Mac's Skiff

And a boy and his dog

In the 24 installments in the series, Mac has gone through a lot of boats. Over time his needs have changed and with his current lifestyle, mostly hanging out in the backcountry there is nothing better than a skiff. These can run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to a five thousand dollar special. High-end flats boats with jack plates, poling and angling platforms, trolling motors, and oversized engines are pretty common. None of them really fit Mac’s personality or how he would use it. A polished fiberglass fishing platform is not made for picking up barnacle-encrusted crab traps, but a decked out jon boat is—and it can fish.

My and Mac’s Skiff

Tied to his fishing philosophy the boat works perfectly for his backcountry endeavors and his once every week or so commutes to Big Pine Key.

Mac has become a hunter more than a fisherman. He fishes for food when he needs it but otherwise he’d rather not kill just to fish. Catch and release is an open question in his mind. There is something to be said for scouting a hundred pound tarpon, choosing a fly and presenting it in an enticing manner then hooking and bringing the fish to the boat. Of that typical sequence of operations it has become the finding part—the hunt—that Mac has found himself most interested in.

And it’s not easy. The tides in the backcountry of the Lower Keys are a mystery to most who live there. Not only are there tide stations every mile in some places, they are unpredictable. Figuring them out is the subject of books, not quick posts.

There are many parts of me that are Mac and Mac that are me. This is one. I still love to fish offshore, but that’s not an everyday thing for me. My freezer is rarely empty and the price of gas makes long runs unpalatable.That leaves the miles of backcountry at my doorstep. I can travel out of the canal system where we live (which is the same where Pamela and Trufante live in the books) and inside of fifteen minutes can lose myself in the mangrove islands and channels.

This is a me and the dog kind of thing, so it’s not always possible to fish because he’ll bark at things, both seen and unseen. He has a penchant for sniffing out dolphins and sharks before I see them and whose life mission is to rid the world of cormorants.

I’m working my way around the shorelines of both the named and unnamed Keys just as I imagine Mac would do. I still have my Worldcat for the ocean side but I love taking this skiff out in the backcountry.