Jimmy Rodrigue paced the dock impatiently as the sun broke free from the Apalachicola horizon. The temperature already neared 80°F. It was going to be brutally hot and Ricky was late—again. It never failed; Ricky would call up at the last minute and beg for a day of fishing during Jimmy's busy season. Jimmy always gave in because he liked the guy. Besides, it was hard not to feel sorry for Ricky after everything he had been through. But this was serious. The fish weren't going to wait for Ricky to drag his worthless ass out of bed.

This time of year, Jimmy spent nearly every day on the water being paid $350 a trip to sell his fishing secrets to others. He made enough money during the summer months to support his wife and daughter for the entire year. Jimmy wasn't rich, but he paid the bills. Most of his customers were regulars, including Ricky, who had been fishing with Jimmy since college. Then again, most of his other regular customers showed up on time. Jimmy checked his watch again; it was almost seven.

Forty minutes late, Ricky Robertson stumbled down the dock with a battered blue cooler in one hand and an ancient flyrod in the other. First it was the conference call that ran late so he got caught in Atlanta traffic. Then the rundown hotel on the river didn't have wake up calls. And he forgot his alarm clock. This was supposed to be a vacation not an endurance event. "Hey Jimmy!" Ricky beamed with hopeful enthusiasm, knowing that he was in trouble.

Jimmy took a minute to appraise his wayward client. Ricky was pushing thirty, the same age as Jimmy, but his body was shaped by too many hours spent in the office. His athletic build was starting to gravitate southward and his handsome and once tan face was now drawn and pale. He wore a broad-brim hat, faded pink shirt, baggy green shorts and ridiculous flip-flops—probably purchased from the same convenience store where Ricky bought the beer currently sloshing in his cooler. Ricky's pale skin was painful to look at in the early morning sunlight.

Jimmy shook his head slowly. He knew no amount of chastising would change Ricky's tardy ways. "Ricky," Jimmy said dryly, "Next time you go to the beach, you should get out of the car. I've seen better tans on fish bellies."

Ricky glanced down at his white legs and laughed in his good-natured way that always endeared him to people. It made Jimmy laugh in spite of himself.

"Sorry I'm late, boss," Ricky said as they loaded the last of the gear into the boat.

"Tell it to the fish," Jimmy answered as he cranked the engine and pushed away from the dock. As Jimmy's boat sped across the flats, Ricky felt his world decompress. The early morning sun colored the water gold with accents of white provided by the wading shorebirds. The light wind was magnified by the speed of the skiff as it sped through the shallow water. Ricky didn't ask where they were going and didn't really care. He knew better than to pester Jimmy with questions this early in the morning. Jimmy knew where he was going and that was good enough. Ricky closed his eyes and settled in for the ride.

Jimmy ran the boat through a series of salt marshes until they escaped into a deep cove framed by the mainland on one side and Apalachicola Bay on the other. The calm water rippled as Jimmy cut the engine and began to drift with the incoming tide. A great blue heron walked gingerly in the shallows looking for minnows.

Under the bright sky it was difficult to tell where the water ended and the sky began. Jimmy scanned the horizon, looking for the giant osprey nest that appeared last fall. The osprey was there, watching Jimmy carefully, waiting for him to spook fish from their hiding places.

Jimmy glanced down at his friend who had somehow managed to fall asleep despite the 60 mph ride through shallow water. Jimmy pried open the live well and scooped out a particularly active pilchard which he slid down the back of Ricky's shirt. As the baitfish made its way down Ricky's spine, he jumped up, tripped over the cooler and narrowly avoided falling overboard by grabbing the center console of the skiff. "I'm up, damnit!" he growled at Jimmy.

"Good," Jimmy replied, "Let's start fishing."

Ricky tried to blink himself awake. "Where are we?" he asked.

"Jurassic Park or the G-Spot" Jimmy answered, "Depends on who you ask."

"Well, I'm asking you, Captain, since you are the only one here."

"We are in the middle of Jurassic Park… where all the big dinosaurs live. That's what we are fishing for, a big old dinosaur of a tarpon."

"And the G-Spot?" Ricky wondered.

"Because that is where all the action is," Jimmy replied.

They spent the rest of the morning searching for tarpon. Jimmy spotted a few singles but Ricky pressed too hard and missed the cast. They had one good hook-up but it turned out to be a six-foot bull shark. While Ricky was excited to finally catch something, Jimmy was relieved when the line broke and the shark swam off.

As the sun climbed higher into the Florida sky, Jimmy stood on the poling platform scanning the water for movement. Ricky stopped fishing and started drinking. "How ‘bout it, Jimmy? You want to call it a day?" Ricky asked between gulps of the ice-cold beer.

"Not yet, brother, not even close," Jimmy answered without taking his eyes off water. He finally saw what they needed. There were pods of tarpon rolling on the surface about two hundred yards away. Jimmy began slowly poling the flats boat closer to the circling fish. They could hear the sound of the fish gulping air from the prehistoric lung on their backs.

"Get ready. Thirty yards at two o'clock. Keep it in front of him," Jimmy ordered. Ricky looked but couldn't see anything but water. "Just put the fly out there nice and soft," Jimmy was whispering now.

Ricky made two quick false casts and then let the line go. For once his timing was right and Ricky sent the fly just where Jimmy had told him. As he began to strip the fly back he felt a tug at the other end.

"For the love of God, set the hook!" Jimmy yelled. Ricky reared back with all of his strength. There was a pause and then less than twenty yards from the boat the tarpon erupted from the surface of the water, gills rattling like silver armor. As the fish hung in mid-air, it was eye to eye with Ricky. The 100-pound fish made a leap that was close to ten feet above the surface of the water.

After a series of spectacular jumps, the fish stripped off 200 yards of line and backing from the reel in just a few seconds. It would take Ricky almost half an hour to get half that much line back. For every twenty yards Ricky would retrieve, the fish would take back ten spirit-sapping yards.

An electronic chime of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony rang out from Ricky's cooler. "Can you get that, Jimmy? I'm kinda busy right now," Ricky gasped as he fought the fish.

"Sure. No problem," Jimmy replied. He opened the cooler, dug out the cell phone from a plastic bag and threw it into the bay. "If there is anything more important in your life right now than catching that fish, let's do you both a favor and go home."

Another ten minutes passed and Jimmy felt the air cool behind him. He turned and saw the thunderheads that had engulfed the horizon. Jimmy knew they should break off the fish and head for cover, but they were so close. A few more minutes would do it.

The temperature dropped 20°F as the cold rain began to fall. The entire skyline was black behind them. The distant rumbles of thunder grew louder and closer as Ricky fought the fish. Jimmy could see the flashes of lightning behind them. Every time Ricky got the fish close, it would see the boat and strip off another fifty yards of line.

"This is too dangerous," Jimmy thought. He started forward but Ricky said, "I think I've got him." Ricky was gaining line with every turn of the reel. Jimmy laid flat on the casting deck next to where Ricky was standing. As Ricky reeled in the line, Jimmy reached over the side of the boat and wrapped his hand once through the leader and brought the big fish to the boat. Its enormous body broke the surface.

Jimmy touched the fish along its side and pulled free a single scale. He turned to look at Ricky. As the air heated up around them, Jimmy heard a crackling sound followed by a catastrophic roar. The hairs on Jimmy's arms stood straight up. He saw the flash as the lightning ripped past their heads and struck the nearby channel marker. The buoy exploded and the water around it began to boil.

Just then the fish surged and broke the leader. Jimmy handed the tarpon scale to Ricky and cranked the engine. They ran the boat at full throttle through the shallow water. The heavy rain felt like pin pricks as they raced for safety. Ricky kept his head down studying the day's only trophy. The tarpon scale was silver with a bluish tint and nearly as big around as a CD.

Ricky started laughing. "What's so funny?" Jimmy yelled above the engine.

"Nothing," Ricky answered. "Every once in a while you have to do something really stupid just so you know you are still alive."

"You're alive now buddy… but just barely," Jimmy said with a smile.