Phunny Phish Phobia

I like to fish. I like it a lot. Before I moved to Florida, I fished in Michigan, and it was lots of fun. I wasn’t a rabid fisherman, but on occasional summer days, one of my buddies and I could pack all of our fishing gear AND a case of beer into a canoe and paddle around one of the lakes that dotted the area around Fenton, Michigan. We would find small streams and wade into them, looking for mussels to use as free bait. Once on the lake, we would spend the afternoon swilling beer and catching bluegills, sunburns and buzzes. It was great, and on a good day, we would bring home a mess of fish to clean and fry, and I’m here to say that there is nothing like a big pile of fried bluegills with macaroni and cheese.

Since I moved to Florida, however, I have realized that there is much more to fishing than a canoe, a twelve pack and a Zebco 202 rod/reel combo. In the small lakes up north, I could count on bluegills, crappies, or maybe a catfish now and then. I even pulled up a huge snapping turtle once. But down here, in the brackish water of the Halifax River, when your line tugs, you don’t know what’s on the other end. The fish here have teeth. Big teeth. They have sharp fins and stinging appendages, and they are much larger than bluegills. Gone are the days of pulling a fish into the canoe and removing the hook from a palm-sized bluegill, formerly considered by me and my buddy as a “monster”. I now need special tools to remove hooks because I like having all of my fingers. Just last week I hooked onto something REALLY BIG, and by the time I fought it to the dock I was standing on, I could see that it was a stingray that was four feet across. (That’s big) My line snapped as it came out of the water, which is good, because I was wondering how I was going to get my hook out of it without ending up like Steve Irwin. Really. I’m not scared of the fish here, but I do have a healthy respect for them. And that reminds me of a funny story I wanted to relate about fishing and phobias.

One of my buddies here, Tony, has a boat, and he’s taken me out several times to fish. It’s a small boat, a 14 footer, too small to go into the open ocean, but perfect for the intracoastal waterway that covers most of the east coast of Florida (and the entire eastern seaboard). Mosquito Lagoon is where we go, but as long as we don’t get too near the islands, we aren’t bothered by bugs. Anyway, not too long ago, he called and invited me to go fishing, and I of course agreed. Another of his friends (let’s call him “Bob”) was going with us, so we three got some bait and launched the boat for some fishing fun. It takes about 40 minutes by boat to get to our favorite spot, and during the ride, I got to chat with Bob, whom I had never met. He was a younger guy with a pleasant disposition, and we passed the time of the ride making small talk, watching porpoises, and hoping that the fishing was going to be good that day. (Porpoises spoil the fishing. If they’re around, the fish aren’t.) When we finally got to our spot, things got funny in a hurry.

We were using live shrimp for bait, and after we anchored, it was time to prepare the lines with devilishly tempting morsels that would hopefully help to fill our live well and later, our bellies. I baited my hook, and Tony baited his. Bob didn’t do anything, but he was watching Tony bait his hook with the oddest look on his face. He looked like he was in a trance. Tony threw two lines in, and then he baited Bob’s hook. Because I’m an idiot sometimes, I said to Bob, “What, are you scared to touch the shrimp”? He was a little sheepish, but he did answer, “Yes. Yes I am”. I said, “Really”? “Yeah”, he said. “Really”.

The incongruity of this situation was almost too much for me to bear. I didn’t want to laugh and make Bob feel bad. He must have sensed that I was wondering why he was fishing when he wouldn’t bait his own hook, because he explained his reasoning. He said he had been “finned” by a catfish as a young boy, and has since had a fear of touching live aquatic creatures. He was very good natured about it, and I got the feeling that a day of fishing might just help him get over his aversion.

It’s been my experience that the fish in the Halifax River are notorious bait-stealers. Tony and I have gone through 6 dozen shrimp in less than 3 hours. I think every fish I actually land costs me about 9 shrimp. The same thing held true that day, and much to my surprise, Bob actually said at one point that he would attempt to bait his own hook. Tony and I offered silent encouragement as he prepared to stick his hand into the bait bucket and pick out a shrimp. I think he had been thinking about it so as to not seem so squeamish. Now, in case you don’t know, live shrimp don’t like to be picked up, and they are very quick. You have to plunge your hand in the bucket and grab, or else they’ll just avoid it. Bob got his nerve up and slowly, gingerly stuck his hand in the bucket.

He pulled his hand out of that bucket so fast you would have thought he’d been electrocuted. He also let out an involuntary squeal that caused Tony and I to lose our composure and burst out laughing. We weren’t being mean, but it was just too funny to suppress. Bob laughed at himself too, which was good. He was scared, but at least he tried. We were still chuckling about it when Tony got a fish on. From the way his pole was bent, Bob and I could see that it was a fairly good sized fish, but not a monster. After just a couple minutes, Tony landed a sheepshead that was about a foot long. Sheepsheads are interesting looking fish. They’re striped like a zebra, and they have teeth that look exactly like human teeth. It’s almost as if they have little dentures. Anyway, as Tony landed the fish in the boat, it was flipping about, obviously unhappy about being hooked. I wasn’t watching the fish, though. I was watching Bob, who didn’t have the look of abject terror, but when the fish flipped near him, I thought he was going to jump out of the boat. There was no doubt that he was really afraid of fish. He was laughing, but I could tell it was the nervous tittering of someone about to freak out.

We all had a good laugh about Bob’s fish phobia, and we did pretty well that day, as far as fish caught. Sometimes we get skunked fishing, but with Bob there, it wasn’t dull at all. We drank beer and baited Bob’s hook and took his fish off when he caught one. In a way, I had to admire Bob for at least trying to face his fear. He loves to fish; he just won’t touch them. He’s like a tightrope walker who is afraid of heights. I gotta give him credit for that.