- Outdoor columnist Ben Smith goes fishing on the Mississippi Coast with a living legend in the soccer community.
The sun dropped on the horizon giving way to the bright lights of casinos dotted along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Along with the full moon, you could essentially walk the coastline without the aid of a flashlight. The harbor was silent. Charter boats gently rocked in their respective bays awaiting the next fishing adventures. The parking lot was empty. In the distance you could hear buzzing nightlife. The smell of salt water filled the air as a breeze blew in from the west. It was almost so calm and quiet that it was eerie.
The only thing buzzing around the harbor was two guys hurriedly gathering their gear into a couple of kayaks. Those two guys happened to be myself and longtime William Carey Women’s Soccer Coach Danny Owens. Danny and I have been good friends for years and both enjoy a little adventure. Most of my adventures involve hunting while most of Danny’s come from inshore fishing. The one thing he’d never really done inshore was flounder gigging. I’ve been like four times so obviously I’m a professional, so he let me be his guide for the evening.
We loaded the kayaks up in Hattiesburg along with all of the implements of destruction and headed south. There’s only about eighty miles from our homes to the fishing spot so it’s almost insane that we don’t go more. Of course, flounder gigging is a night sport and both of us enjoy our sleep. Not to mention, we’re both expected to show up and go to work the next day, as well.
And speaking of work, let me give you guys the run down on Coach Danny Owens. He boasts the only national championship from a four-year school in women’s soccer in Mississippi history. Over the last four years, his team has played in the national championship finals twice and his teams have been to the final four six different times during his career. I dare anyone to try and match those numbers from any sport at any school in the state of Mississippi. Before he was coaching at Carey, his teams won three straight high school state championships at Our Lady Academy in Bay St. Louis. And to top it all off, when he played collegiately he was a first team All-American. So yeah, I had the privilege of fishing with a living legend in the soccer community.
We got on the water just before the sun was completely down and started our kayak trek to our destination. I won’t lie to you and say there was nothing to it. The wind was whipping pretty good out of the west and combined with a strong outgoing tide made for some dicey kayaking conditions. I wasn’t necessarily concerned about flipping and drowning, but I dang sure didn’t want to flip and lose my gear. Thankfully we made it to our island safely and our night began.
As I mentioned, there was a strong outgoing tide, so fishing was pretty slow at first. We weren’t seeing any flounder, nor were we seeing any crabs which was unusual to me. The only thing we were really seeing seemed to be mullet. Every time we’d pull our lights out of the water and shine the surface ahead hundreds of them would start jumping all over the place. That’s something else that will give you a little uneasy feeling. When you’re wading around the ocean in pitch black darkness and hear splashing in the near distance there’s a tendency for the hair on the back of your neck to stand up. It probably didn’t help that my daughter had us watching Jaws the night before my trip.
It took about thirty minutes before we gigged our first flounder of the evening. We both joked that there was no way we could go back home with one fish, or we’d be the laughingstock of the office. It wasn’t long before Danny had his first fish of the evening and then we were rolling. I’m not really a professional flounder gigger as I mentioned earlier, but the one thing I’ve noticed the last couple of trips is that when the tide starts rolling back in the fish start showing up. And it couldn’t have come at a better time because I was starting to get scared the trip would be a bust.
When we reached ten total fish, Danny made the comment that they couldn’t laugh at us now. It was approaching midnight, but we were finally getting into the fish, so we decided to keep rolling. Within an hour we’d hit our two-man limit of ten fish each. See, I told you guys that I was a professional. Or maybe Danny was the pro because I’d certainly never limited out before. We made our way back to our kayaks, which I’m glad were still there. We’d beached them not thinking the tide would rise as quick as it did, and they were about ready to float off when we got back to them. On the other hand, it would have made for a much better story if we’d have had to swim back to the truck with a limit of flounder.
We were back at the truck by two o’clock and back at the house by three-thirty. Exhausted of course, but not too much to ask for a mess of fresh flounder. And if you’ve never cleaned flounder before, there will be a “how to” video on the Southern Drawl Podcast YouTube page for you to check out. It’s not that hard, but there are plenty of little bones you’ll want to avoid. And for those wondering, yes, we were both at work by eight o’clock the next morning!
Ben Smith
