Ocala Star Banner

Mike Hodge's outdoors column
HOMOSASSA

He's a survivor. Back then, he was a pup. Just getting ready for first grade. Barely old enough to tug at his ma's skirt.

"I learned how to swim over there at city dock," Charlie Harris said during a relaxing afternoon at MacRae's marina. "Dad pushed me in. It was swim or die. You know, that's how the old timers used to do it. I've been here all of my life. My whole life I've been on the water. I got out of school in ninth grade. My heart was on the water."

He started as a gill net fisherman and turned to crabbing to roll with the sea of change in the early '90s, as commercial fishermen yielded to recreational anglers in the wake of the net ban, a bitter conflict that still makes these waters boil.

About that time, a buddy, Mike Locklear, stopped by the dock one day and offered a suggestion, from one Florida cracker to another.

Sell those crab pots. Save the boat. Time to catch fish, not for market, but for sport.

"He said I had enough knowledge to be a good guide around here, and I have been," Harris said. "What's made me successful is my knowledge of the water."

He used to catch fish by the bundles. Still does. Now he uses a rod and reel, and they come to the boat, one by one. He's still on the water, from sunrise to sundown, cruising the flats as one of Central Florida's premier redfishing and light tackle guides.

Every day's a chess game. Man versus fish, not quite Moby Dick, more like Old Man and the Sea.

"I'm on the water," Harris said. "I enjoy meeting new people, making new friends. It's in my heart. When it's in your heart, you're good at what you do."

No Homosassa guide is hotter. Harris, by his count, booked 300 trips last season and appears to be on pace to match that this fall.

Customers pay roughly $250 — for a party of two — to spend a half day on his flats boat trying to outwit the schools of redfish and trout that cruise the flats between Crystal River and Homosassa.

"Best guide in the county — period," said Bob Buning, a local, who stopped by MacRae's to assess time spent on the water after a morning with Harris. Also along for the ride was Henry Morris.

They landed eight reds, seven of which were too big to keep. Four others snapped a line.

"It doesn't get any better than Charlie," Morris said. "He knows the water. He knows the fish."

Need to know where Pettys Creek is? Or how to avoid the skinny water near St. Martins Keys? Ask Harris. He knows. Why? Time on the water.

Most of us spend weekends fishing. Harris, 34, has invested decades. Not long after his daddy nudged him off the dock, he got his own boat at age 8.

"I worked at it," he said. "I wasn't lazy. My dad (made sure of) that. I didn't have a childhood. It was always work, work, work. I thought guiding would be easy, but it's still a job. It's a 14-hour day, when you get up in the morning and rig everything. Time you get home, it's 5:30, 6. You do it all over again, answer phone calls. It's a long day. Get to bed, if you're lucky, by 11:30. It's good that the phone rings. Every now and then, you need a break. In this job, you can't take a break. When you do get a day off, you're doing chores. But ... I wouldn't change it."

Sunsplashed pinkish cheeks make his eyes look tired. He guided 100 consecutive days during one grueling stretch last season. August's swelter can be cruel.

"Tired? I'm beat right now," he said. "You never know when the phone's going to ring. You have to get while the gettin's good. Like last month, usually I'm booked two months in advance. But in August, it starts getting hot. I wasn't sure I was going to get as much work as last year. Then, all of a sudden, the phone starts ringing and now I'm booked all the way through August. That's the way it happens. It comes in spurts."

People will call 352-621-5066 or surf to his Internet web site (homosassa-redfishing.com) for one reason. He knows where the fish are, and they don't. He finds fish because he follows them every day, doggedness that few talented guides can sustain.

"I just go, go, go," Harris said. "As long as I go every day, I'm fine. If I take a day off, it takes me forever to get back into it to go again. If I take a day off, I feel I've lost my fish. If you're out there every day fishing, it's like clockwork. Just out an hour later every day with the tides. If I take two days off and don't get booked, it's like starting all over again. You go where you think they should be, but it don't always work out that way."

Many think guiding is all glamor. Easy money to hang out and take somebody fishing. But clients want results. Excuses only last so long.

"It's pressure," Harris said. "It's trying to catch clients fish. You know they're there, but they're not biting. If you see them, that's good, because they know you can't get them to bite. They know you've done everything possible. That's the pressure right there. You can't control it. Anyone who knows fishing knows that.

"A lot of it's being patient. People don't want to be patient, but I learned a long time ago not to worry about things I can't control."

Success, though, often stems from the clients' skill. First, they have to see the fish, then they have to toss a gold spoon 60 to 80 inches away from a moving target into the wind.

"A lot of it's not being able to cast," Harris said. "But it's my job to train them. A good guide will give them rules. Bow's 12 o'clock. Here's one and two (o'clock), to point them in the right direction. If you do that, he knows. The best thing is to tell him."

His fishing forecast is mixed. Some days, it's numbers. Others it's size. One day not too long ago a single client boated 25 reds.

"It all depends," he said. "Who's out there. Who ain't. You don't know. It always a new adventure every time you leave the dock every day."

Mike Hodge can be reached at mike.hodge@starbanner.com or 867-4148.<