When Hurricane Charlie hit, he took our roof and left one of Brian's most prized possessions open to the weather....his Tarpon. He caught it, by himself...no guide or direction. However, we were sharking! One of the F&B guys had caught a shark the night before, just past the red blinking marker next to the entrance to the Useppa Marina. And, we were ready! We had a gun...a bat....a five gallon bucket of rotten, frozen/refrozen bait, a jug of scotch and a cooler full of ice.
Brian had just started chumming with his oh-so-rotten chum when his rod was hit hard. Shark!! Nope...Tarpon!! Exciting!! There we were....anchored...by a marker...with our engines up. Every time he had to take the rod under the engines, we were sure HE was going to be eaten by a shark...and he almost went swimming when he had to take the rod under the anchor line.
The Tarpon fought,...jumping man times. It was a full moon and the term Silver King was clearly demonstrated. With much hooting and hollering, Brian brought the fish to the side of the boat for me to measure....6 feet with eyes the size of saucers. We let him go quickly. With the measurements, I was able to have a replicate made which I gave to Brian for Christmas.
With the effects of Charlie, Brian wanted to preserve the fish, which had just had an after-death experience with salt water, sand and sea weed. We took the Tarpon down to the Tarpon Bar and...you guessed it, hung him over the Bar for safe keeping. It took three years to finish our house and, ever since, we have said we'd bring him home....and every time we got home after Happy Hour, we realized, again, that we should.
So....last week, we did it, with Evelyn's help.
On the way home, we stopped by the Collier Inn to share our newly recovered Fish Story...and Michael Albert gave it a very special welcome back greeting....
We then headed a procession to return it to it's original spot and together with a few friends, toasted it's return.
Anything for a party!!
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