Peter Camman The Streamside Guide

 

The Men of Luquillo

 

I’ve been going down to fish in Puerto Rico for over 20 years now and as I’ve often said, my favourite spot there to cast a line is the beach at Luquillo. Not only can the fishing be very good for mackerel, barracuda, amberjack, and grouper – but you also meet some of the damnedest people anywhere. I spent a couple days wading the flats and fishing with a gentleman named Elmer some years back. He was an excellent angler and he knew the waters there well. He shared a great deal of information about some of the species I was oblivious to, like squirrelfish and yellowtail snappers. He pointed me towards an unusual rock formation way out in one of the deep channels that hid a school of amberjack. He also spent most of an hour trying to convince me that all of these species could be caught on a single lure, one that he refused to show me for fear that I might steal his command over the fish living on the flats.

“Impossible to find this lure!” he told me sternly. “I have a friend who brings them to me from Sweden.”

Really? Could I see one? Just for a second?

Elmer demurred time and time again to my request the first day we fished together, but when we met each for the second time, chatted a bit, and offered up a few lies that made both of us laugh – he agreed.

“It’s not a problem because I know you will never find them and so really, my special lure will still be my secret,” he told me as he gently swung the lure towards me. I caught it in my palm and turned it over in my fingers, a broad smile creeping over my face.

“I know this lure,” I told him quietly.

“How?” he asked, almost indignantly.

“I have one on my line right now.”

Elmer briefly glared at me and then looked over at the 1/6 of an ounce silver spoon that dangled in front of him now. It was a Phoebe, a classic lure manufactured by the Acme Tackle Company of Providence, Rhode Island. I’ve fished with them for decades and they literally do catch just about every species known to man. But the man in front of me was sputtering. He was not happy. He started to contest whether this could be the same lure that he had been using, but it was no use. The company name was etched into the back of both of our lures, attesting to their mutual pedigree.

I guess we both knew the same folks in Scandinavia.

I’ve met some other interesting people at Luquillo over the years. There was the guy who wandered up to where I was fishing one day to ask if I’d ever done any crabbing there. He then proceeded to share with me what has to  the most labor-intensive pasta sauce recipe I’ve ever heard described. It involved roughly four-dozen of the tiny crabs he would routinely catch at Luquillo, fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic (lots of garlic), extra virgin olive oil, crushed red pepper and Chianti wine. He would boil the crabs up and then painstakingly remove all of the meat and place it into a bowl. After cooking the remaining ingredients into a Fra Diavolo sauce, he’d add the crab, pour in the already cooked pasta and toss until everything was thoroughly mixed. He swore it was the finest meal you could make in less than four hours and I believe him. Well, I’m not sure it can be done in such a short period of time (what with all of those crabs to be picked through), but I bet it tastes pretty good anyway.

There have been lots of fun folks I’ve met on the flats at Luquillo, but I think that Reggie and Manny have to rank towards the very top of my list of personal faves. I met these two guys at Luquillo about a year ago. Instead of wading out on the flats, I’d decided to cast from the beach that day and I was having a great time catching and releasing cero mackerel (which look a good deal like Spanish macks) when I hooked into and lost a good fish, just as Reggie and Manny walked by.

“I told you it looked like he was catching fish!” said Reggie.

“So, where’s the fish?” Manny asked.

“Out in the water, where it belongs,” I replied.

“Smart-ass!” Manny shot back.

Thus, we became friends.

The first thing my new pals wanted to know was whether there was a reasonable chance that I might hook into another fish, while they watched. I pointed out that the rate of an angler’s success was directly related to the number of people taking note of what he was doing, divided by the number of available fish in the water.

“That bad?” Reggie marvelled.

Well, there was always a chance I offered.

“Then there’s a chance we might be able to get you to give us one for dinner?” Manny asked hopefully.

Sure, what the hell.

Now saddled with a small audience that expected me to feed it, I began to feel the pressure. I got two hits and lost them both at the strike. A third fish took me into a weed bed about 70-80 feet out before it snapped off. Dinner was rapidly beginning to resemble an abstract concept in the extreme.

Still, Reggie was optimistic and he urged me on and I sincerely believe that I might have finally met with some success, but for Manny’s query, just a few minutes later.

“Hey, Pete! You mind if I take a dip. It’s getting hot watching you here.”

Having eviscerated my somewhat fragile ego, Manny waded out into the channel I was fishing, submerged and came back to the surface with a smile on his face. He bobbed about in the water, contemplating the clear blue liquid and letting the heat in his body leak out. He paddled about for about 10 minutes before climbing out onto the beach.

“We done here?” he asked.

“I dunno,” Reggie answered. “Are we, Peter?”

Manny looked at me with a mixture of expectation and mild disappointment. After all, I had offered the promise of a fine fish diner, delayed his swimming hour while he waited patiently for it, and then failed to deliver. If I’d had a conscience, I’d have felt just awful about it.

Instead, I shrugged, pulled in my line and put an end to the whole hideous process.