Love Amongst the Bream Beds

May 26, 2006 By: Marshall Cutchin

I know a guide who says he can smell tarpon. Apparently certain grandmothers and their panfish-hunting offspring can also smell bream beds and use their olfactory receptors to great benefit. “‘Granny would patiently explain that she had ‘smelled the beds.’ When pressed to elaborate, she would say that she couldn’t describe the scent, but that ‘you’ll know it when you smell it.’ To an adolescent boy, that sounded like what I’d heard about true love.”