Fish Bait and the One that Got Away

This is a story of what happened the day I learned to how to surf fish on Florida's Atlantic Coastline. It truly is a fish story and a very funny one at that! Now if you are not familiar with surf fishing it is done in the ocean from shore. Your equipment consists of very long fishing poles and large fishing reels usually with some sort of, I assumed, deceased creature attached. I'm from Northern Michigan and had never fished in the ocean before that day and thought it would be like fishing back home. I'm really not terribly squeamish but what we actually used for bait looked like something out of a science fiction novel.

We were fishing for Pompano and apparently they love to eat little critters called Sand Fleas! These creepy crawlers have about ninety legs, look like they could burrow under your skin, maybe gestate, and turn in to one of my favorite movie creatures! They looked like a cross between a spider and a crab with some centipede thrown in for good measure. The worst part about the whole deal was they were not exactly deceased; on the contrary, they were very much alive! I was assured there was nothing to fear, they didn't bite or excrete any foreign substance that could eat through concrete. What they did do was try to run for their lives! They were very hard to hold on to, with bare hands mind you, their little legs kept digging in and pinching my palm. I thought handling leeches was weird, needless to say it felt very strange! These little nightmares live under the sand in the surf and are strong enough to burrow their way among the huge waves off the Atlantic Coast. I'm just glad they didn't have teeth!

Once on the hook these things were like truffles to the Pompano who sought them out like pigs rooting in the South of France! We ended up catching a lot of fish that day and losing only one thing. A large something or other hit the bait on the end of my friend's pole so hard that it pulled it out of its holder and off it went into the ocean never to be seen again. In one breath I never learned so many new swear words in my life! I guess something else liked those little guys besides the Pompano! That pole took off so fast neither my friend nor I were willing to go swimming for it. I'm thinking of another movie creature I could refer to. It was a new rod and reel and not the first time this had happened. I didn't realize surf fishing was so tough. I thought it would kind of be like multitasking, lie on the beach, soak up a little sun and catch dinner at the same time. Man was I ever wrong. I guess you could say this story is about bait and the one that got away, but not the one you think!