This happened in September of 1993 I think
My cousin Don was about eleven years older than me. When I was in my early 20s, we'd go fishing together all the time—backwater lakes, military reservations, random rivers we'd find, sometimes the Gulf of Mexico, sometimes off a bridge, sometimes under one. It was usually normal fishing, but we found ourselves in some very interesting situations. This is one of those stories.
It was Don's birthday, and he'd just gotten a brand new fishing pole and reel. We decided to fish off the Cinco Bayou Bridge, the one that connects Cinco Bayou to Fort Walton Beach. We got set up, threw our lines out, and I asked him a simple question.
"Did you set the drag? The last thing you want to happen is to have your pole get launched over the bridge railing into the water."
"Yep," he said. "I got it. No problem."
We were standing there talking, waiting for something to hit, when suddenly we heard it: ping, ping, clang, clank, zip.
His brand new rod and reel went flying over the bridge railing and into the water.
I looked at him. "I asked you if you set the drag."
He was furious. "I thought I did. This sucks. Let's just go home."
"Nope," I said. "We've got other poles. We just got here. Let's at least fish and try to enjoy the night. Maybe something will happen that will make this night better."
So we kept fishing.
That's when I noticed it—a large stingray doing laps in the bay and coming under the bridge every time at the same point. Its wingspan had to be five to six feet across.
"If I catch that stingray and can get it to shore," I said, "we can take the wings and make scallops out of them."
Don looked at me skeptical. "How are you gonna catch it?"
"No problem," I said.
I took my bridge gaff and threw it out into the water. I tied the line to the bridge. When the stingray swam over it, I yanked the gaff into its nose. The stingray pulled the line taut, and suddenly we felt this twang and vibration as the creature was now attached to the bridge. Now we were contemplating next steps..
Up at the top of the bridge, one of the other fishermen got a hit. Within two minutes, he had another hit on his other line. Now he was fighting both of them. Don said he'd go help and asked me to get our lines out of the water. I reeled up and we headed up the bridge.
The fisherman reeled in the first one—a large alligator gar. Back then, they were considered nuisance fish, so we gutted it and threw it back. He was still fighting the second line. When he finally reeled it up, what came out of the water wasn't a fish.
It was a fishing line attached to something.
"Hey," I said, "would that be funny if it was your rod and reel?"
Don didn't think it was funny. "That's bullshit," he said.
The other fisherman chimed in. "If it is a rod and reel, how do I know it's yours?"
I told Don to describe it to him. Don described the reel and the rod, the details, everything. And sure enough, as we hand-lined it up, we could see it was his. His brand new birthday fishing pole and reel, somehow hooked on this guy's line.
There was still a fish attached to it.
Don took the pole and started fighting the fish, trying to reel it in. He fought it for a while, but eventually the line broke. The fish got away.
But Don got his fishing pole back.
Except we'd all forgotten about something.
All this time, while we were dealing with Don's pole, the stingray had been fighting down there. We heard it—a warbling sound, the bridge vibrating from the creature's struggle. I looked down and realized I'd completely forgotten about it.
I walked back down the bridge.
That's when we heard it—a sound like a whip crack.
The entire 2 pound bridge gaff came flying up and across the bridge, into the road. For a moment, it hung in the air like a lofted grenade. Luckily, it missed the cars and clanged across the bridge surface.
I ran down the bridge in a full sprint, waving at cars, stopping them, so I could get the gaff out of the road before somebody punctured a tire and hooked themselves to the bridge in the process. I got it out of the way, traffic continued, and for the first time since my anxiety sprint down the bridge, I really looked at the bridge gaff.
The stingray had straightened the hook. A giant bridge gaff hook, and this creature had pulled hard enough to straighten it completely. That's how it got away.
After that, we decided it was time to go. We grabbed some fast food from an all-night place, got some sleep, and went fishing again the next day out in the woods.
Not every fish you hook is the one you'll land. Sometimes the one that got away is the one that was fighting the hardest the whole time. And sometimes the small victories ar the most rewarding.