In a recent post about my most heartbreaking lost fish — a bull redfish that I hooked from a bridge when I was around 16 — I noted I had once lost a fish that was substantially larger than that one.
Completely unlike the big redfish, which I was very close to landing when it surged and broke my line, I genuinely never had a chance at catching this fish.
I actually never glimpsed the fish, but I assume it was a big shark. Officially that was what I was after, although when a buddy and I put out our “shark rods” we usually only caught stingrays or overzealous sail cats, and when I think about it now, I don’t know how I would have landed even a small shark had I hooked one that day. I suppose that was a “cross that bridge when I come to it” concept.
Like the lost redfish day, I was fishing alone and from a bridge. I’d guess I was 17 or 18 years old. This time it was the bridge over Johns Pass, between Madeira Beach and Treasure Island, along Florida’s Gulf Coast. My “shark rod” was my late Grandpa’s old custom boat rod and Penn Senator 114H he had used for deep sea fishing, spooled with 50-pound test, I think.
A simple bottom rig and big hook was almost certainly baited with a pinfish, grunt or chunk of ladyfish I had caught with my other rod. The shark rod was always something I put out if I caught suitable bait and was out there “just in case.” It was never central to the primary quest, which might be why I didn’t have a landing plan.
I don’t remember any other catches from that day or even how I was fishing with the primary rod, and only know I caught something because I never bought fish for cut bait, and I wouldn’t have bothered putting out squid or shrimp on the big rod.
Here’s what I do remember.
At some point my big reel’s clicker abruptly started singing, and line was spinning off the spool. I grabbed the rod, braced myself, and was ready to set the hook when I put the reel in gear. As it turned out, no hookset was needed or possible. The instant my thumb slid the lever to engage the reel, the fish hooked itself and nearly pulled the rod from my hands.
It’s good that the drag wasn’t locked down, or I probably could not have held on. I don’t know that hooking the fish slowed it at all. I was too frantic to turn off the clicker so the reel continued screaming at the giant fish raced away and burned line off the big reel.
Short story short, because it happened quickly, and there really aren’t other details to tell: I kept gradually tightening the drag as much as I could without the rod being yanked from me, and the fish kept peeling line. I don’t think it ever slowed significantly, and in fairly short order it took all my line. Again, it was good that the line wasn’t attached too securely because there’s no way I could have held on and kept myself on the bridge!
I don’t recall what happened after the fish was gone. I suspect that was enough excitement and that I packed up and went home. As hooked on fishing as I’ve always been, though, I might have just gone back to fishing with the other rod as if that hadn’t happened.
I suppose because I never had a chance, that memory doesn’t sting like the lost bull redfish. It was just a thrilling few minutes that were unlike any others in a lifetime of fishing.
Fishing on Foot 