What began at sunrise as a pleasant outing under relatively comfortable conditions (if 90 percent humidity can ever be considered comfortable), had deteriorated to a sweltering, suffocating endurance test under an searing sun, beating the bay so relentlessly I expected to see bruises appear on the boat's white gelcoat. The speckled trout that, for the first hour or so after sunrise, had regularly and greedily grabbed the live shrimp that we had drifted beneath popping corks over the submerged oyster reef had disappeared, driven off the reef and into cooler, darker waters by the broiling sun and a slacking tide.