Joe and I have briefly vacated our icy, now snowless Michigan winter: my sister and her husband invited us to fly to Naples to stay at their beautiful condo, as they’d be elsewhere for a week. The idea was irresistible.
It’s in the low 80s here at this time of year, perfect weather for renting two bikes from Big Mama’s Bicycle Store, the better to explore. Friday after breakfast we pedaled toward the ocean, just a short ride away. Before continuing on over the big bridge to Wiggins State Park, which borders the endless beach on the Gulf of Mexico, we paused to look down at the ocean water flowing quietly, but briskly, through a very wide canal. Two years ago we’d spotted the huge dark shapes of manatees moving languidly down there, just below the surface. Maybe we’d see some again…
A bench almost underneath the bridge looked inviting, so we pedaled down there. A slim older guy sat at the canal’s edge on an accommodating chunk of chopped, erosion-preventing cement, expertly casting line after line upstream, then rhythmically simulating his lure’s ‘aliveness’ by doing controlled jerks as the bobbing, baited hook floated past him. Speaking quietly so as not to disturb him we watched and tinkered with our camera, focusing it on huge, still-empty condos across the canal. (Most ‘half-timers’ apparently migrate down to Naples just after Christmas and remain until the heat and humidity become unbearable, usually around about mid-May, or so.)
The man’s pole bent- Hooray! A fish! Quickly he reeled in a seven-inch-long Jack too little to eat. Using a towel to grasp the slippery, flapping creature he carefully removed the hook and threw it back.
Suddenly, as he re-baited, a four-foot-long blacktip shark jumped out of the water right next to him! It had been hovering in the fast-moving, opaque water, practically at his feet. (Blacktip sharks commonly haunt shallow coastal Florida beaches and waterways.)
“Well,” the man said softly, wiping ‘splash’ off his face as he glanced back at us, “That was a little startling…”
And so, with this tacit permission to chat, we moved closer and began an interesting conversation.
Turns out that Chuck, a 73-year-old former school principal from Illinois, had retired here some years ago. He and his wife owned a small condo nearby, and he enjoyed coming to this spot to fish. (Lots of other people favored it, too. Not twenty feet above us the lowest of four major power lines crossing the canal was bizarrely festooned with all manner of tangled lures from bad casts made by inexperienced fishermen over many years.)
“Have you had any interesting fish adventures?” I enquired. He nodded, and settled down to talk.
“When we first moved here I’d wade out into the Gulf.” He gestured toward the spectacular, miles-long sugar beach just a quarter-mile further on. “The sea bottom gradually descends from inches deep to maybe a foot, and stays at that level until it drops suddenly down four or five feet. Great for fishing, I thought. So, a few weeks ago I waded out to the drop-off carrying my pole and a pouch crammed with bait, determined to catch a decent-sized Jack or two for dinner. Friends who’d accompanied me to the beach considered it reckless behavior. ‘My God, Chuck, you’re carrying bait. You’re bait! Dinner waiting to happen! Have you thought this through?’
“Well, I just laughed and brushed off their comments. I’d be fine. A passionate fisherman for years and years, I knew a thing or two.
“Soon enough my cockiness was trash-canned. A startled fisherman just a few feet away from me inadvertently hooked a very large blacktip shark. Two muscled men managed to maneuver it onto the beach with barely a struggle, simply by flipping it over. (Sharks go placid and tame when turned upside down.) They removed the hook, and then drew two lines in the sand, one at its head and one at its tail, before dragging it back to the ocean. Righted again, but befuddled, it swam off slowly.
“They measured between sand-lines. That shark was seven feet long, and weighed over 400 pounds!
Though they hang around shoals and beach shallows they just aren’t noticed, except from, say, small planes or helicopters. Hotels and resorts sometimes hire pilots to patrol swimming areas and ocean beach ‘shallows’ at certain times of the year. They radio every shark’s position, and often comment about vacationers frolicking very near them, clueless.
Mostly these fish are not interested in sampling swimmers- except when they are.”
“Still, isn’t it amazing that shark attacks are so very rare?” My husband commented.
Chuck smiled. “True enough. What surprises me is how numerous these particular sharks are, and yet, mostly not perceived. Last week I caught three smaller black tips in one hour at this exact spot. One measured almost three feet long. Each was a surprise.”
He smiled. “I, ah, don’t wade any more. If the sharks didn’t kill me first, my wife certainly would. She threw a fit when I told her what I’ve told you.”
We exchanged goodbyes and biked away. I looked back to see him collecting his gear to leave, too.
Later, back at the condo, we read that though people have reported bites, there’s never been a fatal attack.
Small comfort….
It’s in the low 80s here at this time of year, perfect weather for renting two bikes from Big Mama’s Bicycle Store, the better to explore. Friday after breakfast we pedaled toward the ocean, just a short ride away. Before continuing on over the big bridge to Wiggins State Park, which borders the endless beach on the Gulf of Mexico, we paused to look down at the ocean water flowing quietly, but briskly, through a very wide canal. Two years ago we’d spotted the huge dark shapes of manatees moving languidly down there, just below the surface. Maybe we’d see some again…
A bench almost underneath the bridge looked inviting, so we pedaled down there. A slim older guy sat at the canal’s edge on an accommodating chunk of chopped, erosion-preventing cement, expertly casting line after line upstream, then rhythmically simulating his lure’s ‘aliveness’ by doing controlled jerks as the bobbing, baited hook floated past him. Speaking quietly so as not to disturb him we watched and tinkered with our camera, focusing it on huge, still-empty condos across the canal. (Most ‘half-timers’ apparently migrate down to Naples just after Christmas and remain until the heat and humidity become unbearable, usually around about mid-May, or so.)
The man’s pole bent- Hooray! A fish! Quickly he reeled in a seven-inch-long Jack too little to eat. Using a towel to grasp the slippery, flapping creature he carefully removed the hook and threw it back.
Suddenly, as he re-baited, a four-foot-long blacktip shark jumped out of the water right next to him! It had been hovering in the fast-moving, opaque water, practically at his feet. (Blacktip sharks commonly haunt shallow coastal Florida beaches and waterways.)
“Well,” the man said softly, wiping ‘splash’ off his face as he glanced back at us, “That was a little startling…”
And so, with this tacit permission to chat, we moved closer and began an interesting conversation.
Turns out that Chuck, a 73-year-old former school principal from Illinois, had retired here some years ago. He and his wife owned a small condo nearby, and he enjoyed coming to this spot to fish. (Lots of other people favored it, too. Not twenty feet above us the lowest of four major power lines crossing the canal was bizarrely festooned with all manner of tangled lures from bad casts made by inexperienced fishermen over many years.)
“Have you had any interesting fish adventures?” I enquired. He nodded, and settled down to talk.
“When we first moved here I’d wade out into the Gulf.” He gestured toward the spectacular, miles-long sugar beach just a quarter-mile further on. “The sea bottom gradually descends from inches deep to maybe a foot, and stays at that level until it drops suddenly down four or five feet. Great for fishing, I thought. So, a few weeks ago I waded out to the drop-off carrying my pole and a pouch crammed with bait, determined to catch a decent-sized Jack or two for dinner. Friends who’d accompanied me to the beach considered it reckless behavior. ‘My God, Chuck, you’re carrying bait. You’re bait! Dinner waiting to happen! Have you thought this through?’
“Well, I just laughed and brushed off their comments. I’d be fine. A passionate fisherman for years and years, I knew a thing or two.
“Soon enough my cockiness was trash-canned. A startled fisherman just a few feet away from me inadvertently hooked a very large blacktip shark. Two muscled men managed to maneuver it onto the beach with barely a struggle, simply by flipping it over. (Sharks go placid and tame when turned upside down.) They removed the hook, and then drew two lines in the sand, one at its head and one at its tail, before dragging it back to the ocean. Righted again, but befuddled, it swam off slowly.
“They measured between sand-lines. That shark was seven feet long, and weighed over 400 pounds!
Though they hang around shoals and beach shallows they just aren’t noticed, except from, say, small planes or helicopters. Hotels and resorts sometimes hire pilots to patrol swimming areas and ocean beach ‘shallows’ at certain times of the year. They radio every shark’s position, and often comment about vacationers frolicking very near them, clueless.
Mostly these fish are not interested in sampling swimmers- except when they are.”
“Still, isn’t it amazing that shark attacks are so very rare?” My husband commented.
Chuck smiled. “True enough. What surprises me is how numerous these particular sharks are, and yet, mostly not perceived. Last week I caught three smaller black tips in one hour at this exact spot. One measured almost three feet long. Each was a surprise.”
He smiled. “I, ah, don’t wade any more. If the sharks didn’t kill me first, my wife certainly would. She threw a fit when I told her what I’ve told you.”
We exchanged goodbyes and biked away. I looked back to see him collecting his gear to leave, too.
Later, back at the condo, we read that though people have reported bites, there’s never been a fatal attack.
Small comfort….