Before we can even unstrap the canoes, JT starts working a plug around Burnt Bridge’s charred wooden pilings. While Read and I haul our gear to the water’s edge, he’s fighting bass. It would be a waste of breath to suggest that we make camp before we go fishing; JT looks like a man possessed and Read is just salivating. Read climbs into the bow of my canoe, and JT paddles himself double-time toward the opposite shoreline.

Low water allows for comfortable camping beneath old-growth cypress.

While Read knows more about boat-handling than a lot of captains, he’s new to canoeing. I explain to him what “draw left,” and “draw right” means, but first I tell him that the bowman mostly just needs to make long steady strokes that begin with a vertical dip of the paddle into the water. I also explain that by pushing forward with the top hand while the paddle moves sternward, he can save his bottom arm a lot of stress. But like a good fly-casting stroke, good paddling stroke skills are discovered by feel, and at that moment all Read really wants to feel is a deeply bent rod.

Bluegill beds dot most of the oxbow’s shores. We need something for the frying pan, so I hand Read a 4-pound spinner rigged with a small black-and-yellow Beetle Spin. Although he’s a bluewater expert, Read has never had to make pinpoint casts from a seated position in a canoe. His first cast lands way short, but something swipes the little spinner anyway. Read rears back like he’s jerking an amberjack off a wreck and the Beetle Spin whistles over our heads like a .22 Hornet.

“Junior,” I say, “I’m really not into piercings; when you feel a strike just keep on reeling.”

Read proceeds to drop half a dozen, paddle-width-sized bull bluegills into my lap. Meanwhile JT, who’s also fishing with an ultralight, is busy with a 4-pound bass that’s towing him across the creek. It buries itself in duckweed, so JT paddles over, reaches down, and jerks the fat fish out. When Read and I paddle over to admire the fish three humongous gators surface wearing covetous looks. JT releases the fish into the safety of the weeds.

“I don’t think I’m going to set up quite so hard,” he says, while he rocks the canoe gently to underscore the need for caution.

Read keeps tossing the Beetle Spin out until we have enough panfish fillets for dinner. But after watching JT catch that nice bass Read casts the Beetlespin without much enthusiasm. Although he’s never caught one, the lad’s got a case of bass fever, and he’s studying JT’s every move. Finally, he turns to me and says, “Terry, show me how to rig those worms so I can throw them in the weeds like that.”

Although big bass will devour the tiniest spinnerbaits, nothing works better in Florida’s blackwater creeks than a Texas-rigged 4-inch plastic worm fished on an ultralight spinning rod. If there’s much wind or current, it’s necessary to thread a small bullet weight above your worm; but the conditions are calm and the current moves slowly so I show Read how to Texas-rig a worm sans weight.

“Without a weight, the worm has a much more lively action,” I explain.

It takes Read a few casts to learn to work the worm slowly enough and to give it action without throwing too much slack in the line. It takes him a couple of misses to get a feel for how long he needs to wait to set the hook. And it takes a deliberate splashing with my paddle to get him to stop dropping fish into my lap. But I am getting one helluva charge out of watching the kid tussle with these sinewy creek fish, which fight much harder pound for pound than larger bass that live in still water.

“These guys think they’re huge,” Read says, as he lips a splashing schoolie.

The three of us fish down opposite sides of the wide stretch of creek flowing out of the Burnt Bridge oxbow. By late morning, enough breeze blows that I have to slow our drift with continuous reverse paddling. JT, fishing alone in his own boat, deals with the wind as best he can by hugging the leeward shore while casting parallel to the bank. That angle allows him to cover shorelines most effectively and he catches a bass about every cast. But, both of us wish we’d brought bell anchors, and I won’t canoe the creek again without one.