How’s YaMommaNem?

The more family I lose, the more family I find.

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The Gulf of Mexico waters on the tippy toe of Biloxi, Mississippi may be vast and mysterious — but they sure ain’t blue. Or even what you might call pretty, most days. If you’re used to the sparkling beauty of San Diego beaches or Hawaiian lagoons, well, this may look like a giant mudhole to you.

But you’d be wrong.

“This here water ain’t fer lookin’ at, it’s fer livin’ at,” my new friend Beaujolais says. Beau, as he tells it, caught his first fish while he was still in the womb. “My momma say I come slidin’ out with a speckle trout tail clutched in my fist.” He’s been trawling the Gulf waters ever since.

He told me to ride the ferry to Ship Island — a lovely barrier island off the coast — if I wanted some prettyness, and to come find him when I wanted to do some live fishing.

“How’s YaMommaNem?” A chorus of voices called out to Beau as we hauled buckets and bags to his rig, aptly chistened Shrimp Cocktail by his granddaughter. Beau hollered back at his brother and sister fishers but never broke stride. “We all be good, baby, we all good.”

It was my third week going out with Beau, his wife Reenie and his sons, BJ and TJ. Today I was going to learn to crank the net, and do some heavy lifting.