Fishing stories: The ghost of the 400-pound sea monster?

The blue-gray morning sky blended seamlessly with the glassy water as we cleared marker 6 at Stiltsville. Weather like this is often a prelude to strange occurrences so close to the Bermuda Triangle. The Cape Florida lighthouse to our port side, the blinking light atop Fowey Rocks could be seen dead ahead.

I scanned what should have been the horizon to the northeast and spotted a vertical shape barely visible against the rain that was now falling. Waterspout! I kept one eye on the 90 degree compass reading and the other on that spout. Fishing was our objective and I wasn’t ready to give up so soon.

By the time we reached the edge of the reef, with the turquoise water beneath us changing to the signature royal blue of the Gulf Stream, the waterspout and rain had dissipated. Fishing lines were set out, ballyhoo skimming in our wake in search of today’s catch. I turned northward and followed a promising weed line.

In the distance, I saw something odd on the water’s surface. It looked like a dark vertical triangle, perhaps a piece of flotsam stirred up by the earlier waterspout, given that it was occupying the very same spot. I kept the bow pointed toward it. There should be good fishing there!

The triangle soon became a fin extending about three feet above the mirror-like surface. I navigated to allow the bait to pass close enough to tease whatever this was, but it refused to strike. A second pass allowed me to get a good look at the huge whale shark that out-measured the length of my 24-foot boat by at least 10 feet.

Moments later, the fin disappeared and there were two strikes on our trolled lines. My guest and I worked for the next half hour to bring in a pair of 30 pound mahi mahi. This was becoming a fishing trip to remember!

Three lines back in the water, we reset the star drags and began trolling again. With a groan and a loud crack, the heavy duty pole in the center mount bent over like a hairpin and snapped in two. The fishing rig was gone in a flash without a clue as to what had hit it.

I looked over the starboard side and saw a 15-foot hammerhead shark speed past in the same direction we were heading. Could this have been what struck the fishing line? Or, was this shark fleeing a larger predator back there?

We tried some drift fishing, only to find ourselves surrounded by a school of small mahi mahi. We tried every fishing lure and trick in the book and couldn’t get any of them to strike. A small, three-foot shark hit one line and we kept it aboard until it began chewing the fuel line to the outboard engine. Even with that shark on board, the mahi mahi were teasing us, swirling about under and around the boat, almost close enough to touch, but still not striking.

The shark was set free, the mahi mahi scattered, and we headed south to the channel that lead across the reef and to home. Once ashore, we learned we weren’t the only ones having a strange fishing day. Someone bottom fishing from a catwalk under a bridge to the south had hooked into a 400-pound Jewfish. After an eight-hour fight he landed it successfully.

I don’t have any photos from that fishing trip, but to this day, there’s a shiny mark on the catwalk railing where our fellow fisherman to the south secured the line in his battle with a monster.