parking stickers and the Washington State plates were even more conspicuous. Looking down the tracks I could see walking figures carrying spinning rods. When I reached the bridge, there was a crowd of about a dozen men sitting forlornly on the rocks. Three were standing on the bar casting poppers. The sitters looked up at me in unison and stared in amazement. Each was dressed in old, tattered, woolen remnants of high school letter jackets and mackinaws, wool watch caps, and folded down hip boots. They all seemed to know each other. Nobody knew who I was, or, in a short slicker over waders and with that long rod, what I was. There was an air of anger, and I interpreted it to be directed at me. I decided I better not fish, but just stood off to the side, watching. It quickly became evident what the problem was. The flood tide had been extraordinarily high, and had lifted off the marsh flat months of accumulated winter grass, which now floated in huge mats and strings down toward the sea. The casters with poppers were fouled immediately. They gave up and joined the watchers. Now and again a splash or a swirl would break the surface. Two or three men would wade out and tie on swimming plugs, but again would snag grass, curse and flail the water to clear it off, cast again, and repeat the process, then give up and sit down. No one fished for ten minutes. More swirls and splashes. What the hell, I thought. You only live once. I waded onto the bar and began casting. A murmur rose up behind me as I laid out a backcast, double hauled, and shot out the head across the channel. It sank immediately below the grass. Then, as I began a low stripping retrieve, the monofilament shooting line sawed back and forth, weaving alternatively onto and out of the entangling grass, and cleared itself. Terns dived, lifted, and dived again. I hooked a fish on my first cast. Louder murmur behind me. By the time I beached the second fish I had casters and plugs flying out from both sides of me. But the grass wrecked its havoc, and they, to a man, drug in long strings across the surface. I leaned back into my third fish In five minutes I was alone again, the seated noise behind me surly with animated conversation, seasoned with accents. I was afraid to listen to it. More men arrived, rushing naively into the water to fling out plugs as they spotted the breaking fish. They too began cursing and thrashing as thir plugs fouled. My pile of fish grew, some up to five and six pounds.
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