Having grown up in the Palm Beaches I thought it might be fun to share a story of my youth, and perhaps give thanks for still being alive in the process. We all did some crazy stuff as kids down there, this is one of my craziest. This is Shark Fishing From A Row Boat. It was the summer of 1982. I was 18, and I was hanging with some real crazys. One afternoon an older friend named John, a hulk of a man around 6 foot 3 and 300 pounds whom I looked up to, came by and said hey man, were going shark fishing tonight at Palm Beach Inlet, you wanna come? Well heck yeah! I said and hastily got my stuff together having no idea what was in store for that evening. I hollered at my neighbor and friend Kenny to get off his couch and join us too. This was going to be fun! We stopped by a fish packing plant in Boynton Beach and filled 3 or 4 large plastic tubs full of fish guts, fish parts and blood. We also picked up 10-12 very large grouper heads that must have weighed 30lbs+ each. The rowboat with no outboard motor, strapped to the rack on Johns pickup truck should have been a clue. The pony keg of beer we picked up at Bills Beer Barn only sweetened the deal. Lets go catch a shark! It was a full moon on a warm summer evening. We got up to Singer Island just before dark. Back then you could park near the Colonnades Hotel and carry your stuff over the dune and down onto the beach by the pump house under the Australian pines. There were some kids there surfing. John walked over and casually informed them that they may want to stop surfing and stay away from the water from now on. They got pissed off but we out numbered them, and John was also the size of a truck so they left. The beer started flowing and we began chumming the inlet from the rocks there by the pump house on the outgoing tide. Finally after numerous beers and other party favors the true nature of what was to go down that evening became clear: Kenny and I would put two grouper heads in the row boat. These were triple rigged with huge hooks to 50 foot aircraft cable leaders connected to two ton rated power swivels. These went to the largest Penn real and rod combos I had ever seen via 2,000 feet of 100+ lb test monofilament line. The Penns were securely anchored up on the beach, where John and one of his friends Tony stood watching, drinking beer. Right as it got dark as the moon was rising over the Atlantic we got in the row boat and rowed out through the little shore break. Shortly we rounded the pump house and caught the outgoing flow from the inlet which carried us off shore. We had a system of whistles from the shore which told us when to jettison the grouper heads and turn around to row back in: Two whistles from shore meant keep rowing, go farther out. One whistle from shore meant thats far enough, drop the bait. All the way out on the current we continued chumming by pouring the blood out of coke cans we had filled back on shore. Dribble dribble, half a can here, more over there, keep rowing. As a make shift safety precaution we also had a dummy grouper head; one that wasnt rigged to anything but that we thought we could feed to something, should that something decide to eat the row boat with us in it. What a great plan! It had to work! The moon rose high over the Atlantic, and the beer continued to flow. The shore team got several hits on the huge Penn rigs. One of these hits actually ran a fair bit of line out before effortlessly snapping the thick monofilament line, so it had to be re-rigged with a new swivel/leader/hooks set up. The boat team of Kenny and I would row back in to shore on the eddy north of the inlet. Then wed drag the rowboat back down the beach a hundred yards or so to the starting point, before setting up for another go. This went on for several hours: row out, chum, row some more, drop the grouper heads, turn around, row back in, drink beer, re set for another round. Life was good. Around 11pm that evening Kenny and I were on another mission out into the black water beneath our tiny rowboat. We were B.S.ing, chumming, drinking, laughing, just being kids with no life vests on, half a mile off shore in a row boat pouring blood into the ocean under a full moon on the outgoing tide. What, youve never done that? Yeah, sure you havent, liar. I was rowing out on this round so I was facing the shore, watching it recede into the darkness. Waiting for the whistle that would signal us to drop our slimy, stinky cargo, turn around and go back in for more beer. I was rowing up one particular swell when it felt like we ran aground onto a sandbar. I dont know how else to describe it. We hit something that slowed our forward progress and made a sandy scraping noise along the bottom of the row boat, we could feel it underneath our butts and bare feet as this happened. Yet this couldnt be a sand bar...could it? We were nearly half a mile off shore in a couple hundred feet of water, right? Right?!? A moment later the dorsal fin slid by behind Kenny, literally taller than his seated form in the back of the rowboat. It blocked my view of the shore for a moment and then it disappeared beneath the black water. Startled by my pale, agape stare, Kenny spun and caught sight of the end of the dorsal fin as it slid by and then the tail shortly thereafter as whatever this was swam back down into the depths. It was huge, it was silver, it drew a wake, it glistened under the moon light. Simultaneously, we both realized that WE definitely did not belong here at this very moment. Holy f-ing S**T!! Kenny screamed as we began throwing stuff out of the rowboat. First we jettisoned the two rigged grouper heads, one off each side, then the dummy head over the bow. Finally we began throwing the coke cans full of blood as far as we could without flipping the rowboat. Our thoughts were to give this thing plenty of choices to eat other than an aluminum row boat with two very stupid, very drunk kids who were not wearing flotation vests in it. Now high on adrenaline and terror and in one terrified super human move, I turned the boat fully 180 degrees and began powering towards shore. The shore team, having seen some commotion and now confused by what was going on out there kept whistling two whistles (not far enough keep going) two whistles, and again, two whistles. Screw em, we were about to die and they didnt matter at that moment. We literally surfed a single swell in that rowboat nearly all the way back to shore, thats how fast I was rowing (rowing!). I kept seeing the massive dorsal fin in my mind passing behind Kennys head, and fully expected to see it closing in on us from behind at any moment a-la Jaws. Thankfully it never appeared. Instead, we literally surfed the rowboat right up onto the beach and out of the water, onto dry land. Wild eyed with terror we looked back down the beach to our starting point by the pump house and the Australian pines. John and his buddy Tony now had this monster on one of the Penn rigs and were struggling to set the drag on the reel so that all of the monofilament didnt run out of the reel. But the monofilament line did run out, all of it. And right as it ran out it snatched both the rod and reel rig, and John who was now clipped into it with a sport fishing harness right out of the sand, and began dragging him down the beach, on his knees. Towards the surf. Towards the monster. Kenny and I stood there transfixed; watching a 6 foot plus nearly 300 pound man get dragged on his knees towards the surf, attached to his rod and reel combo under the full moon. Johns buddy Tony was screaming at him and trying to find a knife to cut the monofilament line, and all the while John was steadily being dragged down towards the surf. Then into the surf. Then up to his knees. Then up to his waist. He was being pulled out to sea. His knees had left two huge trenches in the sand where he had passed, these went back up the beach to where the rod had originally been anchored. The whole scene had long ago passed surreal. Finally at the last second right as John was screaming and fumbling with his harness now underwater in the surf, the whole rig went slack. Ive rarely seen a man of that size move that fast. He recoiled in horror and just about walked on water back up onto the sand getting out of the surf. He laid there panting, wild eyed, just as we had been mere seconds before. We all just stared. It got very quiet for a moment save for the light surf rolling in on the south end of Singer Island. In a daze Kenny and I secured the rowboat up by the Australian pines. Needless to say our night was done. John, drenched, and still shaking then reeled in nearly 2,000 feet of heavy duty monofilament line, right up to the power swivel and then to the aircraft cable leader below that. Whatever this thing was, it had bitten right through the aircraft cable cleanly, like a pair of linemans pliers, no frayed ends just a clean cut through multi strand aircraft cable. We still stood there for a bit, not knowing what to do. We were all terrified of what we had summoned from the deep on the outgoing tide under the full moon. Even now over 30 years later Im getting creeped out writing this because this actually happened and Im still alive. In my life Ive had some amazing experiences and also done some terribly dumb stuff. But this has to be the single dumbest thing Ive ever done, at least intentionally anyway. Being a city boy from South Florida I had never been around wild animals or truly wild nature for that matter. It took me years to process this incident, and I all but blocked it out for nearly a decade. Ive only told a few people about it and this is the first time Ive ever written it all down. I firmly believe in guardian angels, I know they are real and I know that mine were working overtime on that evening, long ago in the inky black water off the pump house at Palm Beach Inlet. Im not posting this to impress anyone, only to document what happened and give thanks again to my angels. Thank you. Perhaps then when your kids do stupid stuff as all kids do, you may pause and reflect that hey at least theyre not out drunk, shark fishing from a rowboat. Cameron Grant, Las Vegas NV.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 14:36:47 +0000
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