Tales of terror when land based fishing

A BAHIA HONDA NIGHTMARE

It was late August, early September in 1983. The previous weekend my husband, Jerry, and I watched a 30 lb. free swimming healthy tarpon get attacked by a monster hammerhead and get swallowed in two bites. As usual, the following weekend we were fishing on the Old Bahia Honda Bridge. It was late afternoon on Sunday and we were the only ones left on the bridge. We noticed three guys in their late 20’s or early 30’s staggering up the bridge and they were noticeably drunk as hell. We just kept fishing and hoped they’d walk right past us. One of the guys walked up to Jerry and said, “Will you give me 10 bucks if I jump off the bridge?” Remember that we were at the top of the bridge, 65 feet off the water. Jerry responded, “I won’t give you nothing to jump” and walked to the other side of the bridge to throw down a snapper bait. We were hoping they’d leave quickly and quit paying attention to them. Pretty soon we heard what sounded like a huge explosion. We turned to look and one of the guys was gone! The idiot had jumped off the bridge! We ran to the other side. He was knocked out cold, about 3 feet below the surface and was getting quickly swept out to sea by the ripping current. His buddies looked at each other as if to say, “What do we do now?” My heart started pounding and all I could think is oh my God, he’s going to get eaten by a hammerhead!!! About 30 seconds later, the guy regains consciousness and surfaces and he is flailing & pounding the water repeatedly with his arms and fists. Dear God, now he’s really going to get eaten & there’s nothing we can do to help him. I felt faint. The last thing I wanted to see was another human being getting eaten by a shark. I started silently praying, “Please dear God, don’t let him get eaten.” After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only 5 minutes, his buddies noticed a boat heading toward the bridge, going from the bay to the ocean. They ran down the bridge waving their arms & screaming, “STOP, STOP! HELP US!” Luckily the captain heard them and stopped. They yelled down to him & told him that their friend was in the water, getting pulled out to sea & he was in the middle of the channel. The guy in the boat was nice enough to zoom over to the idiot in the water & pull him aboard. He gave him a ride to the shore. The drunken dumb ass acted like nothing unusual had happened. He was walking ok on the shore, but I’ll bet that when he sobered up, that every bone & muscle in his body was screaming in pain. I always said that if anybody ever wanted me to jump off that bridge they’d have to have a gun to my head. That was the first and thankfully only time that we ever saw anybody stupid enough to jump off the top of the old Bahia Honda Bridge.

Great story Janet and you are on the money about the height of Bahia HONDA BRIDGE being so scary.I REMEMBER one late summer in 1982 right after the sun went down ,i was fighting a bull shark on incoming tide in between the new and the old bridge .I was walking the shark going left away from the hump and towards the end of the bridge and as i got to a spot that had no rail the bull took a run and my first instinct was to lean the rod on the rail and when i started to i was almost pulled in but instead i dropped to the ground; all the while the rod still in my hands and the shark thrashing about trying to make a dive ,,,,,,,,,bent my 14/0 handle as i hit the ground and tore up my right knuckle but i saved my life because i was'nt about to fall 70 feet to my death .That was my favorite place to fish in the whole world,,,,forget the Bahamas or any other bridge ,that place was very dear and special to me.The fishing,the tranquility,the views from up there,the sun melting into that horizon with an early winter breeze ,,,,,heaven must be like that.

the gate we were'nt supposed to cross to get on the bridge Notice Rene #1 written on the metal gate

As high as that bridge is i heard Ham jumped of the brige back in the day.They would need a gun to make jump off of there like Janet said

Good stories Janet...gotta love South Fl.

I have a old Bahia Honda bridge story to tell about my Brother-in-law Jerry (Janets Husband).

He was tieing a new hook on his line when he put the end in his mouth to tighten the knot, it
slipped thru his fingers and WHAMOO he hooked himself right out there in the middle of no-where.

Janet made me run to the end of the bridge to look for something to help her remove the hook (she basically didn't want me see her perform bridge surgery). She used her finger nail to pull the skin back enought to remove the hook from his bottom lip.

Being out on the bridge in the sun and not eating much can make you do some strange things !!!.

I miss the 80's and the keys. I am now stuck in 8 degree weather in Indiana.

Steve R.
P.S. Don't kill me Jerry for telling this story