Captain Rick was right. Like onboard bananas, the first-cast fish spells trouble.
Kathy’s first cast of the morning—a live shad wiggling beneath a bright orange cork. The tide was rising and the minnow rode with the current along the edge of the submerged sandbar, then across a hidden oyster bar. All as Captain Rick Percy had planned. The bobber jerked nervously, then disappeared.
My wife lifted the rod and began to crank the spinning reel. No setting of a circle hook. The point apparently has a tiny brain that tells it to grab the lip until the barb is through. Humans screw it up when allowed to jerk the living daylights out of it. Just lift the rod and reel. Let the genius circle hook do the rest.
Captain leaned over the edge of the flats boat and scooped up the beautiful coppery redfish. We were three happy anglers. This ought to be a plentiful day, I thought. “A fish on the first cast,” Captain Rick said with eyebrows raised. “Sometimes that’s not a good sign. But we’ll see.”
Yep. He was right. Like onboard bananas, the first-cast fish spells trouble. You’ve probably heard of the fishing boat bad luck banana ban. The superstition is based on a variety of half-baked legends: tarantula bites, fishermen slipping on peels, fish not liking banana oil or, most likely, the fish weren’t biting and there happened to be some guilty-looking bananas on board.
Thank God for the perfect April weather, the gorgeous unspoiled scenery of the Broad River where it empties into the Atlantic, and the entertaining conversation with the man in charge of Reel Chance Charters, Captain Rick Percy.
Certainly, there were more fish to be caught, just not the sort of non-stop action we were all dreaming of. Seven more reds and a flounder came to the net. Though the flounder flipped out of my hands and back into the water, the reds were all hauled in, three being held back for dinner.
The slot limit is 15 to 23 inches. Larger or smaller than that and they go back in the drink. That’s where Kathy’s first fish of the day ended up. The legal limit was two apiece, so really, we were just trying to abide by the law. And the fish were helping by holding their mouths shut.
Many of us have waded trout streams so beautiful that we thought to ourselves, “I really don’t care if I don’t catch a trout. Just being here is plenty.”
Same thing in these unspoiled salt marshes. When the fish aren’t biting, I tend to pay a lot more attention to my surroundings. That’s assuming that they’re interesting. Staring at a drifting bobber or gazing at my rod tip as I reel in a GULP bait can get old after a while.
Kathy and I had met Captain Rick at the Broad River landing near Beaufort at 7 a.m. A very civilized time. The tides made that decision. High tide was around 8, and the Captain wanted to fish the outgoing.
Captain Rick is not a Lowcountry native, but he’s become about as close to it as a Kansan can get. His desire to live in the Palmetto State began in 1990 when he was on a business trip in Columbia. A fishing addict since age 4, he was soon living in Beaufort while continuing to work with Dupont as an agricultural chemical marketing rep. He decided that when he retired from Dupont, he would start a guide business.
These days he’s living the dream. And despite our slow day, Captain Rick is a know-it-all when it comes to the waters around Saint Helena and Port Royal Sounds. Since ’92 he has kept a log of productive fishing spots in the local waters—an ever-growing list that numbers more than 300.
“From Twin Sisters at the mouth of the Ashepoo River,” he said, “clear down to Skull Creek at Hilton Head Island, I have them marked.”
While the Captain enjoys fishing for spottails, he has a real passion for the spotted seatrout. Unfortunately, their numbers were way down due to an unusually cold winter. As a precautionary measure, the state’s Department of Natural Resources asked anglers to release all seatrout through September.
But Captain Percy isn’t Captain Picky when it comes to catching fish. While our plan was to fish for reds, he is always ready to go where the fish are, and there are lots of places to search. The river mouths, salt marshes, wrecks and reefs are within boat range of Beaufort. On any given day, king mackerel, black drum, flounder, Jack crevalle or big tarpon can be biting somewhere close by.
“Cobia are biting fairly well lately,” he said, “but today’s the last day for keeping a fish, so the best spots are crowded with boats.”
He was right. When we passed under the Highway 170 bridge, there were easily 30 boats lined up near the structure.
Captain Rick also takes out parties for sheepshead, Spanish mackerel, bluefish and sharks. Blacktips, sand, hammerheads and tigers are abundant. Even great whites pass by uncomfortably close on their northward migration to New England. You can come down and have your very own “shark week.”
While the waters of the sounds draw a variety of gamefish, the lands that surround them have a unique quality of their own. Bird, Daws and Callawassie islands provide a colorful backdrop of waving seagrass and gnarly live oaks covered with Spanish moss. It’s part of the ACE Basin, a protected area named for the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers.
Here, they meet the Atlantic, forming one of the largest undeveloped estuaries on the Atlantic Coast. The wetlands support a nursery for redfish, shrimp and many other saltwater species, providing a relatively safe place for them to spend their formative years.
Captain Rick has fished many different fresh and saltwater species in various parts of the world. He’s chased bonefish in the Bahamas, snook in Belize, reds and seatrout in Louisiana and Texas, muskies, smallmouth and walleyes in Canada and silver salmon and halibut in Alaska.
These days, he sticks close to Carolina, running The Reel Chance, a 24-foot Lake and Bay pushed by a 250 Yamaha.
While Captain Rick is a determined guide, when it comes to putting his clients on fish, he’s a fun guy to hang out with as well. He carries a wealth of stories and local history to share and during warm weather, he’s rarely without his bug repellent—a cigar.
He’s also the author of Reel Chance Fish Tales, an entertaining collection of sometimes funny, sometimes educational experiences on the water.
The brilliant fisherman, instructor, and public speaker Lefty Kreh is perhaps the best known, most respected, and most beloved angler in the world today. My Life Was This Big takes readers on an angling journey through the last half century, when water was big and fishermen were bigger. But, despite all that’s changed since the fifties, when Lefty began his career as a professional fly fisherman and writer, fishing is still just fishing.
In My Life Was This Big, Lefty shares his tales of fishing expeditions with Fidel Castro and Ernest Hemingway, as well as solo battles with some of the scrappiest, most elusive fish in the world. Lefty also takes the reader through the development of his world-famous “Deceiver” fly style, and takes on the issue of conservation through catch-and-release. These timeless, often hilarious stories will put you in the boat with Lefty—and even teach you a thing or two about fly fishing along the way!
This is a glimpse into the heart and soul of Lefty Kreh—a man who has written for nearly every outdoor magazine in the United States; a man who has fished some of the remotest parts of the globe; and a man whose books and articles have taught thousands of people his techniques for hooking and landing more fish. For fans both young and old, these are Lefty’s stories. Buy Now
