Sure some friends will believe I'm joking, and guessing the next sunny Friday that rolls around I’ll be itching to get back in the fight, but &@#! what a long weekend this past one was.
As Joe Louis once said, "Once that bell rings you're on your own. It's just you and the other guy."
Well the other “guy” twice ended up on ice this weekend, but much as Muhammad Ali never was the same after nearly fighting to his death against Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila, I’m seriously hurtin’, but I’m getting ahead of myself.So to properly tell the story, quick introduction of a friend is in order. Every June I try hitting golf balls for a few days with old college frat buddies in West Virginia. This year, one buddy who always makes it had to stay home with his pregnant wife so we brought in another friend, Jonathan Thomas who lives in Rome, Georgia. While golfing I talked up my love of fishing for cobia, and Jonathan expressed interest in making a trip this year. So with my daughter’s birthday and some other schedule conflicts coming up the next few weeks, I sent Jonathan a message last week and said, “No better time than the present!” And for better or worse, Jonathan bit the hook.
So he drives down Thursday night, and we meet up at dark-thirty Friday morning. Before even getting into the truck, I tell him, “Dude, hope you ate your Wheaties ‘cuz by tomorrow night we’re going to be drop-dead tired”. An always-smiling/laughing kind of guy, he let out a big guffaw and said “Not me! I’m STOKED!” So off we went.
Couldn’t have been luckier with the weather on Friday. Bit choppy with somewhat threatening clouds in a ring around us all day, but with nary a drop of rain until the end of the day on the ride back in (LOVE those post-fishing on-the-way-home rains!).
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Jonathan goes above & beyond in offering to help clean the boat back @ my place, tuning out the siren calls of our pool just feet from my boat washing area. Post-boat washing , the chlorine gets tested by fish slime & the Mrs. feeds us some wonderful chicken fettuccini alfredo . Jonathan says despite the refreshing pool swim & meal, he’s feeling a bit beat and says he’s going to get a good night’s rest so he’s fully ready for round 2.Day 2 has Jonathan arriving at dark 30 again, but this time versus being stoked he can’t keep his eyes open on the drive down to the coast. Fighting sleep myself, I watch as he appears to train for a Halloween bobbing-for-apples tournament.
Hoping to do some afternoon scalloping, we run out of St. Marks versus Econfina on day 2 and God gifts us with some awesome sights, helping to at least temporarily liven Jonathan back up.
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With the goal of the day simply being to boat another keeper cobia by noon so we can head in and scallop, we quickly drop lines. Quickly catch & tag a short cobia and…
then it happens...
We run face first into our Joe Frazier, and he’s has the upper hand as we’re entering the fight punch drunk. The fight starts off with vicious blows.
Desperate fight to get him out of line-scraping structure – CHECK!
Wrapped around a second baited-line to point of having to carefully cut out knot-while hand lining monster palm-cutting cobe – CHECK!
Buoy line fouled to point of having to haul buoy in and cut buoy line knots while hand lining monster palm-cutting cobe –CHECK!
Forgotten bait rod left out on other side of boat nearly pulled in after getting hit hard by a big blue runner – CHECK!
Bait rod with blue runner pulled "out of the way" to the surface yanked slap out of boat after getting slammed by some unseen fish – CHECK!
Chaos all becomes a blur as HIT after HIT is landed by our Brown Bomber Frazier... and albeit briefly, at various points during the fight both Jonathan and I trip and fall... but being grown-@$$ men we keep fighting back. I somehow manage to get a net in my hand and after four or five nerve-wracking misses that put Frazier into frenzy dive mode, he jukes the wrong way… and… DOWN GOES FRAZIER, DOWN GOES FRAZIER! They say a picture paints 1,000 words but this time it doesn’t. Jonathan’s demeanor in the pic shows NONE of the drama involved, thus the long written tale.
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Jonathan’s so beat-down by the time we get to my house, I don’t have the heart to bend his arm into helping wash the boat, so cut him loose and say, “I’ve got it!”, as if I’ve got all the energy in the world. Footnote on the boat washing is that as I finish, I swing over the edge planning to plant my foot on the trailer but do so too far forward on the "A" shaped trailer and miss it… resulting in a sickening second or so of airtime as I fall to the ground, giving me just enough time to wonder “What body part will hit first, and how bad it this going to hurt?!” Somehow landed on right hip but also with my left arm hitting the ground hard enough to make my watch cut my wrist. Knocked the air out of me so hard I just laid on the ground motionless for a good half-minute wondering if anything was broken. Turned out just my pride was badly injured!
So that’s the honest tale behind why I’m mulling retirement from the cobia chase game. Just don’t know how much longer I can take the punches they deliver… though… not Friday yet... time will tell.
