The Top Secret Mullet Files
I love a good mullet fishing story. Like the one I overheard the youth pastor at my church telling about how he was fishing off the dock in back of his house on the Ochlocknee River with his very young son when it happened that he had thrown his mullet net several times off of one side of the dock – producing nothing. The little boy insisted that the dad try the other side, just like Jesus told his disciples in John 21:6. Apparently, the youngster had been paying attention in Sunday School class. And, per the little boy’s faithful expectations, the dad pulled in the net with a load of wiggling mullet on the first cast. The net was full of more mullet than my youth pastor and his family could eat in one sitting.
And, there are many stories that come to mind of when a mullet fishing expedition produced not just a good catch of fish, but also a brand new friend. Such was the day a few years ago, when, with my own son, I was launching from the sand ramp to head out to the top end of the Harbor for a mullet harvest. As we got set to push off, another vehicle came backing down the ramp with a small skiff behind. The vehicle, driven by a woman, was having a bit of trouble getting boat properly positioned. A man got out of the far side of the vehicle and began pushing the boat off of the trailer, with some difficulty. I suggested to my teen-aged son that he should walk over and introduce himself, and offer to assist while I retrieved one more item from my own vehicle. Soon, my son was pushing on the bow of the boat with the man and the boat bobbed freely off the trailer.
The gentleman, probably a few years older than myself, asked where we were headed to fish, and after introducing myself, I motioned that we were headed to the oyster bars a quarter of a mile off on the other side of the harbor, for an afternoon of mullet fishing. “MULLET FISHING!” he proclaimed with excitement! You guys know where to catch mullet out here? I told him that we certainly did, and as the woman in the vehicle drove off with the trailer, he explained that he was headed to a beach house a few miles away at the mouth of the harbor to dock his boat. He was from Tallahassee and his family had owned the beach house for many years. He did not get a chance to get down to the house very often, but being that a holiday weekend was coming, he and his wife were expecting a few people at the house, and he thought it would be nice to have the boat handy.
I told him that he was welcome to come along with us and we’d show him where we fish, and, he was welcome to fish with us. He was astonished at the invitation, and gave some sort of explanation that tied together several threads of thought like – “Normal Wakulla red-necks don’t ever want to show an outsider from Tallahassee where the good mullet fishing holes are located – AND – the locals don’t even want to speak to guys like me.” I promptly dismissed both notions, telling him I didn’t know any of those guys. Further, the men who, years ago, had insisted that me and my then 6-year-old son tag along with them so they could teach us their techniques and locations, were the same men who’d had the most positive impact on my own life since becoming and adult, many years ago. Curiously, he continued to act as though I had just stuffed a $100.00 bill down his shirt pocket.
He called his wife and told her that he’d be down at the back of the house a bit later, and then got ready to follow us across the harbor. I suggested that he take off the crocs he was wearing and put on a pair of tennis shoes, and when he told me that he only had the crocs to wear, I suggested that he might want to stay inside his boat and throw his net from the gunnel, rather than risk cutting his feet or ankles on the numerous oyster reefs that are sometimes exposed in that part of the bay, and sometimes not. He insisted that he would be fine with the crocs. I politely insisted that I did not agree, but, he was welcome to come along anyway. He was so excited to be with us that it seemed to me that he would have gone barefooted, if necessary. I think I even went so far as to remind him that oysters create particularly nasty cuts that take a very long time to heal. There was no stopping him.
When we arrived at our destination, I gave Terry (not his real name) a quick tutorial on the game plan. The tide was falling rapidly, and we’d have to position ourselves quickly in certain areas of the upper harbor to block the creeks and take advantage of the falling water to net the fish as they tried to come by. The first feature that we stopped at was a bar that we have christened “The Crescent” because it is shaped like a large crescent moon. The Crescent has a feature on its back side that funnels the fish out one side with only the skinniest of outlets on the top end. It is possible to block the top end with the proper positioning of a boat and walk up the funnel while casting nets at fish that are desperately trying to come out of the feature with the tide. I asked Terry to stay with his own boat, using it to block the top end of the funnel, and me and my teen-aged son would walk up the funnel. I predicted to Terry that he would see fish trying to come out of the top end, and that if he kept it blocked properly, he would be able to throw on the fish – just like shooting ‘em in a barrel.
No sooner had Reid and I started to walk up the funnel, when I noticed that Terry had jumped out of his own boat, crocs and all, and was knee deep in the middle of the small outlet. He suddenly started hollering something that I could not discern. My son told me that from what he could hear, he thought Terry had hurt himself. The next thing I knew, Terry had climbed back up the side of his skiff and was pulling his crocs off. By the time we got to the top of the funnel a few minutes later, nearby where he had positioned his boat, it was easy to see that he was bleeding from both feet and ankles - profusely. He had really done a number on himself. Blood was everywhere.
Terry’s fishing trip was over, and I suggested that he might want to consider a trip to the emergency room. He insisted that he was fine, and that he would go ahead down the harbor and dock behind his beach house, and let his wife tend to him. We swapped cell phone numbers, and I told him that he was always welcome to come back out with us at any point in the future when he wanted. Secretly, I was pretty sure he’d bring along a pair of tennis shoes for the next trip. We all three shook hands good-bye, and then my son and I turned back to the business at hand – slaying the beastly Mr. Mullet. Terry grimaced and pointed his boat toward the mouth of the harbor. It would take him fifteen or twenty minutes to get there. I was hoping he would not bleed out first.
Once the cooler on our boat was full, we headed back to the launch. On the way home, I called Terry’s cell phone, and it was answered by a woman. I asked to speak to Terry, and the woman asked “may I say who’s calling?”. I told her to tell him that it was his “mullet fishing buddy”. He was laughing as he picked up the phone and assured me that he was going to be fine. He mentioned that he’d made a note to be sure and listen carefully on future mullet fishing trips with me to any advice or directive that I was giving. He assured me that he was in good hands, and we agreed to put together a future expedition as soon as he was healed.
I did not find out until much MUCH later in my future mullet fishing friendship with this man, that not too many years hence, he had lost his own son – his hunting and fishing buddy – to a sudden catastrophic heart failure when the young man was in his mid-20’s. The loss was completely unexpected, and totally without explanation. I found out after many future fishing trips, that Terry had been grieving the loss for many years. And, until he met us at the sand launch that fateful afternoon, he had not so much as touched his mullet net – the same one that his deceased son had used for years – and had instead only looked at it laying in the storage compartment of the boat – each time thinking of his son ----- that is, until he met the Tilley boys.
Terry was pretty impressed that a couple of Wakulla boys, namely me and my son Reid, would pull him in to the Top Secret world of in-harbor mullet fishing. Actually, he was more than impressed – he was stunned. But my own mullet fishing philosophy has always been “inclusive” rather than “exclusive”. I was taught “The-More-The-Merrier” method by my mullet fishing professors. Besides, the fishing is great, and it only gets better each year. The Harbor is full of mullet. Sometimes, it seems you can walk across the water on them, and never even get your shoes wet. There is plenty for everybody. In my not-so-humble opinion, the mullet fishery is one of Florida’s greatest and least-known resources.
I want to go ahead and tell you right now, before I get any further into this story, that it’s my strong belief that we, as moms and dads, only rent our kids. We don’t own them. We never did. We were given charge of them, that’s all. And one day out in the distant - or maybe not-so-distant future - they have to be given back. You might think you own your kids. You might think you made them, that you were given charge of them, and that you control their destinies. That’s all human illusion. You don’t and you never did.
Maybe, if you are like me and my wife, you might still be around when the giving back process takes place. That’s right, we belong to a club that I like to say no parent should ever become a member of. That’s the club of having to put together the funeral of one of your own children. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who have membership in that club. Most don’t go around talking about it. When you are a member of the club, you make mental note of people you run across in the community who are fellow members. You don’t hand them a membership card, but you make a note of them in your mind. You lay down a mental marker. And, you silently wonder how they processed their loss. You are constantly holding up your own painful emotions as a backdrop for others – comparing how you coped to how you perceive the other person probably coped. As I said, there are more people that belong to the club than any of us would have otherwise guessed. My brand-new mullet fishing pal Terry was a member.
When my now 17-year-old son was late back from a hog hunting trip out into the middle of the Ochlocknee swamp last spring, I had to remind myself of my philosophy of “only renting your kids”. Although I am not a hog hunter, I am well aware of the dangers and risks involved. And, unfortunately, there is no cell phone service that far out. So, listing them in order of importance, you have the danger posed by the wild hog or hogs. Then, you have the dangers that can exist in the forest itself, from rattlesnakes to bears to simply getting lost. Don’t forget that there are swamps and creeks to ford, not to mention a river that the boys have been known to swim across to get to prime hog hunting areas. There’s the weather, and there are weapons for dispatching the hogs and weapons for protecting yourself from a particularly vicious hog. The list goes on and on. You can probably appreciate my concern when the boys were a bit late checking in.
Despite my apprehension, I had to recognize two things about raising a teenaged son in the Deep South: if you don’t trust him to take care of himself in the Big Woods of Life, don’t turn him loose to participate. Instead, make him stay home and play video games. Two, he’s not yours to keep – he never was, and he never will be. He’s given his heart and life to Jesus, he did that as a child when he walked the aisle of a Baptist church in North Carolina. He belongs to the Creator of the Universe and nobody else – even though his momma and girlfriend might argue otherwise!
So, when the story of Terry’s loss came to my attention over time, it was particularly poignant for me. No story of such personal loss should be anything less than incredibly poignant, but this story really touched me. Over the months that our relationship unfolded, I learned that Terry and his wife had twins boys. The child they lost died of congestive heart failure. He had been the one that must have been just like my own son: an outdoorsman. He was a young man who either had to be in the water, or on the water or in the woods. If he was like my own son, he was constantly delivering catfish or bass or mullet or redfish or grouper to the dinner table. Did I mention bream, redbellies and warmouth? Speckled perch? Seatrout? Spanish Mackerel? Sheepshead? I’m sure you get the picture. Depending on the season, he would have been calling a turkey, or turning out a pack of dogs on a deer trail, or setting up a stand and feeder. As mentioned, my own son is also an avid hog hunter. It’s always a treat to have him out on the water mullet fishing with me, because he getting so independent with his other pursuits, that I rarely see him, otherwise.
When a child is lost, the hole it leaves in in your life indescribably big. When that event took place in my own life, the only counseling that I received that seemed at all to help was from my father, who has since gone to be with The Lord. That advice was the simple proposition that there are some points in our lives where we simply have to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other. In other words, he was telling me that I had to figure out a way to somehow get my life moving again. That process could only start with small steps. But, the journey had to start, and the only person who could make that happen was me. Other than those few words, there was no amount of consoling or kindness by others that could take away the sting of the loss of my daughter. It’s been now many years since her loss. Even the passage of time is not much of a help. On the other hand, the rock-solid knowledge that I have that I will get to spend an eternity around God’s throne with her and the rest of my family is incredibly comforting.
It was important for me to listen to Terry and encourage him. He had already transited most – if not all – of the drawn out grieving process. But, that mullet net still represented one big obstacle. His son had used it a lot, Terry, not so much. His son had been in his mid-twenties when a congenital heart defect suddenly felled him. He had been in life’s prime. The promise of the future was huge, and you can bet that his dad was as proud of him as any dad could be. The mullet net that been so used by the young man during his youth represented a very big connection to his son for Terry. Embodied in that net were the memories of his son doing the things that he loved to do. It was a big connection back to that period of time.
I went out of my way to stay in touch with Terry and make sure that he had every opportunity possible to fish with me. I was always sending a text or making a phone call. I was lending him nets and coaching him on where to buy new nets. We fished together many times over the next couple of years, and he caught more than his share of fish. He’d call me to let me know that he enjoyed the last trip, or that he was the king of the fish fry for showing up with a cooler full of fresh mullet. I always enjoyed his company and was pleased that my simple invitation that day at the boat ramp to have my own son assist with the launch of his skiff, allowed me to get to know him. Was my invitation to mullet fish the last part of that process to help him “put one foot in front of the other”? I’d like to think so.
It took some time, but Terry eventually shared with me how he had struggled over the years to bounce back and to cope with the loss of his son. He once told me the story of how he could not bring himself to pick up the mullet net that his son had used over the years. He could not bring himself to use it. He could not bear the thought of holding the same net with which his son had had such carefree fun. I was able to share with him my own experiences of the loss of a child – something that I had vowed privately years before to never speak of. It was such a decades-long load off my chest to converse with another man who’d had a similar experience. I ruefully call it “The Club No Parent Should Belong To”.
When Terry got the chance to be shown around the Harbor and taught the techniques that we use to trap and catch mullet, he jumped right in – literally. In fact, on that first trip, he jumped in with crocs on his feet and cut himself to pieces on the oysters hiding in the murky water below. It took him all summer to heal up. But the next season, he was fit and ready. We put together several highly successful kayak mullet fishing trips around the Harbor that same summer. But the trip that stands out in my memory was the last one of the season.
I don’t mullet fish during the cold weather months. The reason: I like to get into the water and chase those scaly critters. And, when the water starts to get cold, most of the fun of the sport seems to depart. Then, once the fall wears on, the mullet leave the inshore areas in our part of the Gulf of Mexico for the offshore briny deep where they spawn. They school up in truly astonishing masses prior to leaving. The Harbor is nothing more than a flat piece of water from late Fall until April. No more fish jumping by the thousands. I’ll occasionally drive out to the Harbor in the middle of winter, just to stand on the shore and imagine what it will look like once the warm weather returns. Even on a warm, sunlit day, the Harbor seems forlorn and lonely at that time of the year. A good friend once referred to the hunting and fishing calendar as “The Redneck Circle of Life”. He went on to explain that “you fish during the warm, and you hunt during the cold”. That pretty much sums it all up.
As I recall, it was a warm day, but way past the first of November. The air temperatures were comfortable, but the water had cooled considerably. A couple of cold fronts had likely already come through. I had warned Terry that there might not be any fish left in the Harbor by this time. They were already schooling and leaving for the year. He insisted that we try. So, I met him at the launch with the kayaks, coolers and plenty of ice. The tide was going to favor us that day, and we’d have plenty of time to work the falling tide and catch a nice mess of fish. As mentioned, the water was unexpectedly chilly. I would have likened it to be something on the order of Wakulla Springs’ temperatures – probably a shade less than 70°f. I never thought twice about it because the air was warm and the sun was shining – and besides, there were mullet to catch!
The fish cooperated pretty nicely, and I am sure that we rounded up the last of stragglers that were left in the Harbor. As the day wore on, we both had filled the coolers on the backs of the kayaks. I had been so busy with my own fishing that had not noticed that Terry, positioned on an oyster bar a couple of hundred yards away, was standing slumped over and still. He was not casting, just standing. I packed up my net and paddled over to him, ready to suggest that the day was long spent and it was time to head in. When my boat approached the bar, I could see that he was trembling and his lips were blue. When I asked if he was ready to go, he eagerly indicated that he was. As we paddled our two kayaks toward the launch, I kept a concerned eye on him. The cold had apparently snuck up on him. Me, on the other hand, with all my insulation, I never noticed it. Terry, on the other hand, sports little extra bulk around his mid-section.
Fortunately, we made it to the launch without a problem, and I promptly loaded Terry’s cooler and belongings in his truck, and sent him on his way. He had dried off and wrapped himself up before heading out. I then loaded the kayaks on my truck and headed home myself. It had been a good day. It was what I also knew to be that last trip of that season. I would not see Terry again for months. Our paths never cross except over the opportunity of catching mullet together.
The following season, when we were once more out on the water together, Terry told me the rest of the story about that trip. He told me that once the heater sufficiently warmed up in his truck, he rode with it full blast all the way home to Tallahassee, and was still shaking like a leaf once he got there more than an hour later. He said he went straight from the truck to the hottest tub bath he’d taken in years. And, after a good scalding in the tub, he went straight to bed under a pile of blankets. We both had to laugh, and I reminded him that he needs to sport a bit more girth to provide insulation for such trips!
But on a more serious note, let this cautionary tale forewarn any of you who might want to chase down mullet – especially in the cool-weather months of the calendar. This story should once more prove what we already know about Mr. Mullet: he’s a very dangerous adversary. He’d probably kill ya if he was given half a chance. But, as long as I’m around, he’ll never get that opportunity. As I was able to point out to one of the younger fishermen who accompanied me one day out on the water, the reason why mullet are so smart is because they swim in schools. Just call me “Professor Tilley”!
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