Fishing With Blacktips

For all of my life I have loved being outdoors - the wilder, the better. Living in the Chihuahan desert of West Texas (the Permian basin; even more barren than most of that great desert) as a child I spent hours roaming, capturing lizards, insects, examining rocks, and appreciating the beauty of creation as the sun moved across the sky. That love has never changed, although now I spend almost all my time either inside a building or inside a vehicle to get my daily bread.

One late spring afternoon in 1985 I played hooky from the office and headed down Padre Island, driving about 15 miles south on the Malaquite National Seashore. In those days the park was new and true wilderness. There was no entry gate or fee and the odds of seeing a park ranger were nil. You were more likely to encounter a state game warden and those odds were a million to one on a weekday afternoon. Other than another fisherman driving by every couple of hours or so, or an oil well service beach buggy every twelve, the only things joining you there on that isolated shoreline were seagulls, and pelicans.

The afternoon was perfect. The sand was wet and firm 20 yards up from the surf line making for fine driving, less chance of getting stuck. The sky was clear except for a few cumulus clouds rising out over the gulf horizon. The southeasterly breeze made the heat and humidity bearable. Out in the surf waves broke gently over four or five sand bars, rising only two or three feet. When a wave lifted, in the moment before it gently broke, the life of the sea could be seen back lit by the sun through the clear water. Whiting, mullet, and all sorts of bait fish in schools the size of canoes swam through the surf, occasionally leaping free of the water to sail across the face of the wave. Into this great gift of the Creator I waded, with my prized Fenwick rod and trusty Ambassadeur reel.

As the afternoon turned to evening I had a good stringer of fish. It was tied off with a twenty foot cord to my rod holder, a five and a half foot length of three inch schedule 40 driven into the sand at the waterline. I could never get comfortable with the stringer tied to my belt, as most wade fisherman do it. I had heard too many stories of guys much bigger than me being pulled under the waves by sharks hitting their catch, or waders whose calf was torn open by a shark looking for a new taste sensation. I even lacked the nerve to bring a bait bucket out with me, feeling that it was too similar to chumming, just asking for unwanted attention. Having waded & swam out to the third bar across a five to eight foot gut, I stood in chest deep water admiring all that I could see.

The view from my spot was wonderful, the sun was settling down a few inches over the horizon. I watched a coyote who had snuck down from the dunes fifty yards down the beach, snacking on carrion washed up on the shore. In the surf out over the next bar I had occasionally seen game fish, and for the last half hour had watched a pair of three to four foot black tip sharks moving up and down the beach chasing the bait fish. With a stringer of nice fish for the kitchen, happily tired from several hours in the surf, and surrounded by such isolation and beauty, I was filled with gratitude for the opportunity to be where I was. My gratitude only slightly exaggerated by the three or four Lone Stars I had over the afternoon.

As I stood there gently rocking with the water, contemplating catching one or two more fish before leaving, about ten feet out in the gut in front of me I noticed a school of bait fish jumping my direction. Within seconds of noticing that, and as my mind made the search for what might be causing them to jump, another school of bait fish exploded around me - with some bouncing and flapping off of my chest and shoulders. By that time my instincts shouted there was a very good chance the bait were fleeing those two black tips I had been seeing. I do not remember the next few moments in any detail and what I do recall can't be accurate. What I remember is completely exiting the water like a missile launched from a submarine, then running across the surface of the water until I was splashing towards my truck in the six or so inches of a receding wave on shore. If you have ever had the excitement of avoiding a fatal collision you know how I felt upon reaching the sand, drained, shaking, and surprised to be in one piece.

I did the only sensible thing, setting my rod in the PVC pipe to which my stringer was tied, and got another Lone Star from the cooler. As I turned my gaze back towards the gulf I saw another amazing thing, which at that moment seemed as unreal as my dash from the surf. The long stringer on which my catch was secured went taught, spraying small arches of water into the air. At the end of the stringer the PVC pipe lept from the wet sand, straight up out of the sand it was driven into. In an instant the stringer pulled the pipe, and my rod & reel with it, out to sea. I ran towards where it had been as everything disappeared into the waves.

With the same alcohol-fueled mental alacrity I had demonstrated standing out on the third bar, I realized those black tips had come into the very shallow gut where the fish on my stringer were and taken them back to their kitchen. While I was quiet pleased to have not been a shark snack, and even more grateful for a very memorable day in the wilderness, I was pretty disappointed about the loss of my favorite rod & reel and the day's catch. Some twenty or so minutes later as I sat on the tail gate of my truck, sipping Lone Star and watching the sunset spread purple and across the southwestern horizon, I spotted something bobbing in the water very near shore. Walking out into the shallow water, there was my rod & reel; washed back to me thanks to the tidal flow and a cork handle. A few feet away was the PVC pipe with about twelve feet of stringer cord still attached, ending in a frayed cut.

While I prepared to leave I reflected on the afternoon, and gave thanks to God that I had the privilege to be fifteen miles south on Malaquite this late spring day. I also considered that it might be a good idea to leave the water when you see two sharks hunting in the breakers in front of you, to not fish alone, and to immediately freeze your catch rather than string 'em.

Yours in Christ.