

Stopping the mouth of the Chatham River on the way back, we encountered what I thought was a school of pompano. I picked up my jig rod and started casting. “BLAM…” “Huge pompano!” I hollered.

“That ain’t a pompano,” said Dan. “That’s a school of permit.” I landed the fish and caught one of the biggest trout I’ve caught in Florida before traveling back to Chokoloskee. What a day it was, Thomas finally achieving his goal and myself catching my first inshore permit. It was the first permit caught on Dan’s boat and Thomas’ tarpon was the biggest Dan has put a customer on to date, as well.

Entering Chokoloskee Bay, I saw Smallwood’s Store in the distance and felt a little emotional, realizing the powerful connection I have with the area. Not only is it home base for the 10,000 Islands, my nirvana, but the Everglades City Mullet Rapper gave me my first shot, publishing my short stories.

Thomas, a closeted history buff, had done his reading and commented earlier that he wanted to visit Smallwood’s after fishing. He was looking forward to picking up Killing Mister Watson by Peter Matthiessen. I told him that I imagined that they had the novel for sale, as the beginning of it is set there. Strange in that I’d never visited the historic site. Maybe passing by it on the water frequently provided a sense of familiarity that made me feel like I knew the place.

It felt surreal thinking about it, traveling the same path as Mister Watson that fateful day he came churning up the bay, not a clue that his fate was sealed by the townsfolk waiting for him on the bank at Smallwood’s; Henry Short, Ted Smallwood, Bill and Dan House – they’d had enough of the evil carpetbagger.

Serendipity, a word I have to consciously not overuse, has been evident in my life many times, especially as of late. I did not realize that about a quarter of the Smallwood Store serves as a little bookstore, featuring local authors, as well as the Florida Big Leaguers; Matthiessen, John D. MacDonald, Hiaasen, the late Tim Dorsey, and my biggest influence – Randy Wayne White (see the story, “Biggest Fan” in Adventures of the Saltwater Cowboy – Volume 1).

“Wow!” Thomas says, “Look at this.” Thomas, an avid reader himself, is a huge supporter of my writing, and as such, he piped up loud enough for anyone to hear, “Hey, Jed! Why don’t you see if they’ll carry your book here?”

Thomas chatted up the store clerk while I perused the memorabilia. “Come here!” Thomas yelled from across the room. “Call this lady,” he said, and handed me a piece of paper with a number on it. A few minutes later, I was on the phone with Lynn, the manager of the store, arranging a deal that will have me on the same shelf as my heroes.

What happens in the coming weeks upon delivery of a stack of books to Smallwood’s is the topic of my next piece, “2-Hour Lunch,” documenting the “coup-de-gras” of my “You’re Not Going to Believe This,” themed stories.