A shaft of bright morning sunlight shattered into sparks as it struck the glistening tail of a redfish waving in air above the foot-deep flat. The range was fairly long, but I somehow tossed out a decent cast, plopping the weedless spoon on line with the target and well beyond it. Holding my rod high to keep the line from disturbing the surface, I cranked slowly and brought the shimmying lure within an inch of the emergent tail. Since the fish was standing on its head, that was also as close as I could come to its mouth.

Nothing happened.

My next cast was more impatient but no less accurate, and it reaped the same results. By the time I completed the identical procedure yet again, the little boat was sitting only 10 feet away from that still-beckoning tail, which already had been exposed to the sun for so long that it risked getting cancer.

As a last resort, I pinned a live shrimp to the bare hook of another spinning outfit and, with my right arm extended full-length, lowered what I knew to be an irresistible bait straight down alongside that dancing tail on a collision course with the end that eats. I closed the bail and waited. And waited some more. And, finally, I had to accept the obvious: My irresistible bait had met an imperturbable object.

Somewhere down there--beneath a foot of water, three or four inches of skimpy grass and an unfathomable depth of Florida Bay ooze--some sort of tasty creature, probably a tiny crab, had managed to burrow itself to safety. No telling how deep that redfish had stuck his snoot into the mud to grub for the elusive prize, but it certainly was deep enough to blot out all cognizance of anything at higher elevations.

I almost caught that redfish anyway. One more stroke of the pole brought the bow of my skiff close enough for me to kneel down and grab his teasing tail with my good right hand. For a moment, he was mine, but those things are not only stubborn, they're slippery. At least I made the tail go back under the water where it belonged.

Every angler has his own idea about which species is the gamest. In my view, there isn't any contest. It's the redfish.

Now, if any of you supporters of such also-rans as marlin, dolphin, kingfish and tarpon are beginning to choke on your own indignation, I beg you to go back and reread the opening episode, which is one of only many examples of how game the redfish really is.

The redfish is the gamest fish of all, for the simple reason that it knows how to play the most games--and the most entertaining games to boot--although the poor fishermen may not enjoy them until much later. All good fish will keep you guessing, but redfish seem to keep themselves guessing, too. The tricks they play and the performances they put on always seem to be spontaneous--as much a surprise to the redfish as to you. For example, I have known redfish to be disappointed at getting off the hook. On more than one occasion, I have had my lure pull out after having fought redfish with fully bent rod for up to perhaps a minute, and then watched in amazement as the perplexed fish looked around for the missing spoon or jig, spotted it and rushed forth to grab it once more. Can you think of any other fish so willing to play the angler's game?

Redfish make up the rules of their little games as they go along, and if the fisherman is playing by a different set of rules--too bad.

Last summer I boated to the end of a spoil island off Crystal River on Florida's Northwest Coast, with only one goal in mind and a proven game plan in place for reaching it.

I wanted to tangle myself up with a redfish considerably bigger than the 27-inch maximum keeper size. Three local experts had explained to me exactly how it must be done in that particular spot: You anchor up just off the edge of the channel, hook a good-size pinfish below a float, and wait. All three informants had--separately--told me exactly the same thing, so how could I doubt it?