I’m not a horrible fly fisherman, I’m really not. My casts could be better, sure, my hook sets may not be quite the thing, and when I actually hook a fish I may not land it, but I’m not always incompetent. Some days the sun shines. Natheless I’m skunked again in Margeritaville. I’m worn out with Florida, and last weekend I failed to catch any fish.

It wasn’t my fault exactly, and it certainly wasn’t Captain Court Douthit’s (pronounce Dow-thit’s) fault. Court clearly loves Florida and the fish and the sport and he’s investing a big part of his life in it. That’s why people like me need guides: I want to learn something, I need a boat, I don’t know the water or the fish . . . That’s why you pay good guides: they make the investment to know what you don’t and have the stuff that you need that you don’t have. Our first day out what Court had was a plan, and given the weather it was a good plan, but fishing is a sadomasochistic sport, and fly fishing even more so. Some days one’s not the sado. This weekend we weren’t the sado.

We fished the Gulf side out of Dunedin (pronounced Done Eatin’, which in Gaelic means cute shops), not in Tampa Bay. Dunedin is protected by narrow barrier islands, and the other side of the barrier islands, what Court called the beach side, was where the tarpon usually cruised. We weren’t going out there though. We couldn’t have seen whales cruising and the waves were downright scary. Instead we looked for tarpon on the leeward side of the islands. All we found were crusty old guys in boats (“That’s Old Bag of Rocks. He had his driver’s license taken away because he’s blind. He carries a bag of rocks to chunk at jet skiers.”)

The weather was all wrong. For all I know there’s never any sunshine in Tampa, it’s always overcast except when it storms, and the wind always blows hard. Sunshine and calm waters in Tampa may be like hatches: a practical joke to play on unsuspecting Texans. The night before we’d gone to bed during lashings o’ rain and lightning. We figured the next morning on the water it could get bad. It got bad. Before it got really bad Court polled us across a flat looking for snook. I got some casts which landed somewhere near a snook, so of course it turned and moseyed off in the other direction. Mostly we saw a lot of mullet stacked up on the sand.

It never rained but I still got soaked. Coming back through the slop to the marina the waves were fast and high, and we had buckets of saltwater spray us with each wave. It wasn’t cold, and as spa treatments go it was fine. It would have been better though if Court had fixed us a nice cup of herbal tea to go with the salt rub.

It was obvious Captain Court felt bad, but there was no reason for it. He’d taken a risk to get us out on the water and we appreciated it. He said the forecast was the same the next day (pronounced it’s going to be crap again tomorrow and there’s no reason to try the same thing), but that if it wasn’t lightning we should try something else the next night.

Dunedin is a pretty little town with a pretty little marina that looks like somebody set Georgetown down on the Florida coast. It was charming. At the little marina diner we ate fresh tuna and avocado carpaccio with ginger and lime, called in South Florida tuna poke. Most marina diners would have had grilled cheese or burgers with soggy fries, and the raw fresh tuna was a big improvement. So were the fresh grouper tacos. They also had local beers, and after lunch I took a nap in the car while Kris checked out the shops. Success.

Our day wasn’t done, and except for the diner and the nap it didn’t get better.  Not only did we get skunked and drenched, the Astros lost to the Rays. The Rays are a fine young team, and the Astros’ offense was dead, their defense was sloppy, and Gerrit Cole pitched subpar.  The stadium also lived down to its reputation. The crowd (pronounced the stadium was mostly empty) was friendly and the food and beer was surprisingly good. There were a lot of Astros fans, and also some Rays fans, but it was sparsely populated. I found a Tampa friend from my favorite Astros fan site just by looking. He was pretty much sitting next to us. I had prime seats that I’d bought as soon as tickets went on sale. He’d bought his tickets that morning. Not much demand.

Saturday morning there was lightning and rain. We went to the St. Petersburg fine arts museum, which was small but nice enough and which had some fine Asian pieces, and the St. Petersburg history museum which houses the world’s largest collection of autographed baseballs. By game time the weather had cleared enough to fish the underwater dock lights for snook and baby tarpon, 20 to 40 pounds. We’d have some visibility to spot fish against the underwater lights. Kris was all for it, and I’m all for Kris.

* * *

Kris asked me where we were going to eat in Tampa, and I told her Hooters. Actually, I told her that there was a famous national restaurant chain founded in Tampa and that we should go there. She asked which one and I said I can’t remember the name.

“What’s it famous for?”

“Breasts.”

“Chicken?” I hadn’t considered chicken.

“No, lady breasts.”

“Twin Peaks?” No. “Hooters?” That was the one. “I guess it’s because of all the owls in Tampa,” she said.

I know Hooters was founded in Tampa because six years ago my friend Patrick was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Patrick has his peculiarities.

The first day he left the convention for food, but every civic volunteer suggested Hooters. It was founded in Tampa. What good Republican wouldn’t want to go to Hooters? Patrick wouldn’t want to go to Hooters. After the third or fifteenth Hooters suggestion someone suggested a Thai restaurant.

Now I’m stealing Patrick’s story, and it is one of the best stories ever. Ever. Patrick, if for some odd reason you ever see this forgive me, but I can’t resist. It’s the best story ever.

When Patrick got back to Austin from Tampa he called me. “You won’t believe who I met in Tampa! Mark Naimus!” “Who?” “Mark Naimus!” “Who is Mark Naimus?” “What are you talking about! You know Martin Amis!”

Each Texas delegate had a straw Stetson, blue jeans, and a Lone Star Flag pearl-snap shirt. It was a handsome ensemble. Then-governor Rick Perry autographed Patrick’s Stetson on the font brim, and future-governor Greg Abbott autographed it on the back.  When he went into the Thai restaurant in full regalia Patrick spotted Martin Amis at the bar. Now think about that for a second: it wasn’t somebody you or I would recognize. It wasn’t John Wayne or Elvis Presley or Paul McCartney. It wasn’t even Stephen King. It was Martin Amis. Patrick, who’d just finished Lionel Asbo, recognized Amis and introduced himself.

Amis was covering the convention for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Patrick told Amis that he’d just read Lionel Asbo, and then they talked about Laurent Binet’s HHhH, a French novel that had won the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman and which they both admired. It’s a very good novel which of course I hadn’t heard of. Martin Amis autographed the crown of Patrick’s hat, and I’m pretty certain it is now the only cowboy hat anywhere autographed by Rick Perry, Greg Abbott, and Martin Amis.

The next day Patrick was on the floor of the convention and a runner tracked him down. Mr. Amis was making a film of the convention for the Daily Beast. Mr. Amis was wondering if Patrick and other members of the Texas delegation would agree to an interview. Mr. Amis would come to their motel to film the interview.

So when Patrick called me bubbling about meeting Martin Amis I said Patrick, you know what’s going to happen. Martin Amis, sardonic, liberal, witty, is going to shred you. No no Patrick insisted. We talked by the pool about books for an hour!

“It was great!’ Ok, Patrick may not have said it was great, but you could tell he surely thought so.

So the video was posted by the Daily Beast, and sure enough, Martin Amis shredded the Republican Party and the convention and in the middle of the film, wearing his Stetson, is Patrick, and Amis treats a delegate to the Republican National Convention with the greatest delicacy, the greatest kindness. And who wouldn’t?

And of course there’s that hat.

* * *

The Astros lost Saturday’s game as well, with some bad luck and some sub-par pitching by Justin Verlander and more dead bats. At 9 that night we met Court in a St. Petersburg neighborhood park to fish the boat slips for snook and baby tarpon. We fished until 4 the next morning.

If you don’t fish saltwater you may not know about fish lights. Bait is attracted to light. Game fish are attracted to bait.  Any light works, but spooky underwater green lights work best of all. I figure that the bait thinks it’s natural plankton luminescence, and being planktivorish it shows up to gorge. It’s not a very good theory, and as far as I know planktivorish isn’t a word, but it’s something. Bait could just be dumb. Or maybe it just likes green.

Did we see fish? You betcha. Looking into those weird nighttime pools of green we saw snook and baby tarpon enough to make any sight fisher happy. Over the seven hours we fished, moving from dock to dock, I must have made 300 casts to fish, at least some of which were in the vicinity of fish. Kris must have made another 100 casts–She didn’t want to come back to Florida so she let me cast more than was my due. Court put us on fish and we tried every fly, small light, small dark, large light, large dark, gurglers, purple things that looked like Cookie Monster, green things, tan things, and back to small white, small dark  . . . Nothing worked until . . . Skip that. Nothing worked.

I had three hits, three, all of which I pulled out of the fish’s mouth with a trout set–don’t tell Captain Court, but I swear I have an excuse.  Nine o’clock is my bedtime. It’s not when I start fishing.

By the next morning we were punch drunk and exhausted and had caught nada, but we’d seen baby tarpon roll by the dozens, flashing up through the green glow and hitting the surface like big salmon taking a fly. Just not my fly. At least we didn’t get a sunburn. Not that the sun ever shines in Tampa.

When you’ve got two days in a strange place to catch fish there are no guarantees that either the fish or the weather will cooperate, and there are never any guarantees fishing for saltwater fish. If we’d had longer the weather would have cooperated and sooner or later we would have landed a fish, but we ran out of sooner with no later at all. I would fish with Captain Court again in a heart beat. I just hope next time its a bit luckier day. Or a bit luckier night.

* * *

We didn’t eat at Hooters. Mostly we ate at the ballpark except for the marina diner and the first night at Columbia in Ybor City with Kris’s 34-year-ago maid-of-honor and her husband.  I bought some cigars in a random cigar roller’s shop.  I didn’t miss Hooters, and no one suggested Thai.  We didn’t see Martin Amis.