Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,76

watch what happens when they’re over the school again.”

Diemer was getting into it. “Bizarre,” he said. “An entirely different technique than Captain Hannah uses. Far more aggressive. Why don’t the fish run away?”

I told him the fish we were watching had run. Boca Grande is the deepest inlet on the coast, so the fish had fled by sounding. “Picture a limestone basin with crevices,” I added. “The tarpon have dropped down into one of those crevices.”

We watched the boats roar to a stop above the fish . . . watched anglers drop weighted hooks, a plastic worm on each, deep into the invisible crevice. When their lead weights hit bottom, a few anglers cranked reels furiously to retrieve the hooks at high speed. Others held their rods motionless.

“The fishing lures are like none I’ve seen,” Diemer commented. “Heavy sinkers attached directly to the hook. Humm.”

“Four ounces of lead or more,” I replied and hit the space bar, turning to him. “You just nailed an important point. Big weights on hooks that are tied to leaders—but light leaders, almost invisible . . . See?” I tapped the magnify key. “Look at the rig near the bottom of the screen”—then zoomed closer—“and not much thicker than the fishing line they’re using.”

“Yes,” Diemer said. “Unusual.”

I hit Play and explained that the technique we were watching worked only in Boca Grande Pass and a few other similar areas worldwide.

For several minutes, the Brazilian stayed close to the screen, studying every move, but then sat straighter and said, “I understand now. In the crevices, the tarpon are trapped. Then, like small bombs, the hooks are dropped into a group of fish. Often the hooks are rapidly retrieved, which makes it more effective. Yes . . . I see what these men are doing.”

“Not trapped,” I corrected him, “the fish are packed tight into a hole that has walls. Limestone walls, mostly, and chunks of archaic coral.”

“Trapped,” Diemer insisted, “unable to react when a fishing line brushes against their gills or the hinge of the mouth. I know this technique. The Indios use a similar method in streams in the Amazon . . . in Europe, too—Ireland most especially. I’ve seen it used to catch salmon with very light lines, but only in fast water when the salmon are spawning in groups. There is a term for it—you do not know this term?”

“Floss-fishing,” I replied. “Or snatch-fishing—but there the weight is usually molded onto a treble hook. It’s the same principle, though.”

Nodding, the Brazilian did a quick pantomime of flossing his teeth. “The line slips into a narrow hinge of the mouth or gills. Yes? Then the hook buries itself when the fish attempts to flee.” His eyes returned to the computer screen. “This is called professional fishing in Florida? Forgive me if you disagree, but it’s hardly fishing.”

I replied, “It’s for a television series, remember? They call it jig-fishing to make it sound legitimate, but it guarantees they’ll land tarpon even when fish aren’t feeding. Can you imagine investing a quarter million or more in a TV tournament but getting no action footage? That’s why an agency hired me to do a hook placement study.”

“Outrageous,” Diemer said.

The irony caused me to smile. A man who robbed and sometimes killed for a fee was offended by a breach of sporting ethics. It confirmed, though, that he had connected the disparate elements and had quickly figured out what, over decades, Florida’s legislators had failed to understand. A moment later, the Brazilian snapped his fingers to get my attention. “Two boats—they have hooked tarpon!”

I had been in Boca Grande on that summer afternoon and had no interest in watching what happened next. I knew that one fish had been hooked in the eye socket, the other beneath a boney plate outside the mouth. Just before it was landed, the eye-hooked tarpon was then hit so hard by a hammerhead shark it exploded in a cloud of blood and silver scales, scales that glittered like confetti as they spiraled into the depths.

I got up and walked to the file cabinet. “Keep watching. Then you might want to read the conclusion of the report I did.”

My back to the screen, I took my time locating copies of the study. Not until I heard Diemer exclaim, “My god! You must see what just happened!” did I return, a copy in hand. “A shark,” he said, “a shark just ate a tarpon . . . I think, but the camera work is