We got tired of waiting at the marina for Tyro, the new guy in the Fish or Cut Bait Society. Not only because he was extra late, but also because we are an impatient crew.

"THW Tyro! Let's go fishing without him," I declared.

"I could support that, except that Tyro is bringing the boat," Headwind said. "Let's throw a few casts while we wait."

A sign beside the launching ramp butted in. "No fishing in the marina," it said.

Headwind had called Tyro's phone already. On the first attempt, he reached an artificial voice asking if he would consider selling his property on Chocolate Street in Las Vegas.

"You couldn't afford it," he said, and hung up.

A little later, he tried again.

"Mr. Tyro is driving and not able to take your call at this time," the message app told Headwind.

It sounded like Tyro disguising his own voice in falsetto:

"If you leave a message, please be polite. Mr. Tyro dislikes the 21st Century decline in civil discourse."

Headwind had wanted to tell Tyro off, but one cannot disobey the orders of a cellphone voice recording. Though annoyed, he hung up civilly.

At least Tyro was on the way. We hoped the sport drivers on I-95 had let him merge his truck and trailer from the entry ramp into traffic, instead of squeezing him against the guardrail. We hoped other drivers wouldn't pace him on the right to prevent him from getting into his exit lane.

Just as we were hoping all that, Tyro arrived.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

"Traffic?" Headwind asked, expecting South Florida's favorite all-purpose alibi.

"No," Tyro replied. He was late because while he was dressing, one of his socks snagged on a jagged toenail—third toe, left foot.

He knew what to do, but it was early in the morning and he hadn't started the coffee, so it took him a while to find a pair of scissors.

"If I had been in my office, where my fly-tying stuff is, I would have grabbed scissors right away, but I was in the bedroom. I don't keep scissors there," Tyro told us.

He said he was walking to his office at the far end of the house, dragging the snagged sock until Oscar, his cat, leapt to assist.

Tyro had the wit to park his rear on a nearby chair, but his sidestep threw Oscar off target. In mid-leap, she took a wild swipe at the sock, missed it and snagged the outside of Tyro's ankle.

"Blood and gore all over the floor," Tyro said. "I knew what to do, and if I had been in the bathroom I would have done it, but I was in the living room. I don't keep first aid supplies there."

He walked the snagged sock to the bathroom where he cleaned the wound, applied antibiotic ointment, wrapped it in bandage and secured it with waterproof tape—a reminder that he hadn't forgotten about fishing.

Next, he gave his attention to the crimson fluid coagulating on the wooden floor.

It occurred to him that he had been wise recently to talk his spouse out of sacrificing $3,000 to a carpet she worshiped. He had timed his dissent cleverly, to coincide with Oscar's need to dis-upholster a fairly new sofa.

"I knew what to do about the gore on the floor, but it took an extra while or two to figure out where the mops and stuff are. Not in the living room, as it turned out."

With that sorted out, Tyro looked down and noticed the blood-soaked sock, still snagged on his toenail.

"Where was I going with this?" he asked himself, and told himself he was going to his office. He had forgotten why, but thought he would remember when he got there.

"For scissors, of course!" he cried on arrival.

From his fly-tying desk, Tyro selected deer hair trimming scissors with curved, serrated blades and fine points to nip the bloody sock off his toenail. Next, he returned to the bathroom.

"I don't keep toenail clippers in the office," he explained.

Tyro's spouse slept through the entire episode. Good, he thought. If he remembered to dispose of all the evidence, he would not have to explain it later.

While he was explaining it to us, we were loading our tackle, ice, drinks, lunch and other gear onto the boat.

We moved as quickly as we dared, for mosquitoes and sand flies had found us and were spreading word of our arrival.

We heard their scout shout, "There they are!" and their squadron leader call, "Ready, set, attack! Fuego! Fuego!"

What, you didn't know bugs are bilingual?

Out on the water we searched for fish, found some, caught enough keepers to fillet at the docks unless the flies ran us off, argued over whether electric reels are righteous or wrongeous, criticized each other's knot and hook choices, disagreed about braided lines, argued for and against monofilament and fluorocarbon leaders, discussed the morality of barbed versus mashed hook points, unanimously denounced the price of fuel and planned how to cope with the bugs back at the marina.

"They are building bunkers and stocking ammo," Headwind warned. "They will be more aggressive toward dusk than they were at dawn, because they don't know when we'll be back. Carpe diem. That's the mosquito motto. It's the only Latin they know."

Tyro asked if Headwind or I had noticed that bugs that morning didn’t bother him as much as us.

We had not, for we were busy loading the boat and throwing blind punches at the enemy, remembering the drain plug, cursing and suchlike.

We also had forgotten to squirt our skins. There’s stuff you can do that with, and it repels biting insects moderately well, but if you hesitate you are lost when the squadron leader begins hollering “Fuego!”

A lot of the fishing-doers in our outfit use squirts containing deet, which is short for a chemical whose full name is so long that I can’t spell it without cheating. The higher the concentration, the more effectively it repels insects — and dissolves stuff that leaves stains, so beware.

Tyro bewares because he’s allergic to deet. It raises clumps of bumps and lumps wherever it touches him. Well, it did that once. He hasn’t forgiven it.

“All my exposed skin was full of welts,” he will tell you if you wonder. “My eyes were swollen shut.”

That was the good part. If he had been able to see himself, he might have begged someone to shoot him.

He hasn’t let that stuff near him since that time. If he sees you using it, he darts upwind. He treats his fishing clothing ahead of time with permethrin, which is sold in a 9-inch tall yellow and black aerosol can. Tyro finds it at Big Buck’s Big Box Bait & Tackle, in the camping aisles.

“It’s meant for tents, but it also works on clothing,” he says. “You’re not supposed to get it on your skin, so I spray my fishing clothes a day or more before a trip, and hang them out to dry.

“If the bugs are still bugging me, I keep squirt bottles of eucalyptus oil and picaridin on the boat. There they are in the console basket. Slobber some on you before we dock, unless you want to be devoured.”

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