Disaster in Paradise

We arrived in the sunshine state on Saturday at about noon. It had rained on us for most of the morning as we traveled, through what I called a canyon of pine trees (almost an hour and a half of nothing, literally, but pine trees). There were no houses, no stores, no gas stations just pine trees. When we came to the end of the highway, it dead ended into FL 319. Just across the highway was Apalachicola Bay. That was a sight for sore eyes.

With in an hour we were on the beach and I was fishing. It was a little more difficult than I thought. Between the wind and the surf I had a hard time controlling my line. After an hour of battling the surf and busting through the wind I managed a nice spotted sea trout.

The next day the surf was even rougher. After thirty minutes of wrestling with the surf and my fly line I decided to call it a day. As I disassembled my rod I noticed a small hair line crack in the male ferrule. I took notice of it and packed the rod away.

The next morning the rain poured, the lighting flashed, and the thunder cracked, no fishing! But, by afternoon the sun was shining and I was in the water. While I was fishing I noticed that the tip kept working its way down the male ferrule. I would check it, adjust it, and keep on fishing. At one point the tip flew clean off. I began to wonder if this was my fault or not. Maybe it was, I don't know. I could have been coming back too far on my back cast while trying to bust through the wind, allowing the tip slip off as the line loaded the rod.

Tuesday afternoon I made my way to the flats in Apalachicola Bay to see what I could find. I had heard roomers of trout, sheep head, and drum on the flats. With in ten minutes of being there the rod tip flew off on a back cast. I retrieved the tip and attempted to reattach it. At this point I noticed that something was terribly wrong, the male ferrule was broken off.

I held the rod in almost disbelief. It felt like my stomach was in my throat, I was angry, I was heart broken, and I was frustrated all at once. I was angry that this "high quality" rod had broken so easily, I was heart broken because I knew this was likely my only chance to fish saltwater this year, and frustrated with my self wondering if there was any thing I could have done to prevent this from happening.

Scrounging for every last glimmer of hope I had, I packed my rod up and drove to Apalachicola which was where the closet Orvis dealer was. Unfortunately, she could not help me. It would take longer for rod to shipped, repaired, and returned than we were going to be in Florida.

With all hopes dashed, I went back to our rental house with a case of the mulligrubs. Slowly but surly I recovered and managed to enjoy the rest of the week.

I did learn one valuable lesson, pack a spare rod!

I had planned to make a bamboo rod just for the trip to Florida, which would have given me two heavy rods, but I spent too much time debating over which rod to make.

With a lot of first time events in life there is a learning curve. The first time I drove my dad's five speed pickup was, I'm sure, a test of his patience, although exciting for me. My first shot at salt water fly fishing was not spectacular and was trying on my patience, but at least it gets me in the curve.

I can always look at it from the point of view that I have plenty of flies for next year!

Matthew