The grassflats of North Biscayne Bay are still prducing seatrout.

A few minutes later Bouncer comes back. “The bite’s red-hot out here.”

“Thanks, Bouncer.” Then, to Ray and me, “All right, we’ll go check it out.”

From corner gunnel rodholders, Dennis runs a pair of light trolling rods rigged with small chrome-head trolling lures on 6-foot, 80-pound mono leaders and 7/0 hooks. Down the middle, on a 30-pound-class outfit spooled up with 50-pound braid, he sends out a No. 3 planer trailing about 60 feet of 80-pound mono and a 3.5 Drone spoon—a longtime kingfish and wahoo favorite.

Before long Ray is merrily cranking in dolphin. Forgione keeps up a good clip, around 7 knots, zigzagging among clumps of drifting grass. Most of the bites come while we’re pulling north, with the ocean current, which is typical.

On the way in, we wave at one of the local partyboats, returning to sea for an evening trip. Passing the curved south jetty of Bakers Haulover, I see a dozen or more fishermen with long surf rods, out at the tip by the light. I’d probably recognize a few of them. When I lived there, I spent many nights out on the jetty, catching snook, jumping tarpon, and marveling at the tenacity of local anglers who’d sit for hours, waiting on one big bite. Some nights there’d be a big permit or bonefish landed, other nights a handful of small snapper or runners. A few years ago Bal Harbour officials—whose leashes are evidently yanked by the yappy dog set—prohibited parking beneath the bridge at night, ruining a lot of people’s fun.

Back at the dock, as the sun melts over Biscayne Bay, two cats, five pelicans and a loose group of charter guys and friends gather at the fillet table behind the Free Spool. Captain Joe Turner is there, back from a summer in South Carolina, as are some other faces I recognize.

Hurricane Wilma wasn’t kind to Haulover Park; the grass is brown where the tide rose; seagrapes and portia trees are lying helter skelter. But we all know it will recover. This winter, charter bookings will climb. The ship’s store will sell fuel, ice and frozen bait. The wackos and winos, the castnetters and handliners, the throngs of sunbathers, even the nudy beach set—they’ll all be back.

The bay looks pretty good, the water hazy blue-green. A few tarpon fin next to Forgione’s boat, waiting for bits of fish carcasses. I can see there’s still vegetation on the islands down toward Broad Causeway. Even after my wife and I moved, for a couple of years we kept coming back to fish that part of the bay. I used to catch seatrout on the grassflats ringing those islands, as well as snook at canal mouths and dock lights. They’re still there.

Really the only thing not coming back, as I sadly learn from Dennis, is the big green charterboat with the shark’s teeth painted on the bow. The owner evidently left town.

That’s too bad.

If you’ve been around longer than I have, perhaps you wistfully recall the famous old Lighthouse Restaurant at Haulover, which burned in 1967.

Or maybe the old fishing pier, wrecked by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

As a relative late-comer, though, I guess I’ll never get away from an image of the Shark careening out of the inlet with a full load of well-oiled tourists, bound for the barracuda grounds.

FS