You survived Friday.

My friend Bob (some of you know him) was kind enough to lend his boat to my son-in-law (Jonathan). Jonathan was taking two of his buddies out for a day of fishing in/on Tampa Bay. Now Jonathan has fished TB a dozen times or so but he's originally from CT and not exactly an old Florida salt. His two buddies are from VA and MD respectively.

These boys go out onto a flat and are getting their shrimp stolen by pinfish right quick. They move out into 10' of water and catch a small jack. They catch a ladyfish and use it as cut bait. They jump a large tarpon! Also caught a few small sharks.

I call him 6 hours into his trip and ask how he's doing. He tells me they had a blast but that he wishes they would have caught dinner. He then laments that they did catch a big cat but chose to release it rather than filleting it. I had to explain to him that when he buys catfish, it's not the same fish he just caught.

When he got home he showed me photos of him holding a couple of 2 1/2' long sharks. Scared me to see how far back on the tail he was holding those guys.

He's learning. He may just have to eat a few slimy fried fish dinners with bandaged hands 1st.

Ha, ha, ha!
He just might, at that! :laughing:

I did the same thing a few weeks ago, and ALMOST needed bandages myself.
It's a good thing I was REALLY aware of what I was doing.
I had a 3.5 footer upside down and it was very calm. When my buddy asked me to hold it for a photo... that's when I, too, held it by it's tail.
To thank me, the shark promptly made a grab for my hand. ;-[]-

Lucky for me, I was paying attention to what I WON'T be doing ever again!

Bill

509revo wrote:
Glad you escaped, 509. Sounds like you lived to fry up some more sailcats. Good job.

This is so much cooler than talking about don I cannot believe the "cancer on the fishing community" comments only have 800 times more comments. How sick a world we live in..:)

Thanks for a fun tale...

lol I thought the " Survived Friday ? was about the weather. I almost sunk the Gheanoe solo . I was by picnic island in 35" of water. Weather turned bad quickly. High winds and real rough chop. I was about to pack up and BAM . I had something really big taking my 65 lb line out fast. I tightened the drag and the rear of the gheanoe pulled down. Just enough to get crested and see 15-20 gallons of water come into the boat. . I broke my line on purpose , pulled anchor , and hauled ass to the dock lol. Thank god I was only about 1k feet from the dock .

Dude you are insane with that Gheenoe! *lol*

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:


OOOOOOOOPS!!!!
That was your tarpon, Marshil.