Do NOT try this at home......or anywhere

Please don’t try this at home, very irresponsible behavior and my death as a result of such actions would enact Anna’s clause requiring only a minimum of 3 month mourning period due to husband’s death from stupidity.  What I did yesterday made me top candidate for Darwin Award.  

I caught six big “saige-hog” mullet (about a 2 pound mullet) in one cast of my cast net three days ago.  I fed one of them to a really big snook, but the little hook with which I was prepared to impale sardines was way too small for the back of this giant mullet, but I had to give it a try.  Right about dark, I got the bite, but missed him.  I did get the murdered mullet back, without a scale on him.

Two days ago, larger hooks in my possession,  I threw the cast net for two hours and could not catch mullet or sardine.

Yesterday, after enough effort to really appreciate the one mullet I did catch, the impeding thunderstorm was not going to keep me out of the water.   So there I am pondering life and mortality, neck deep in waste deep water, trying to remain as a low profile as possible although holding a nine foot light action surf rod.   I did keep the rod flat,  just above the water, trying to keep that antenna in my hand from humming as bolts of lightning crash all sides.  I count the seconds between the flash and thunder, hoping that they don’t arrive at the same time.   I didn’t think about it as much as I should have because that mullet was really lively and I was sure about to be bitten during the height of the storm.   My biggest concern was that if I were to get a bite, I would have to raise that rod up in all that electricity.  I justified that a bent rod was less likely to get struck by lightning than one that didn’t have a bend in it so I was OK…..and even if I was doubled over with a snook of a lifetime, what a better way to go?

After the storm, gone are the large torrential rain drops which violently pounded the surface of the ocean into a haze.  Now the wind is calm, the surface is slick, greasy calm, only occasional tiny rings on the smooth surface indicate where an light droplet gently fell.

The calm is interrupted by a dozen mullet erupting in all directions from a boil and white water left by a pursuing predator.   The  showers of rain now replaced by showers of mullet coming from several directions.   Occasionally one would be singled out, pursued by a wake and comb of a roosterfish probably better than 10 or 12 pounds but not big enough to give my giant bait a try. 

I’m  still waiting on that snook when the second lightning storm fell in behind the first one and right over my head.   I can’t leave now, not with all that activity around and still enough life in my bait to get a bite.   For some reason the rain was a lot colder this time, so squatting down in the water wasn’t as much to be less of a lightning rod but more to submerge in the warmer waters of the ocean, but that didn’t last long.  

In the height of the storm the cooler rainwater and runoff from the first storm started flushing out of the river behind me, along with coconuts and big green leaves and palm trees.   I thought of being cognizant of the rising water and debris, not to be caught in a flash flood and swept to see, but it wasn’t being swept to the bull sharks that was on my mind.   I  couldn’t help to think what else might be getting washed out of the jungle.  I started to feel like I was being watched…..I could almost here the tic tok of that clock in the belly of Capt. Hook’s croc and I decided it was finally time to get out of the water.   No bites......fortunately for me.