River Rat is proud to be a part of the Anglers’ Legacy.
Who got me involved in fishing:
I started fishing with my Father and older Brother, when I was around three years old. That would have been around 1954. We would usually fish from the bank somewhere with cane poles. I won my first fishing contest when I was in Cub Scouts. I caught a 2.5 pound Bluegill. Won me a green tackle box. We moved to southwest Florida when I was 9. Lived on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River in Ft. Myers. That's where I became a full time river rat. I had a little 8' pram, that I paddled a million miles up and down that river. Fishing is in my blood.
Favorite Fishing Story:
I know it sounds like a tall tale, but it really happened. This is just one of the many adventures of a river rat growing up on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River in southwest Florida. It was the summer of 1966, and southwest Florida was in the middle of one of the worst droughts the area had seen in many years. The lock at Olga (the division point between fresh and salt water), had remained closed for quite some time, not allowing any fresh water from Lake Okeechobee to empty into the Caloosahatchee River. As a result, the water in the river had cleared up, clearer than I had ever seen it. This created a great opportunity for three 15 year old river rats to do some underwater exploration. On one bright, sunny morning, Billy, Eugene, and me, donned our masks, fins, and snorkels, and pulling my 12’ Jon boat (the Titanic II) behind us, headed east, up the river. Just around the bend from where I lived, was the power plant. As we approached the oil docks, where the oil barges were tied, we started seeing a lot of fish. A little further up, we came to the spot pictured above. It’s called the intake canal. It’s where the power plant pulls in the cooling water from the river. The canal is about 100 feet wide and 25 feet deep, with a constant inbound current. There used to be a wooden trough about eight feet wide, all the way across the mouth of this canal, to keep floating debris from being pulled into the plant. This trough, had long since broken in the middle and sank to the bottom, and a chain link fence erected in it’s place. The wooden trough was still attached at each end, and this created two caves at the bottom, in the middle of the canal when it sank. We parked the boat up against the chain link fence, and began exploring the area. I dove down to the bottom where the barnacle encrusted trough had sunk and peered into the cave beneath the left side. I could see daylight all the way through. I moved over to the right side and could see no daylight. Something seemed to be under there, but I could not make out what it was. I had no clue as to what it could be. All I could tell was, it was moving ever so slightly in the current. I reached out and grabbed the edge of the trough and pulled myself into the shadows beneath it to get a better look. As I peered into the darkness, trying to figure out just what it was, my eyes began to focus in on a bunch of blue dots. Just about then, I realized that my face was just a few inches away from the biggest set of lips that I had ever seen in my life. I was nose to nose with a giant Jewfish (Goliath Grouper). This fish was so big, that it could have swallowed me, or at the very least, bit my head off should it have had the notion. When it all dawned on me, what was going on, it scared me so bad that I broke away and headed straight up to the boat, not unlike a missile being launched from a submarine. When I reached the surface, I excitedly told Billy and Eugene what I had seen down there. They didn’t believe me. So they both dove down to see for themselves. Eugene came back up so fast that his mask was hanging down around his neck. We all hurriedly loaded up in the Titanic II and went home. I had read about these fish. They can be very docile, or they can be extremely aggressive. They’ve been known to attack divers in defense of their territory. One article I read, had described an incident where a diver came up missing. When a search team went out, they found some of the diver’s gear, along with his underwater camera lying on the bottom. Upon review of the film, the saw where the diver was slowly approaching one of these monsters estimated to be 8-9 feet long, when suddenly the fish turned and attacked and the camera images just turned to snow. They never found the diver. This one apparently, was feeling docile that day, thank goodness. When we reached the riverbank in front of my house, I shut off the 7.5 horse Evinrude, and as the boat coasted up to the bank, we just sat there in silence for a few moments. I finally broke the silence and said to Billy and Eugene, now…how do you suppose we’re gonna catch that monster? For the next few days, we devised a plan. Eugene had grown up in the swamps, and was a very accomplished gator trapper. And I use the word trapper in lieu of a term that might implicate him as doing something illegal. He suggested that we use one of his gator lines which consisted of 50 feet of 550 lb. test nylon rope, with a big nasty hook tied on the end. So we gathered up six empty plastic bleach bottles and tied them to the other end. All we needed now was some bait and we’d be set. Gene’s gator rig was now a Jewfish rig. A day or so later, we loaded up our gear and headed up the river on an adventure that as it turned out, would dang near kill us all. We caught a couple of good sized Ladyfish along the way for bait. The plan was to hook this monster, and he would obviously head out into open water, pulling the boat behind him. If it got too hairy, we would untie the rope, throw in the bleach bottles and follow the behemoth until he tired himself out. Then we would park the boat and wrestle him to shore. Sounds like a good plan, huh? We had visions of our pictures in the newspaper. Fame and fortune would follow. And the chicks would just be all over us at school. We approached the canal and again let the Jon boat rest up against the chain link fence. We all took a deep breath and began to lower the bait down, however the current would catch the Ladyfish and pull it under the boat, past where we wanted it to sink. Try as we may, we could not get it to sink to where it needed to be. We finally decided that the only way to get that Ladyfish down to the Jewfish was, somebody was going to have to carry it down there and serve it up. But who? We rock, paper, scissored and I guess you know I lost. So I put on my mask and fins, and with Ladyfish in hand, I slipped into the water, took a deep breath, and reluctantly headed down to the monster’s lair. I decided to keep as far away from those lips as possible this time, and stopped maybe six feet or so from the trough. I could see the giant still in the shadows. I turned the Ladyfish loose in the current and fed the line out. As the bait went under the trough, it just vanished. The Jewfish had sucked it in. I quickly swam back up to the boat, climbed in and reported that the fish had taken the bait. We all grabbed the rope and on the count of three we set the hook. Remember the plan? Well, as the rope grew tight, we quickly realized that the Jewfish was not following the plan. Instead of heading for open water, the monster was trying to head up the canal toward the power plant. He was actually trying to pull the boat under the fence. He had us pinned up against the fence and was literally about to pull the side of the Titanic II under. This was all happening very fast. Billy started yelling CUT THE ROPE, CUT THE ROPE! As I frantically searched for a knife to cut the rope, we began taking on water. The fence was now bowed out and the nylon rope was stretched as tight as a banjo string. I looked at Gene. He had panic in his eyes. And just then the rope snapped. It sounded like a .22 rifle going off. And just as quick as everything had started, it was over. I can’t describe the feeling. We’ve all felt it. When that trophy of a lifetime, breaks your line and swims away. As we sat there, it began to rain. It rained with a vengeance. Making up for lost time, I suppose. It rained for days. With so much rain, the river water turned dark. Too dark to dive in. We never went back. Billy is now the leader of a Gospel Quartet. Eugene became of all things a Game Warden. My wife, (who I met on that same river that same year) and I recently took a boat trip down memory lane to where we both grew up. I stopped along the way and took a photo. I parked the boat along side that same chain link fence forty-three years later, and just sat there for a few moments. I wondered if that monster fish might still be down there. And if he was, I wondered if he might remember the three river rats that tried to catch him. And that’s my story about The BIG one that Got Away.
