Tropical Depression

was standing on the dock at City Marina as I came in. He still stood there beside the ice machine as I eased into my slip, tied up, and wound up business with the day’s charter.

I’d been fishing that day with a guy in his forties who ran a machine shop in Rochester and couldn’t talk about anything except the Buffalo Bills. It had been an okay charter—very good, in fact, if you just wanted a chance to get away from the wife and talk about football the way this guy did. We’d hit into a few permits on the flats south of Woman Key. We got one good jump out of a tarpon, a big one. My guy had been so flabbergasted by the size and majesty of the fish he’d forgotten to bow to it and the line had snapped. That happens maybe four times out of five, but he didn’t seem to mind