Every sawed-off sportsman knows when they have encountered another sawed-off sportsman. The telltale sign is they are using an item outside of it’s manufacturer’s intended design. As Shaving #1, I knew immediately when I and my sawed-off sportsman father crossed paths with “Willy” who was fishing for crabs in Saint Marks swamp using fish heads on a rope. Overall it was an effective procedure, catching 3 - 4 crabs with each “cast” (dropping the fish head into the water); however, it had caught the attention of another inhabitant of the swamp. An 8 foot American Alligator was “hovering” about 20 feet away – and watching.
Of course when sawed-off sportsmen cross paths they immediately go into what they’re doing, what they’re using, and how they came up with the idea. As I am merely a shaving and not personally sawed-off or a sportsmen, I cared little for the conversation and directed my attention to the swamp and specifically the alligator. Then the gator submerged. I sounded the alarm (“Hey, hey he’s under”), the sawed-offs took a look around, and the gator emerged about 5 feet from where he’d been. Not close, but still watching.
The sawed-offs went back to their conversation. All the while Willy is “reeling in” his line, picking off the crabs, checking the fish heads, re-“casting”, and repeating. Again, the gator submerged, again I sounded the alarm, again the sawed-offs took a look around, this time they decided the gator had gotten bored and moved on. I’d been in the field too long to turn my back on the swamp, but I directed my attention to the sawed-offs. As I’m listening to them regale one another with their stories – comparing scars as it were – Willy continues to reel in his line.
This time more than crabs come out of the water. The gator is rising silently out of the water and headed for Willy’s feet. Not knowing what else to do I start to scream like my hair is on fire. Mostly out of annoyance, the sawed-offs look at me and then to where I’m pointing – right at their feet. Both sawed-offs yelp and fall back. Ironically, Willy’s chosen method of escape is the crab-crawl backwards to safety. Crabs, fish heads, and rope abandoned Willy escapes.
Never take your eyes off the swamp.
MS-L
2/11/2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
5. Interview with a Sawed-off Sportsman
ML: Thank you for doing this interview.
Sawed-off Sportsman: No problem. I did this once before and it worked out pretty
well.
ML: You mean interview yourself?
SS: Yes.
ML: When was that?
SS: I don’t have to answer that question.
ML: Then why did you ask it?
SS: Got to use a line out of a movie.
ML: Which movie? No wait, I know, you don’t have to answer that either, right?
SS: Correct-a-mundo.
ML: How long have you been ‘sawed-off’?
SS: I once heard someone say that people don’t change, they just become more and more like themselves. That’s been my aspiration.
ML: Earliest ‘sawed-offness’?
SS: Well I remember the garter snakes clearly from about 4 years old at my grandfather’s place. My mother said that when I was little she harnessed me to the close line in the backyard, you know so I could move around, and I took an unusual interest in worms.
ML: Were your parents ‘sawed-off’. I mean is this…..approach, genetic?
SS: My mother had her own shotgun and always accused my father of knocking the biggest pike off her line on their honeymoon. My father was experimental sawed-off. Two adventures of his ‘yut’ come to mind. Once he wondered if a deer could be killed with a .22 – he reported “no problem”. Another time he was experimenting with black powder and a rabbit ear shotgun that likely took cartridges. As he later said, the only mistakes he didn’t make involved tying the gun to a tree and pulling the trigger with a string. Had he not, neither one of us would have lived.
ML: And your children?
SS: Ah yes, the shavings; they vary. Shaving 1 doesn’t come across as sawed-off – she makes you take your shoes off before coming into her townhouse – but then there’s the 20 year old turtle and 600 guppies in the plastic garden pond in her dining room. Shaving 2 is not naturally sawed-off but she knows what she’s doing because I taught her some stuff before she knew what I was doing. Shaving 3 likes to get sawed-off if he can bring along a bunch of his friends. Shaving 4 is an extremely serious menace to both salt and fresh water teleosts; comes back from 8 hours on the high seas and goes down to the pier to relax by catching pinfish.
ML: And Mrs. Sawed-off?
SS: She wants me to abandon my aspiration and stop teaching the children stuff. I tell her “Honey, I gotta be me” and she says “Please stop.”
ML: So how many episodes of “Adventures of aSS” can we look for?
SS: I saw that.
ML: I meant to be amusing, have I failed?
SS: Nice shot.
ML: And the answer to the question?
SS: I don’t know how long we have. Who does?
ML
2/9/07
Sawed-off Sportsman: No problem. I did this once before and it worked out pretty
well.
ML: You mean interview yourself?
SS: Yes.
ML: When was that?
SS: I don’t have to answer that question.
ML: Then why did you ask it?
SS: Got to use a line out of a movie.
ML: Which movie? No wait, I know, you don’t have to answer that either, right?
SS: Correct-a-mundo.
ML: How long have you been ‘sawed-off’?
SS: I once heard someone say that people don’t change, they just become more and more like themselves. That’s been my aspiration.
ML: Earliest ‘sawed-offness’?
SS: Well I remember the garter snakes clearly from about 4 years old at my grandfather’s place. My mother said that when I was little she harnessed me to the close line in the backyard, you know so I could move around, and I took an unusual interest in worms.
ML: Were your parents ‘sawed-off’. I mean is this…..approach, genetic?
SS: My mother had her own shotgun and always accused my father of knocking the biggest pike off her line on their honeymoon. My father was experimental sawed-off. Two adventures of his ‘yut’ come to mind. Once he wondered if a deer could be killed with a .22 – he reported “no problem”. Another time he was experimenting with black powder and a rabbit ear shotgun that likely took cartridges. As he later said, the only mistakes he didn’t make involved tying the gun to a tree and pulling the trigger with a string. Had he not, neither one of us would have lived.
ML: And your children?
SS: Ah yes, the shavings; they vary. Shaving 1 doesn’t come across as sawed-off – she makes you take your shoes off before coming into her townhouse – but then there’s the 20 year old turtle and 600 guppies in the plastic garden pond in her dining room. Shaving 2 is not naturally sawed-off but she knows what she’s doing because I taught her some stuff before she knew what I was doing. Shaving 3 likes to get sawed-off if he can bring along a bunch of his friends. Shaving 4 is an extremely serious menace to both salt and fresh water teleosts; comes back from 8 hours on the high seas and goes down to the pier to relax by catching pinfish.
ML: And Mrs. Sawed-off?
SS: She wants me to abandon my aspiration and stop teaching the children stuff. I tell her “Honey, I gotta be me” and she says “Please stop.”
ML: So how many episodes of “Adventures of aSS” can we look for?
SS: I saw that.
ML: I meant to be amusing, have I failed?
SS: Nice shot.
ML: And the answer to the question?
SS: I don’t know how long we have. Who does?
ML
2/9/07
Saturday, February 10, 2007
4c. Four-man fishing
Four-man fishing is a semi-logical outgrowth of two-man fishing.
Two-man fishing was invented to deal with a ‘good news/bad news’ situation. The good news was that about 150ft off the Gulf side of Captiva Key there was a zigzag pattern of concrete structures on the bottom (presumably beach erosion control) which attracted many fish. Of the many species present the snook were to kill for; really big snook. The bad news was it was too far to cast.
First instinct was to get a swimming pool raft and snorkel back out to the spot with mask, flippers, bait bucket and rod & reel. Reflection suggested that the rod & reel would likely end up on the bottom; poor treatment of the reel which was marginal anyway. That being the main anticipated problem, Plan B was Plan A minus the rod& reel in the water.
Terry was a militant non-fisherman which usually means someone with an extra supply of beginner’s luck if you can just trick such people into actually fishing. I assured him that I, not he, would be “fishing”. He would be standing on the shore merely appearing to be fishing as he would be holding the rod & reel. That, plus the possibility I would get the hook in myself and he could reel me in screaming, secured his participation.
It was a good plan but not a good enough plan. The snook were there but the sheepshead nailed the shrimp first and quickly and they are hard to hook.
Four-man fishing was invented to deal with the line abrasion problem with sharks hooked from the beach. Another rule of sawed-off sportsmanship is nothing succeeds like excess. Oh, they might be able to saw through 20 pound mono but they were not going to saw through ski rope. Big hook, 3ft steel leader, big swivel (off a defunct cast net), 200 feet of rope and…ah the part of the plan that needed some planning.
You don’t really get a good feel for how hard a big fish is pulling, in a tug-of-war sense, because the reel drag gives up line. You just know he’s leaving. Consequently, tying the rope around my waist seemed problematic a priori. Hand holding the rope sounded dicey so I tied a sturdy 5in diameter steel ring to the beach end of the rope. With about $11.57 already invested, and still not knowing who would win the pulling contest, I decided to accommodate up to four people on “Team Human’. As these people would likely be some of my children and their friends, handles were fashioned from two foot pieces of stout bamboo that were each attached to the steel ring with carabineers and about three feet of rope, i.e. little chance of getting tangled up (speaking of being pulled through the water screaming). The plan was that on some morning when it was SS: 0 / Sharks: 3, I’d walk/swim the baited hook out to the second sand bar, come back and give the standard Ahabian pep talk to those assembled – “What say ye lads? I think ye do look brave. Will ye join hands with me on this?” – and we’d drag the next one out of the Gulf.
As events have unfolded since the invention of four-man fishing the necessary deployment conditions have not come together. But the apparatus is generally with us, stored securely in the bottom of the Fisherman’s Quiver in a black plastic bag. So when all is said and done, two-man fishing didn’t work and four-man fishing has not been tried. And though the weather outside is frightful, the August beach beckons.
ML
2-2-07
Two-man fishing was invented to deal with a ‘good news/bad news’ situation. The good news was that about 150ft off the Gulf side of Captiva Key there was a zigzag pattern of concrete structures on the bottom (presumably beach erosion control) which attracted many fish. Of the many species present the snook were to kill for; really big snook. The bad news was it was too far to cast.
First instinct was to get a swimming pool raft and snorkel back out to the spot with mask, flippers, bait bucket and rod & reel. Reflection suggested that the rod & reel would likely end up on the bottom; poor treatment of the reel which was marginal anyway. That being the main anticipated problem, Plan B was Plan A minus the rod& reel in the water.
Terry was a militant non-fisherman which usually means someone with an extra supply of beginner’s luck if you can just trick such people into actually fishing. I assured him that I, not he, would be “fishing”. He would be standing on the shore merely appearing to be fishing as he would be holding the rod & reel. That, plus the possibility I would get the hook in myself and he could reel me in screaming, secured his participation.
It was a good plan but not a good enough plan. The snook were there but the sheepshead nailed the shrimp first and quickly and they are hard to hook.
Four-man fishing was invented to deal with the line abrasion problem with sharks hooked from the beach. Another rule of sawed-off sportsmanship is nothing succeeds like excess. Oh, they might be able to saw through 20 pound mono but they were not going to saw through ski rope. Big hook, 3ft steel leader, big swivel (off a defunct cast net), 200 feet of rope and…ah the part of the plan that needed some planning.
You don’t really get a good feel for how hard a big fish is pulling, in a tug-of-war sense, because the reel drag gives up line. You just know he’s leaving. Consequently, tying the rope around my waist seemed problematic a priori. Hand holding the rope sounded dicey so I tied a sturdy 5in diameter steel ring to the beach end of the rope. With about $11.57 already invested, and still not knowing who would win the pulling contest, I decided to accommodate up to four people on “Team Human’. As these people would likely be some of my children and their friends, handles were fashioned from two foot pieces of stout bamboo that were each attached to the steel ring with carabineers and about three feet of rope, i.e. little chance of getting tangled up (speaking of being pulled through the water screaming). The plan was that on some morning when it was SS: 0 / Sharks: 3, I’d walk/swim the baited hook out to the second sand bar, come back and give the standard Ahabian pep talk to those assembled – “What say ye lads? I think ye do look brave. Will ye join hands with me on this?” – and we’d drag the next one out of the Gulf.
As events have unfolded since the invention of four-man fishing the necessary deployment conditions have not come together. But the apparatus is generally with us, stored securely in the bottom of the Fisherman’s Quiver in a black plastic bag. So when all is said and done, two-man fishing didn’t work and four-man fishing has not been tried. And though the weather outside is frightful, the August beach beckons.
ML
2-2-07
Monday, February 5, 2007
4b. Sharks (n = 2/13)
There seem to be two main obstacles to landing a shark hooked from the beach.
First, because the angle of the line with the shark’s body is nearly parallel, they have a most excellent opportunity to saw on the line with the very rough skin on their tail. Their business end is defeated with a strong hook—three feet of 120-pound steel leader attached to the hook at one end, and a big swivel at the other. The big swivel is attached to a pointed snap and swivel. Then the experimentation begins.
Having lost a good many sharks in the surf, I discussed the situation at a salt water tackle store and the guy said, “Kid, you need a bigger reel.” A bigger reel would hold more heavy- test monofilament line, which the shark would have more trouble sawing through. Now I’m not cheap, but I do not like to own equipment that’s better than I am and I felt unworthy of owning a big salt water bait reel. Plus, casting is not such a reel’s strong suit. I skipped the self-psychoanalysis and told the guy I was using a big spinning reel. He said, “Kid, you need as much 100-pound mono as you can deal with and this tool to tie a nail knot.” Under ten bucks and we’re back in business! At present we’re using about 15 feet of 80-pound mono- leader, tied at one end to the pointed snap and swivel, and at the other end with a nail knot to the main line of twenty pound mono. With a reliable drag, line strength and capacity are virtually interchangeable. It’s a very good reel (my wife bought it for me), so this ought to work and two times out of about 13 it has.
This brings us to the second problem:
They cheat! The devils jump. I’m talking straight up and clean out of the water, and spin while they’re in the air. I am also suspicious they are spinning underwater. This spinning business, of course, can easily take up some hard-to-predict amount of the 80-pound leader, getting their skin on the 20-pound main line.
However, this jumping is not without its own recreational aspects. One morning I was standing on the beach about 8:00 as the “women & children” time zone begins. This little girl, about nine, comes walking over.
Little girl: “What are you fishing for?”
SS: “Sharks.”
Little girl: “No you’re not.”
SS: “You see that place out in the water where it goes from sort of white to darker? You watch that place.”
Unbeknownst to my small skeptic, Mr. Shark had been messing with half a lady fish since before she came over and took off right about the time she said “No you’re not.” So, I set the hook and the shark went right straight up in the air.
Little girl: “[silent pause] Mommy, Mommy, Mommy…..”( decreasing font size indicates decibel level as she runs away)
A sawed-off sportsman always enjoys these educational interactions with the public but there remained the basic problem of line abrasion.
ML
1/31/07
First, because the angle of the line with the shark’s body is nearly parallel, they have a most excellent opportunity to saw on the line with the very rough skin on their tail. Their business end is defeated with a strong hook—three feet of 120-pound steel leader attached to the hook at one end, and a big swivel at the other. The big swivel is attached to a pointed snap and swivel. Then the experimentation begins.
Having lost a good many sharks in the surf, I discussed the situation at a salt water tackle store and the guy said, “Kid, you need a bigger reel.” A bigger reel would hold more heavy- test monofilament line, which the shark would have more trouble sawing through. Now I’m not cheap, but I do not like to own equipment that’s better than I am and I felt unworthy of owning a big salt water bait reel. Plus, casting is not such a reel’s strong suit. I skipped the self-psychoanalysis and told the guy I was using a big spinning reel. He said, “Kid, you need as much 100-pound mono as you can deal with and this tool to tie a nail knot.” Under ten bucks and we’re back in business! At present we’re using about 15 feet of 80-pound mono- leader, tied at one end to the pointed snap and swivel, and at the other end with a nail knot to the main line of twenty pound mono. With a reliable drag, line strength and capacity are virtually interchangeable. It’s a very good reel (my wife bought it for me), so this ought to work and two times out of about 13 it has.
This brings us to the second problem:
They cheat! The devils jump. I’m talking straight up and clean out of the water, and spin while they’re in the air. I am also suspicious they are spinning underwater. This spinning business, of course, can easily take up some hard-to-predict amount of the 80-pound leader, getting their skin on the 20-pound main line.
However, this jumping is not without its own recreational aspects. One morning I was standing on the beach about 8:00 as the “women & children” time zone begins. This little girl, about nine, comes walking over.
Little girl: “What are you fishing for?”
SS: “Sharks.”
Little girl: “No you’re not.”
SS: “You see that place out in the water where it goes from sort of white to darker? You watch that place.”
Unbeknownst to my small skeptic, Mr. Shark had been messing with half a lady fish since before she came over and took off right about the time she said “No you’re not.” So, I set the hook and the shark went right straight up in the air.
Little girl: “[silent pause] Mommy, Mommy, Mommy…..”( decreasing font size indicates decibel level as she runs away)
A sawed-off sportsman always enjoys these educational interactions with the public but there remained the basic problem of line abrasion.
ML
1/31/07
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