As I mentioned earlier, Randy and I both love to fish. If you couldn't find us, we were usually down at the bayou, with our fishing pole, tackle boxes, and a seine net. He and I both had a seine, a long straight net with floats on one side, and weights on the other side. The ends had "borrowed" broomsticks or boards or pipes that were used as handles. We would flip a mental "coin" to see who went "deep". We would walk out into the water, never deeper than our waist, and stretch the net out between us. We would then walk parallel to the shore for a short distance, maybe 20 feet being the farthest, the "deep" person would arc in toward the shore, and we would bring our net in. This served us well, as far as "free" live bait. A usual haul would net us a small school of "glass minnows" and a few baby fish. Sometimes we could get a school of shrimp (those were the HOLY GRAIL of bait). Frequently there were assorted small crabs, and (a few times) baby flounder, which were thrown back to continue their life, with hopes that we would encounter them again in the future. Occasionally, we would go fishing in the Gulf (of Mexico). We would plead for a ride, load our stuff in Randy's Parents' station wagon, and head to one of the piers that dot the Gulf coast. I know we went to "Crystal Beach Pier" a few times, and also "Wayside Pier", among a few others. We never really had much luck with pier fishing, but if nothing else, we were able to cast for what seemed like a mile. We called it "getting the twists and kinks out of our lines". We also used to occasionally fish off of one of the many bridges down there. These were highway bridges that ran across the various bayous in the area. One that we frequented more than the others was the Shalimar Bridge. It connected Shalimar with Fort Walton Beach. There was a "catwalk" for pedestrian traffic on each side, so we were somewhat safe from the cars and trucks that were crossing all the time. One time, Randy, another friend, Mike McCollister (I hope I spelled it right, Mike), and I went to the Shalimar Bridge for a day of fishing. We were dutifully dropped off by Randy's dad, agreed upon an approximate pickup time, and left to our vices. Little did we know what that day held in store for us.
There is a species of fish known as the mullet that is prevalent in that area, as well as numerous others world-wide. They travel in huge schools that make the water look black as they pass. We stood on a dock one time and watched a school swim by us. The procession of fish must have been thirty feet wide, and at least two hundred yards in length. They swam by us forever. Oh yes, and the mullet is also highly elusive, and very desirable as a main course. They are delicious. Catching one with a baited hook is an art that we never mastered. The preferred methods of catching them was to either net them (a highly difficult task from shore) or "snag" them with a larger weighted treble hook which we called "snatch hooks". To "snatch", one cast out past the intended target, and then reeled and jerked the hook through the water with the hopes of impaling an unwary fish on the hook. Success rates were usually about 20% or less. Anyway, the three of us were up on the bridge, and the water (about 35 to 40 feet below us) turned BLACK. Immediately we all thought "mullet", but then Mike, (who had the enviable privelege of working as a deck-hand every summer on the charter boats and was something of a "fish expert") got us excited when he identified the fish as Spanish Mackeral. Hooks and lures splashed down into the school from all along the bridge. And they weren't touching anything. We tried in vain for at least fifteen minutes to lure one onto our hooks. Then Mike, who had switched to a snatch-hook, connected with one and started winching it up to the bridge. As it got nearer, it started to regurgitate the contents of its stomach, (a possible last-ditch attempt to confuse a predator?) and continued to do so as it arrived on the catwalk. The only thing that it had been eating was a species of small bait fish known as "alewife" which the locals pronounced as "ay-la-wie". We frequently caught them (as minnows) in our seine when shore fishing, as they were rather common. As luck (or fate) would have it, we had included someone's seine net in our pile of fishing gear, as well as a bait bucket. Randy and Mike hurried to the Fort Walton end of the bridge, got down to the water, and within 5 minutes, returned with a bucket crammed with alewife minnows. We all baited up, cast down into the water, and BOOM! all three of us immediately had fish on. There were probably about thirty or forty people fishing off of our side of the bridge, and all of them had been trying in vain to catch one of these fish. So, we immediately got their attentions. But, due to fishing "etiquette", and the possibility that it could just be a "fluke", nobody came to check it out. However, after our sucesses had been repeated consistently (we each stopped counting at 30 fish), we definitely had their attention because we were the ONLY people on that bridge that were catching anything. We had people offering to buy DEAD minnows from us because the alewife minnnows were the only thing they were taking. We were amused and excited when we found that these fish were actually coming out of the water to get the minnows as we slowly lowered our baited hooks to the water. Then, we all watched as the entire school dropped to the depths. They just disappeared. We threw a few futile casts at where they had just been, but all action had stopped. Tired from hoisting these fish up to the bridge (they probably were all a pound or two minimum, with some closer to 4 or 5), but still wishing it would have lasted even a little bit longer, we stared at the water. Then we saw a shark just "cruising" through the area where the fish had been. The shark was about eight feet long, about 2 or 3 feet under the surface, and in no hurry. (Author's note: We used to water ski under this bridge all the time, and never once did the possibility of even a small shark enter our minds.) As the shark continued under the bridge, apparently headed for the bay (or maybe the Gulf), we looked at each other in amazement. Commenting on how "cool" that shark had been, we looked out over the water. And, right on schedule, the school of Spanish rose from the depths and we were back in business. We had brought a long stringer and a length of rope so we could keep any fish we might catch in the water. Needless to say, the stringer was full, and so was a good portion of the rope attached to the stringer. We fished for another half hour or so, and Randy's Dad came to pick us up. We offered the remains from our bait bucket to those around us, and then collected our stuff and proceeded to the car. As we crossed the bridge on our way home, we saw our former bridge-mates finally catching fish with "our" leftover minnows. I believe that Randy's mother still has a snapshot of us holding up (with some difficulty) the rope full of fish. It was an awesome day for us.
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