Tales of terror when land based fishing

I'll start this one out. It's a long read, but a good true story.

A TALE YOU SHOULDN’T TELL YOUR KID WHEN YOU’RE BRIDGE FISHING AT NIGHT

It was winter, in the early 1980’s, and just like every other weekend, my husband, Jerry & I went fishing in the fabulous Florida Keys. We fished a while on the Old Bahia Honda Bridge, and then decided that it was too cold and windy to stay there overnight. We decided to pack it up and head over to the Old Wooden Bridge. You know the place. It’s the Bogie Channel Bridge that goes from Big Pine Key to No Name Key. It’s quiet, peaceful, secluded, and away from the Overseas Highway. We normally took our loyal German Shepard, Harvey, with us when we went to the Keys. For some reason we left him at home this weekend.
It was getting dark, so we started getting our gas Coleman lantern ready so that we could pilchard fish for snapper bait. There were only a few people on the bridge. When it got dark it was a completely moonless night. We dropped the lantern and waited for the pilchards to school up. After about twenty minutes we were ready to start snapper fishing. A couple of hours later, mostly everybody else was gone. A speed boat went racing through the channel a few times, and then stopped and the captain yelled at us to pull up our lantern and turn it off. Jerry responded with, “No man, we’re bait fishing. We aren’t in the channel. It’s perfectly legal to have the lantern there.” The boat left, only to return, zipping through the channel a couple of times. On the third pass, he suddenly veered toward the lantern, and smashed it to bits. How he didn’t end up with an exploding fire ball on his boat, I’ll never know. We were pissed off because it was the only light source that we had. Luckily we had already caught quite a few baits, and had them bagged up in the cooler. We kept fishing.
Around midnight I was getting pretty cold & tired. We were now the only fishermen on the bridge. Knowing that Jerry was going to fish all night, I told him that I was going to climb in my sleeping bag to get warm. That always meant that as soon as I was warm, I’d be asleep. While I was asleep, I kept hearing the motor of a little Jon boat going repeatedly back and forth through the channel. At one point it annoyed me so much that I raised up on my elbow and peered through the void on the side of the bridge to see what was going on. I could vaguely see the outline of the boat which had no running lights. Whoever was on the boat shined a flashlight in my face. I laid back down and fell asleep. Awhile later the boat stopped going through the channel and I settled into a restful sleep. Jerry must’ve run out of bait because he was in his sleeping bag sound asleep too.
Have you ever been somewhere and felt somebody looking at you? You know the feeling. It makes you turn around. Well, while I was in a deep sleep, I suddenly had that feeling. My eyes popped open and all I could see in the complete darkness was the silhouette of some really big muscular guy standing at the foot of our sleeping bags and he had a frigging baseball bat in his hand! OH MY GOD! I instantly scrambled to my feet. My mind was reeling and I had a flood of thoughts going through my head. “Think fast Fuqua, you’ve never been in so much danger as you are in now. Don’t freak out. Show no fear” was all I could think of. In a calm quiet tone of voice, I started talking for our lives. The whole time, I’m inconspicuously nudging Jerry with my heel and praying that he’ll wake up. “Hey man, how are you? We ran out of bait so we decided to get a couple of hours of sleep before daybreak. We were partying a lot, so we were pretty tired. Are you getting ready to fish?” (My best dumb blond imitation.) He listened, and then said, “My car got stuck in the mud on No Name. Can you take me down there to get it?” Dear God in heaven, if I wasn’t scared before, I was terrified now. I knew that if I left the bridge with him, I wouldn’t be coming back. He’d probably kill me, then come back up the bridge to kill Jerry. My heart felt like it was going to pop out of my chest. I said the only thing that would make sense. “Oh, wow, I’m sorry. We cruised here on fumes. We don’t even have enough gas in the car to make it over the bridge. We have to wait for the fish camp to open up in the morning so that we can buy some gas at the boat pumps. There’s a pay phone down there. I’ll be happy to give you some change to make a call.” I’m holding my breath and digging in my jeans pocket for coins. I gave him the change in my pocket. He thanked me and I could see him walk about twenty feet closer to Big Pine Key. It was so dark you couldn’t see any further than that.
I laid back down on top of the sleeping bag and started poking Jerry in the ribs. When he opened his eyes, I cupped my hand around his ear and started whispering to explain what had just happened. His response was, “Where? I don’t see anybody.” No chit Sherlock. It was too dark. Jerry went right back to sleep. There was no way on God’s green earth that I was going back to sleep. My eyes were wide open. I know to this day that the guy crossed the street and doubled back and stood there watching us. I could feel him watching to see what was going to happen. After what seemed like forever, I heard the engine of the Jon boat come to life. The baseball bat wielding guy was in the Jon boat. There was no car stuck on No Name Key! I sat up with my sleeping bag wrapped around me, shaking from fear. I waited for daylight for what seemed like an eternity.
The next morning, there was smoke pouring from a boat that was close to the Spanish Harbor Bridge. It was a cabin cruiser and it was on fire! By 7 AM, the Marine Patrol car came to the bridge and stopped next to us. The officer asked if we’d been out on the bridge all night. I told him yes and he wanted to know if anything unusual had happened. I poured out my guts with all the details of the night’s events starting with the maniac who’d smashed our lantern with his speed boat and ending with the maniac with the baseball bat. He told us that someone had stolen two boats from Doctor’s Arms last night. (It’s the first housing development on Big Pine, closest to the bridge.) They stole a cabin cruiser and a Jon boat. The thieves were using it to off load square grouper, then set the cabin cruiser on fire to conceal the evidence. The Marine Patrol was searching for the Jon boat. “Do you know how lucky you are to be alive?” he asked. WELL HELL’S BELLS, IF I DIDN’T KNOW BEFORE, I SURE DO NOW!!!
The speed boat wanted to get rid of the lantern so that nobody could see what they were doing. The guy in the Jon boat wanted to make sure that we weren’t informants who were watching the operation.
I guess the rule is: If you’re going to sleep on a secluded bridge at night, you better have a big dog or a fast thinking woman with you!

Janet, this storie is very erree. I have a few of my own. This was a well written storie that left nothing to the imngination.

GREAT!

It was 1976 approximately January, Location Old Long Key bridge catwalks.

Me and Chris Baxter were both Sharkin the other 2 guys were just there for the party.
Chris gets spooled on his 9/0 very slowly, And the pisser was after getting to the knot it spit the bait.

A little while later my 12 gets a fast hit. We end up gaffing it with my meat hook drag him down the catwalk to the seawall. This is where it gets sticky The guy took the picture below Rick Occpinti, Well he backed up the car to the seawall to help pull the shark up over the wall.
The only problem is we had partied hard that night and well Rick hit the gas instead of the brake by accident!
Unfortunately the shark was still very alive and upset and i was in between the car and the seawall. So the car knocks me for a loop into the dark night time water around 2-3 am.
This is when i Run on water to get away from the thrashing shark

I make Rick run the car all night with the heater on high,- It was in the 40's that night as you can see by how we were dressed.
This is a pic he took the next morning facing old Long Key bridge.


REMEMBER THIS WAS 1970'S AND YES WE KILLED SHARKS...NO WE DONT ANYMORE.
The only pic of me with the shark has a big water stain blotch on it...sorry
But hears a pic of my Uncle Harry with the jaws im stanging in the doorway.

Holy crap! I thought that the only responses would be of a human threat. But I guess a blitzed driver is a human threat. The shark only wanted to get away! Terrific story Mojo!

Then there was the time back in the early 70's at north end of 7 mile bridge.

At that time the old bridge had cat walks, Only problem was they did NOT extend all the way to shore....
So the usual MO was to take the station wagon out to the cat walks quickly unload everything and everyone, Then drive the car back to the lot at the end of the bridge.

Your mind is already guessing what im about to say :O) This night i was the designated car walker i got the wagon to the lot and proceeded to walk out the bridge "long long walk" it was pitch black after dark. Next thing i know i hear a loud roar and the bridge is shaking....My mind was clouded by various mind altering substances :O)

I quickly turn to see a large silver Greyhound bus "thought i was dead" i turned/JUMPED over the side grabbing the railroad rails..as i turn i can feel the Bus Mirror pass so close to my ear it almost hurt. So i made it over the side of 7 mile and now im hanging on somehow someway i was able to haul all my 380+ pounds back over that rail..... from then on i always packed an extra pair of underwear

Thanks for the belly laugh MoJo!

Great stories guys,keep em comming.Thanks

This is JD Hammer with a true storie from about 1968.
It started out on a hot summer morning. We were out on Sainish Harbor Bridge jigging for jacks and grovers. Two of my partners were with me. I notice a station wagon pull into the parking lot. We went down to check it out. Big mistake. The man in the car called us over. I notice a little gril in the front seat. As we leaned on the car the man said are you looking at my daugther .I am an x- con and I will blow your f----kins heads off. Thats when i notice a gun in his hand pointing at us. I've ben drinking for two days and I nothing to lose. As we were backing away we were trying to talk him out of it. He put his car in drive and took off.We were so shook up we didn;t get his license plat number. I have many more stories to come. I learned dont be so damn noisy lol.

Janet that's a classic ,,,,,,,,thanks everyone for your weird wacky stories.I have many freaky stories that i remember,,,Rene and I trying to shoot vultures on Bahia Honda bridge with Rene's 357 magnum never did get one because if you missed on your first shot they all scattered ,,,,,,,,lights in the sky above us that we never were able to ID,,,,,,,,the race boat flying under the bridge without running lights at 4 am,,,,,,,,,,the night the compass went crazy on my brother Jorge's boat as he approached Bimini,the two hours that were lost trying to reach the Island within view yet unapproachable for some time warp freaky reason and then the Black ghost that appeared behind Matt Spurlin one of my brothers crew mate that night.Many more i can't remember right now .Sleep deprivation will sometimes play havoc with one's mind and as shark fisherman we have to deal with this all the time .Just recently fishing with Jd and jimmy on a beach in south West Palm some weirdo came out of the sea oats at around 3 am and i sleep real light when fishing ,,,when i saw the guy i jumped up and asked him what the hell he wanted and he just scurried away real quick like.

Wow janet i love that story thats classic!!!

k

loving these stories really good ones!

THE BIG SPLASH

It started out as a shark trip that went bad. Lets go backs to 1969.My friend mountain man real name Wayne Freedman and I went to Big Carlos Pass Bridge. The shark fishing was red hot that night. With six to eight run two sharks caught. The tide was a moon tide running out to sea very strong. The night was starting to get very cold. Mountain man stayed on the bridge and I went to my car witch was parked under the bridge. It seems he fell a sleep on the bridge and got up to have a smoke and sat on the rail facing the street back to the water. He fell asleep once more this time and did about three back flips into the water. Meanwhile I am sleeping under the bridge and I hear someone calling my name. Jimbo Jimbo. I thought I was dreaming but got up anyway. I went up the bridge and saw ours rods still out but maintain man was nowhere to be found then I hear it again Jimbo Jimbo. I looked over the side and saw him holding on to a piling. He looked like a crab. He said don’t just stand there get me the hell out of here. I looked around and saw our shark gaff and through it to him and he grabbed on. As I pulled him to shore a giant ray came out of the water next to him. He said what the hell was that. I told him it was just a ray. When I got him to shore he was a little shook up and had cuts on his arms and very wet.

ROD OVER

A few years ago .Like ten to be closer. I went to Seven Mile bridge south side all the out. Close to a mile out with my kid and a friend name Solaman. I put out a hole cuda on my penn 14;0 reel with a big limey glass rod. It was getting dark when I got a run. It hit so hard the reel back lashed and the rod went over the side. I wasn"t aware of what I was doing at the time. I looked up at the bridge as I enter the water. It was to late. The dumb ass had jumped in. Guss who .Me!! LOL. The current was comming in strong and I took a few dives looking for my rod on the bottom with no luck. Then it hit me .What if the shark comes back looking for more . By this time it was getting dark. I looked up and told Solamen to toss me a rope and towe me back to shore. It was dark and I was scared to death.

MORAL OF THE STORY THINK BEFORE YOU LEAP. LOL. ROD NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN.