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5 years in a row!Boats at the Gulfport Yacht Club patiently await their turn at sea.lose out,” he says. Everyone will lose out, really—the fish
most of all. For Marquez, a day on the water—even a quick
hour on the water—isn’t about ticking a box and meeting a
goal. “Fishing recharges my soul,” he says, and then pauses,
laughing at himself. “Not to be too ‘Zen’ about it.”
There are countless ways someone might choose to re-
charge. At Cat Island, we’d seen men wading through the
seagrass. Marquez talked of good times cast netting in the
harbor with his son, of speeding through deeper water in
bigger boats, and of seeking tuna and other heav y-duty
fish. As we swung back into the yacht club for a pit stop, we
saw pick-up trucks parked along the jetties that belonged
to workers on lunch break, hoping to catch dinner for that
night.
As we finished out our day—two more specks flapping
in the ice chest, ready to be filleted and served—Marquez
wanted to show off one more species: tripletail, lately his
favorite fish to pursue. This isn’t a sit-and-chat sort of sport;
instead, it requires zooming the boat along the lines of crab
pots, hoping to spot a fish on the move. Perhaps it was too
early in the season, and perhaps there was too much fresh-
water after a recent bout of rain. There was not a tripletail to
be found—not that I would have been able to see.
I did manage, though, to hook a fish—a first for land-
lubber me. It was a saltwater catfish, not much admired for
its eating. So I posed for my photo and then tossed him
back. For a few minutes afterward, I felt the thrill of resis-
tance still, as if the fish was still tugging—as if to remind
me that, yes, there is a whole world down there beneath
the murky water.