Two men stand tall in the weathered flats skiff, hat visors pulled low, staring intently through Polaroids into the crystal waters of the flats north of the Marquesas Keys, the water over the flats gradually sucked away by outgoing tide, the tidal flow consolidating until one can imagine rivers on the flats, the water finally flowing through channels into the Gulf beyond. If they're not already here, this is when the sharks are certain to come, nosing into the scent trail, the blood trail from the dead barracuda tethered off the bow.

Once eyes adjust to the challenge, one catches them moving in the distance, slowly at first, mere shadows over stretches of sand. There, one angler says, pointing. Yes, the other says. I see them. A hand drops, nervously, grabbing the line in front of the casting reel, pulling a bit, testing drag. The plug, a hard plastic crankbait with a shallow-diving lip, hangs ready just below the rod tip, connected by wire to shock leader connected to 400 yards of twenty-pound line.

Yes, they're coming, the scent trail leading through water so thin their backs break water, hounds headlong on the hunt, relentless, blowing up sand and water as they push through the shallowest water. Closing in, scent evermore intense, they "light up," moving faster and faster, bouncing excitedly, crazily left-right right-left like a knuckle ball gone bad, as they seek the scent source. Holy Moly, the angler thinks -- or maybe he says it out loud. Here they come. Moving so fast. So intense, such intensity is all about life and death, the ancient game played so well that sharks have been on earth for hundreds of millions of years.

At such moments, sharks may seem mindlessly intent, but so too are they innately wary. One cast. An angler gets one cast, pick a fish, make the cast. The cast must not land too close, must then quarter directly in front of the shark as it approaches in its frantic search for food. Too close and the shark spooks. Again, call it intelligence, call it instinct, just call it wary.

Cast made well, the shark, a large spinner, takes. No fish is so fast on the flats, not permit, not tarpon, nothing, nothing comes close. This fish has eaten the lure, turned 20 feet and already is six feet above the water, a hundred and a quarter pounds of wheeling, spinning flesh that touches down and then, an angler will swear to it, is in seconds 150 yards distant and in the air again, spinning, not head over heels, but spinning like a bullet -- the reason they're called spinner shark.

Can't believe it, he says. He's off.

No, his friend says, standing along the gunnel, eyes intent on the line hanging off the rod tip. Pick up line. Pick up line. Reel.

The fish has turned. Seconds have passed and, it is the truth, so help it, no one could make it up, the fish is out of the water 200 yards opposite the point where it was last seen, a 180-degree turn and impossible sprint. Now, unbelievably, the fish is in water so thin it can hardly swim down and come up, but it is, porpoising and spinning, porpoising and spinning, porpoising and spinning, seven times in rapid succession, this sprint taking the fish another 100 yards along a line perpendicular to the boat and across the flats.

Again, the line hangs limp at the rod tip.

Heads shake, the anglers look at each other, searching for an answer.

I said, Pick up line. Pick up line.

I did. I did. No one can reel that fast.

Then silence. They rerig. The wait begins for another shark.