January 22, 2025
By Lani Waller
Late at night on June 12th, 2013, United Airlines flight #456 began its measured descent down toward the glittering lights of Ixtapa-Zihuantenjo airport of coastal Mexico. As the flight descended, there were two announcements. The first in Spanish, then a second in English, welcoming everyone to Mexico and telling them to return to their seats, fasten their seatbelts firmly around their waist, and place their tray in the vertical and locked position.
Burns ignored the announcement, turned, and looked out the window. One hundred miles to the east, an electrical storm was splitting the Mexican sky apart in jagged bolts of red and orange lightning and even the clouds seemed to be on fire. He wondered how long that kind of weather would be around. It makes them nervous, he thought. Especially the sailfish and marlin.
A soft voice suddenly came from his left, the voice of a woman, sweet and polite. “Sir,” she said quietly, “Do you speak English? Did you hear the announcement? We are in our initial descent, and you have to put your things away now, and bring your seat to its full and upright position.”
Burns looked up at her, smiled, and responded. “Yes, ma’am. I speak English. It will take a few moments to get all of this sorted out and organized.”
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She looked down at the pile of flies sitting in Burns’ tray. “It’s OK,” she said. “I see guys like you from time to time on this flight and you all seem the same. You have a few minutes before we hit some turbulence on the way down, so take your time.”
Burns looked up at her. “Why do we all seem the same?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Oh... I don’t know. It’s nothing bad. My dad used to do a lot of fishing back in the states when I was a girl in school. He loved it. Especially the creeks and rivers. None of us knew exactly why he was so crazy about it, but it didn’t matter to him. He just kept going. So did all his fishing buddies. But he’s been gone for a long time now, and one day, about a year after we lost him, we finally just sold all his stuff. It was odd doing that, and I still miss him. He was a great guy. A great dad.”
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Burns thought the emotional candor of her admission to a stranger seemed a little unusual, but nice. “I’m sure he was,” Burns replied. “Most fishermen are, and yeah, these things really do work.” Burns then picked up a 15-inch-long streamer. “Look at this,” he said. The blue and silver streamer fly shimmered in the light as he swam it back and forth in front of her at 25,000 feet. “This one never fails,” he said. “Never.”
“Honey, I believe you,” the stewardess replied. “I really do, but you have to start putting them away now. The captain says there will be some turbulence and I’m sure you wouldn’t want those things flying all over the economy section of this plane... would you?” She was smiling. “Who knows what you might hook,” she replied, looking toward a young man with fluorescent green hair, combed into coiling vertical spirals, no shirt on, and a red necktie around his throat. “And don’t forget to fill out your temporary tourist Visa card,” she added.
Burns smiled and nodded again and started putting his flies away. That took almost 20 minutes because he had to find the correct plastic bag for each one and because he had to straighten out all the fibers and get them all in a perfectly straight line. By the time he had them all back in the right bags, they were at 5,000 feet. There she was again. Standing there, watching him and his pile of feathers, hooks, and tinsel.
“Thank you, Mr. Burns. Now, you have a nice trip and good luck with your fishing.” Then a smile. “If I were you, I’d think about giving that pink and white thing with the big head, and rolling plastic doll eyes a good try. It reminds me of a woman I used to know.”
Burns smiled. “Maybe you’re right. I’ve got a lot of big fish on that one,” he answered as he looked up at her, suddenly realizing that most of the passengers in the seats around him were looking at him in an odd sort of way. One of them was pointing his index finger at his own ear and running it around in fast circles in the gesture used for people who are nuts. Burns looked at him. He looked at all of them, looking back at him. Probably golfers, he thought to himself. Maybe tennis players. Maybe Independents in the current U.S. political debate. What in the hell do they know? About anything? He smiled and put the pink one with the big doll eyes in a place where it would be easy to find again. Look at those hooks, he thought. They could stop an elephant. He was sure of it.
Fifteen minutes later, Burns stood up with his 25 pounds of flies, his travel rod case with six rods in it, his Mexican fishing sombrero, and a boat bag full of chocolates and jelly beans, ten spools of extra leader material, five reels, and began his walk down the aisle toward the front door. As he exited the plane, he nodded to the Captain, Co-Pilot, and the friendly stewardess. He paused as they looked at him. “Sorry for the delay,” he said. Neither man said anything, just a nod and a tip of their caps.
The stewardess looked at him and winked. “No problem,” she said. “I enjoyed meeting you. You remind me of my father.” Burns inhaled. At 75 years of age, the compliment made him feel funny. As far as he was concerned, he was still 25 years old. Or at least, he still felt that way. Sometimes.
One hour later, he had collected his baggage in the Zihuantenejo terminal carousel number six. Everything was there. The other seven saltwater rods, from 9 weight to 13, the other four reels, a dozen lines in different densities and tapers, four dozen saltwater leaders complete with 100-pound shock tippet with hand-tied Bimini Twist class leaders, three bottles of suntan lotion, a large jar of mosquito repellent, two pairs of pants, two shirts, two quarts of Don Pedro Reposado Tequila, four pairs of sunglasses and different shades of color for sun or cloudy skies, and last but not least, a straw hat almost completely covered with flies. That was the one he was wearing in Costa Rica the day he successfully hooked a 250-pound blue marlin. He still remembers that day because he had tried for years, and when it finally happened that day in June, he had all he could deal with, and perhaps a little bit more than that.
For some unexplained reason, the specific events of that day suddenly focused as he remembered his cast to the great fish, the marlin’s incredible take of Burns’ ten-inch long pink popper, and how that marlin fought for six hours without stopping. In the end, it dragged them 70 miles offshore, and near the end of the struggle, Burns was hallucinating and couldn’t tell the difference from the sky above and water in front of him.
They were also running out of gas in the captain finally said, “Better cut it off now, Señor... or we’ll never make it back to the hotel!”
Burns hadn’t any idea of how to respond to that, and when he looked back at his two clients, a very nice couple from Nebraska in the roofing business, the wife was as white as a sheet and trembling as she looked at the Captain and for the sight of shoreline which had disappeared over an hour ago. To make matters worse, the wind was up and howling, and the rolling blue water waves were now cresting at about six feet.
To his credit, the husband told the Captain that the blue marlin meant a lot to Burns because “Not many of that size are normally taken on a fly.”
The deckhand couldn’t care less as he was also terrified, and making the sign of the cross as he begged Burns to, “Por favor Señor, por favor, please cut de fogging ting off.”
Burns looked at the deckhand, the marlin, and the way it held steady on the surface, refusing to quit after six long hours of giving it all he had. Now what? He questioned. He knew the fish was so tired it wouldn’t be able to survive a shark attack and it looked afraid. I know they have feelings, Burns said to himself, and in that moment something clicked. Suddenly it didn’t matter anymore if you won the tournament or not. Something else was there. Something more important.
The marlin, now only 20 feet from the transom, turned and looked back at what was still behind him. Burns could see its eyes. He never did come to understand all of it and perhaps that was best. Some things can never be explained, others can only be understood after years of experience, and the importance of these moments sometimes lies in the mystery of the connection between an angler and what they are really fishing for.
Burns nodded. “OK,” he said, as he looked into the captain’s dark brown eyes. He then turned to the deckhand and asked him for his gloves. Once they were on, Burns started pulling as hard as he could hand over hand, over and over again, straining to get the marlin to come close enough so Burns himself could cut the leader. The marlin moved closer, perhaps three feet, and looked back again at Burns standing in the transom. The great fish then turned one last time away from the white cruiser and started to swim toward a darkening horizon.
The captain knew what was happening and he came down from the bridge and offered Burns a knife. Burns looked back at the captain, the exhausted fish still refusing to quit, still fighting for his life, and in that moment of frozen time, Burns suddenly felt a wave of emotion running through him as he looked at the great fish that he had been fighting for six hours. He remembered the long-line sets they had to cut, so they could follow the marlin out to deeper waters, lines with baited hooks which illegally killed tens of thousands of fish each year, and no one seemed to care. And he felt guilty himself as he looked again at the exhausted marlin. Its brilliant colors had faded, and now the exhausted fish looked dark and confused. Burns also believed that the marlin thought it was fighting for its life and really believed it would indeed die if it came into the hands of those who were pulling on it.
Burns wrapped the line around his gloved hand and cut it. Everyone immediately gathered at the transom as the marlin began to swim away slowly. Burns also knew that the fish was too tired to protect itself from a possible shark attack. He turned to the captain and told him he would get $500 American if he could stay close to the fish until it revived sufficiently to escape safely. The captain paused, looked at the shotgun he kept on the bridge, then up at the sky, then his wristwatch, and finally nodded in agreement, and Burns watched the great fish gather its strength. Twenty minutes later, it slowly disappeared into the blue water. It was over.
As the fish disappeared, the captain put the shotgun back in place and his boat into gear and headed toward home. Burns swallowed hard. That was the last marlin he ever fished for with a fly rod. And he kept his reasons to himself.
He inhaled deeply and returned to the present moment. That was a long time ago, he thought. In more ways than one. He bent over, picked up the last of the baggage, and hailed the cab for his hotel in Manzanillo Bay. Thirty-five minutes later, he arrived. He checked in, went up to his room, and stashed all his gear. Then he walked down to the beach toward the crashing surf with a beer in his hand, thinking about the fishing he would do while he was there. He finished his beer and walked up to the sign nailed on a wooden fence in front of a house in the front yard.
The yard also appeared to be the last stop for an immense assemblage of uncountable objects and animals, including two rusted out automobiles, several black stacks of worn-out tires, four bicycles, ten garbage cans full of what could be anything, approximately 20 chickens including several fighting gamecocks, and a worn-out Airstream aluminum trailer that was doubling as a kennel for a pack of dogs which looked friendly enough, but somehow seemed out of place.
Not knowing what else to do, Burns just shouted out, “Anyone here?”
A few seconds later, a rather stout gentleman emerged from the front door of the house and came up to Burns. “Hola amigo,” he said.
“Hola,” Burns replied. “Habla Inglés?”
“Oh... si Señor, I speaky much of the English. What you want?”
“I want to go fishing tomorrow,” Burns replied. “Do you have a boat?”
“Oh, si, Señor. I have the best boat in all of Mexico.” Burns looked at him, at the sight before him, and took the existential leap of faith all serious anglers have in common.
“OK, I will go. What is your name, Captain? And does your boat have shade?”
“Si Señor, mucho sombra and my name is Juan Carlos Rodriguez Roberto Gonzalez. So good to meet you Señor.”
“Thank you, Señor Gonzales. Thank you. When do we leave?”
Captain Gonzalez grins, showing gold in his mouth and a smile impossible to resist. “Well, I can only fish half-day in ‘de morning because it is my wedding day, and I have to be back at 1 o’clock. We must be back at 1. Is that okay dokay?”
“Yes,” Burns replied. “What time do we start, and how much does a half-day cost?”
“Two thousand pesos. We start at seven. Is that okay dokay?”
Burns nodded and smiled again. “Yes. What kind of fish are around now?”
Captain Gonzales flashed another solid gold smile and his eyes lit up as he said enthusiastically, “Oh, Señor... We have everything now: beeg tunas, beeg dorados, beeg sailfishes, and beeg ‘pez gallos ...You names it, we has it. OK?”
“OK,” Burns replied and gave the captain his deposit. “I will see you in the morning at 6.”
“Okay dokay,” Captain Gonzales said smiling and licking his gold teeth with the tip of his tongue.
The next morning Burns was at the front gate. The roosters were strutting around the pile of tires, crowing the break of dawn, and Gonzales was getting the boat ready. Two young men were with him, two of his sons who were learning their father’s trade. They introduced themselves and looked carefully at Burns’ tackle but said nothing.
The boat was launched. The Yamaha kicked in on the fourth pull, and they were off and running. “We go plenty far today. For beeg fish,” Gonzales said as his two sons started assembling the tackle–four rods and reels. The reels looked large enough to stop a bear’s charge if you hit them with one, and the rods could be used for pole vaulting if they were just a little longer.
Burns looked at them and said, “Captain, those look very good, but I want to use my tackle today. I am here to fish with this kind of tackle.”
Gonzales looked back at Burns and shook his head emphatically. “Those rods are not strong enough, Señor. I can tell by looking at them. Look how skinny they are, and your reels are too small. Not enough line.” He next looked at the selection of saltwater streamers and poppers Burns had sitting on top of the ice chest, which was now doubling as a work station.
“Put them away,” he said. “I hears about ’dose tings, but moscas, they are no good here. They will catch nothing, and I must catch many fishes today because it is my wedding day, and I am giving a big fiesta to all my friends and neighbors who are coming to the wedding. And my wife is pregnant, and the baby is here in two days, so I have to have lots of food for everyone. And my wife is very nervous about all of these things.” He makes the sign of the cross.
Now what? Burns thought. He was well off the beaten path of Mexican saltwater fly-fishing and hadn’t mentioned his choice of tackle when he booked the trip. “Congratulations, Captain, I wish you and your wife a very happy life.”
Captain Gonzalez looked at Burns and smiled. “You very smart man. OK, OK, we will use my tackle. This is better because it is my wife’s first wedding, and she is muy nervioso, and I cannot make her angry. She is very difficult when she gets angry. And she’s very young. She is 17. Comprende?”
Burns was lost. The bride is 17 years old, pregnant, and due in two days. He nodded his head and the two sons finished rigging their father’s tackle. Maybe I didn’t give golf a big enough chance, he said to himself.
The boat continued its run toward blue water, and 30 minutes later, the sons set the trolling baits out. Two were set close to the surface, and two were running deep. It didn’t take long. One of the deep baits had a sailfish on it, and one of the sons put the rod in Burns’ hands and told him to “bring it in.” Burns started cranking as the sailfish exploded on the surface and tail walked with its dorsal waving like a flag. Burns had it to the boat in five minutes, and the Captain was grinning as he killed it.
An hour went by. Nothing. Then a second sailfish took a shallow running bait. Burns had it to the boat in four minutes, and it was killed. Next, a pair of tuna. They, too, are killed. The transom of the boat now looked like a butcher shop, and the forward section of the 22-foot panga was stuffed with the carcasses of the two sailfish. Their open eyes stared at nothing. They were both black, and their skin looked like varnished leather. For Burns, it is one of those moments when everything seemed upside down. He hadn’t seen a billfish killed in over ten years.
At 11:30, Captain Gonzalez announced that it was time to head back toward shore for his wedding with his 17-year-old bride. He also said that they would fish on the way back and that it was now, “Okay dokay for Burns to use his moscas.”
Burns began rigging a 10-weight fly rod with a small pink saltwater popper he had used all over Mexico and Costa Rica. He left the fly line off and rigged a Bimini twist leader and an 8-pound shock tippet to the popper. The other end was tied to the backing. The boys were staring at all of this as Burns finished and said, “Okay dokay, amigos. Here’s the deal. I will show you how these moscas work.”
He threw the popper over the side and let it drift back behind the boat for a distance of 65 feet. He set the drag, turned to the young man closest to him and said, “You will go first. You will fish for ten minutes. Then it will be your brother’s turn.” He showed them how to hold the rod. “Keep the rod tip up in the air,” he said. “And do not take your eyes off the moscas. I will show you what to do when you hook a fish. Understand?” The boy nodded.
It didn’t take long. The boys and their father all looked incredulously as a 40-pound dorado suddenly appeared from nowhere, and inhaled the popper in an explosion of spray that lived in the wind like a small hurricane. Both boys screamed in unison and Captain Gonzales’ brown eyes bugged out in disbelief. His gold teeth were flashing and his jaw was almost on the deck. The boy’s fingers were almost disassembled by the spinning blur of the reel’s handle, and Burns showed him how to let the fish run and stop before he started winding. Twenty minutes later, the boy had the dorado to the side of the boat and his father snagged it with a gaff. “For the wedding,” he said.
Burns looked at all of them carefully. The boy who got the dorado was grinning and hopping up and down. Burns unhooked the popper and gave it to the boy as a souvenir. He turned to the other son and said, “Now it is your turn, amigo.” Burns tied a long green and white 5/0 streamer to the leader, tossed it out, and handed the rod over. He started to let the fly drift back into position, but the boy interrupted and asked for the rod. “I can do it,” he said. “I can do it.”
Five minutes later, the rod was almost ripped out of the boy’s hands as a 30-pound tuna took the fly. Thirty minutes later, the boy had it to the boat, and Captain Gonzalez was looking at Burns very intensely, then down at the streamer fly, then back at Burns. Burns clipped it off and gave it to the boy as a gift and a reminder.
“Now it is my turn,” Captain Carlos Rodriguez Roberto Gonzalez said unexpectedly as he stood up and held out his hand for the rod. “I am next. What mosca do you have for me? And does it always take so much time to wind in de fish on moscas?” His eyes were as wide as a dinner plate and his solid gold teeth were almost shaking in his mouth.
Burns looked at his wristwatch and then at his Captain and said, “Yes it does, and what about your wedding, Captain? You’re going to be married today in 15 minutes and we are still 20 miles from shore. If you take your turn, you’ll be late for your wedding, and there will be no time to prepare these fish. What will your pregnant bride think? What will she say when you are two hours late for your own wedding and you have no food ready?”
Captain Gonzalez looked up toward the horizon, and at probably at least 3 million square miles of ocean, then over toward the shore and his home, then down at the fly rod and the fresh fly Burns has tide on. He still hadn’t closed his mouth, and his eyes were still as wide as dinner plates. “Oh, don’ worry, Señor,” he said, smiling and showing more gold. He came up to Burns, put his hand around Burns’ shoulder, and looked down at all the fly fishing tackle on the seat of the boat. “I will think of something, Señor. I will think of something.”
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