Early Teal Season at STA 5 - Kayaking for Ducks

Never figured I’d find much use for a kayak. The vessels are popular with skinny-water anglers and eco-tourists in the state, but I don’t fish the flats much anymore, and I’ve smelled enough cormorant and pelican poop in my day to kill my desire to rise early in the morning and paddle through secluded mangrove islands to ooh and ahh at manatees and shorebirds. So I was surprised by my excitement when I procured a kayak for my first duck hunting adventure this year. Let me explain.

Over the last couple years, my buddies and I have been hunting the STA’s in South Florida. Properly, they are Stormwater Treatment Areas, large, shallow impounds of water south of Lake Okeechobee filled with flotillas of invasive hydrilla, pods of hyacinth, and cattail islands designed to filter nutrient runoff from the surrounding sugar cane fields before it reaches the Everglades and pollutes the River of Grass. With over 52,000 acres – and more being planned - of man-made, vegetation-choked wetlands, they are premier waterfowl destinations for those lucky enough to draw a permit.

The thing is, South Florida is an alien locale. The ground pulsates with biting insects. Bizarre, foreign fish, with nightmarish names like snakeheads and clown knifefish, crowd the waters. Snakes that have no place in modern epochs are spreading throughout the region to the point the Good Ol’ Alligator can’t even control them. Oh yeah, the alligators, some the size that they could easily leap out of the water and take down a great blue heron like a river trout snatches a mayfly. Then there’s Miami. South of Lake O is a weird, wild place which makes hunting here an adventure.

My first trip two years ago was a complete off-the-cuff, why-the-hell-not journey. Knowing the water wasn’t too deep, we brazenly decided to wade into this miasma clad with waders. In the heat and humidity of a September morning, there had been talk of slipping in without the oppressive Neoprene, but these are essentially retention ponds; no telling the flesh-eating bacterium that lurks in the weeds. And though there have been no reported cases thus far, I’d be worried about a Candiru attack. Just saying. We shot a couple of teal, but to retrieve them meant slogging through thousands of pounds of hydrilla that would curtain around your waist until movement wasn’t even a thought anymore and you'd want to give up, much like a poor soul dying of thirst in the desert. I’m quite certain that even if you trekked more than 100 yards in this stuff, a tentacle of ‘drill would eventually reach up around your neck to pull you down for keeps. And I suppose it isn’t too late to announce that motorized crafts were/are prohibited. Not like it’d matter to the sheets of man-eating hydrilla; that gunk would tear the unit off, drag it a half-mile across the bottom before spitting it back out like that swamp whale regurgitated R2-D2 in Empire Strikes Back. You get the point - it's tough stuff to navigate.

We toyed with a john boat on a subsequent hunt – too heavy – and inflatable rafts – too light and flimsy – before toting down kayaks which proved to be the proper conveyance for this work. In large thanks to this craft, we were able to reach a distant cattail island and fill a three-man limit of ducks on STA 3/4 last December. It proved to be my most memorable moment with a kayak since I told my wife at the Homosassa River a few years ago, “No, I don’t want to kayak down the Homosassa River.”

So duck hunting the STA’s fueled my torrid tolerance-affair with the kayak and sparked the search for one of my own or to borrow, “borrow” being the key thought. The wonderful thing about kayaks is they are easy to find. You can go to just about any sporting goods store and crank out a few hundred dollars for one. But, if you play your cards right and nose around, you can probably locate someone who’ll let you take one off their hands for a reasonable amount. Or for free. Kayaks are about like treadmills; everyone thinks they are a great idea at first, but then the will to use them vanishes. So they sit around hoarding space in the garage, breeding spiders and contempt for wasting money on personal fitness.

The neighbor had been storing a pair under the deck of my in-laws home in Homosassa for the length of my relationship with Carolyn and prior. In those years, I don't ever recall them ever seeing daylight. Had I not drummed up the courage to ask if I could use one, I'm quite certain they wouldn't have floated in anything other than floodwater for years to come. It didn’t take any serious pleading to gain permission for its use. “Paint the thing for all I care,” he told me. I didn’t go that far, though I may one day if it stays too long in my possession. But since it was silver, some form of camo was needed. A 15-ft bolt of camo burlap from Wal-Mart was plenty sufficient for concealment purposes. After hosing off the years of negligence and insect dwellings, I just had to wait for the calendar.

So the time came last Sunday. I had drawn an afternoon tag for STA 5 – my first trip to this particular string of ponds. It was the early September season which is notoriously spotty for duck action in the afternoons. Furthermore, in order for them to honor our permits we had to check in between 12:30 and 1:00 or risk placement in a lottery for walk-ins…which didn’t matter since there were two other trucks there, and no one came in behind us. It felt like we had the place to ourselves, though one hillbilly smart mouth at the check-in station was forced to comment on Drew’s bright orange kayak. “Boy, you ain’t gonna kill ducks out of that, der, der, der, dah der.” Ignoring Cletus and his clear assessment that we were slackjaw rookies ourselves, we blindly picked a couple spots off the map, and set out for the hunt.

We surveyed our locale, picking out teal amongst the moorhen and coots stationed in the impoundment. After deciding on a patch of cover that would conceal the four of us, we unloaded the kayaks and packed them with the essentials. I’d like to tell you I slipped on in there in the slick, Navy Seal style. The truth is, I’m not in peak physical condition. The “essentials” felt a lot less so after 75 yards. With the thick aquatic vegetation, it was like paddling through cold oatmeal though still a far better deal than poling a heavy-bottom aluminum boat. But that was just me. The other guys about had their kayaks on a plane. The slow, fat kid in the bunch, I arrived as they were pitching dekes in calf-deep water.

Assuming the depth was the same where I stopped to set up, I hopped out of the kayak and plunged to my chin whiskers in a death portal, that noxious water flooding into my waders. Luckily my boots hit hard bottom – or the back of a very large, very patient gator – and clamored into shallower water before the hydrilla sensed my struggle and enveloped over my head to commence sucking out bodily fluids.

I had a very real problem at this point. I could stay in the soaked waders and let my body heat excite the parasites and bacteria into a feeding frenzy or strip to my board shorts to wade to the island where we were to hole up. Oh, that slimy bottom was disgusting, even to my horse-hoof feet. My legs itch as I write this, and what I can only guess was dysentery subsided yesterday.

The kayak became a life raft. No way was I standing bare-skinned in that water for the next four hours that we’d wait for sundown or our limit. I slid the ‘yak into the grasses and sat with my feet propped in the cattails until I learned fire ants thrive in semi-submerged vegetation far from dry land. To relieve this pain, I soaked them in the water until noticing small minnows picking at my skin - South Florida. After this I elected to keep all body parts inside the ride, sitting Indian style in the raft, which made shots at passing birds rather awkward. But at least I felt safe. 

 

It turned out to be a banner hunt. We shot one bird shy of our limit of blue-wing teal, many sweeping right past my bare, welted legs and into the walls of steel fired by the crew. I retrieved my decoys and fallen birds from the dry embrace of the kayak and stroked it back towards the truck. With a successful outing under our belt, I barely remember the paddle back.

According to the game warden, we did better than the others hunting that afternoon, certainly better than Cletus and whatever plywood and palm frond contraption he surely captained. So if you ever find yourself hunting an STA or any number of places in Florida that forbids motorized vessels, consider using a kayak. Can't say they are for comfort or style, but they'll get you where you need to go.

Gators, Maybe?

With the onset of a low-grade migraine, I sprawled out helpless in bed Sunday afternoon watching what football I could capture through the one eye that didn’t burn from ambient lighting. Assessing a new NFL season, I couldn’t believe how poorly the replacement officials performed. During the 49’er – Packer tilt, I felt confident a special-teams player or assistant coach would take one for the team and kill a ref. Both of these squads were juggernauts last year and hope to recapture that glory in 2012. So much has to go right in today’s football to maintain success that any interference of unseen forces is detrimental to clubs. In addition to all the preparation, practice and acquisition of talent, praying for a lack of injuries and a weak strength of schedule - and playing outside of Cleveland or Detroit - is about all a team can do within their capability to challenge the Universe and punch a ticket to the playoffs.

Hunting is much the same way. A lot of things have to go right year in and year out to consistently tag whatever critter you’re chasing. Take deer. There was a four-year stretch where I could do no wrong. I could have constructed a small gazebo from the whitetail antler I killed during that time. I sensed I had it all figured out. Since then, I’m entering my fourth straight season without having had a reasonable whisper of connecting on even a spike.

Not to dole out too many frowny faces, but weather, work, time, Mother Nature's fickle personality, family and friends selfishly marrying during the fall, and changes in hunting locales have all conspired against me. I’m not complaining, but it's the truth. Though I've spent a reckless amount of time in the woods, it hasn't been enough to overcome the time I've not been there in order to succeed. And in all honesty, I compromised myself by half-abandoning the Antler Chase to free up time and resources forother ventures, namely ducks and gators. After three straight seasons of relative easy gator grabbing, I wasn’t prepared for them to Shanghai me this summer, but Shanghai me they have.

Gators deserve a lot more credit than they receive. The reality shows have served as a catalyst to get people interested in the sport. And – in contradiction to most ads – it’s not what’s seen on TV. Alligators are difficult quarry to describe. I wouldn’t exactly call them intelligent, but they are very wary, especially on hard-hunted lakes. They display a reaction to hunting pressure just the same as any other pursued beast. You can spot one across a lake, motor to him as he submerges and thenwait him out. Sometimes it works; sometimes he…well, we call it, “Transports to Dimension X.”

My first two mornings out on Harris’ 1^st phase permits taught the ying and yang of their personalities. The opening morning you couldn’t shine or glass 50 yards in any direction without spotting eyes. Not all of them were behemoths, but seeing game is seeing game. Harris hooked into a large gator that was creeping along the bottom surfacing a trail of bubbles, a common tactic for snatching a gator. I put another treble hook into him and the fight was on. He breached the water once. From the brief showing, we could tell he was easily in the 10-11 foot range.

Somehow, though, he managed to pitch both lines. We reeled in the hooks and quickly fired them back out at his new trail of bubbles streaming from the bottom as if a regulator had popped out of the mouth of a Scuba diver. I felt the line go taunt and heaved into the creature, hoping to set the barbs deeper this time. We maneuvered over top of him as I could feel my line shaking, knowing I had hooked into something living and not a log or submerged car.

Slowly but surely, I hoisted up a trot line placed by one of the many commercial fisherman on the lake, hooks complete with catfish. The gator got away due to the interference. The following morning was a gator ghost town. Where we’d seen dozens the day before, now they’d vanished. The majority of gator hunting is done during the evening hours and two nights of boats had properly alarmed them.

After that showing it’s been a comedy of errors. A couple breezy days that caused the lake to chop. A failing spotlight. A sick child. Tropical Storm Issac. Prior weekend obligations. Work. I thought we’d had a monster pegged on Lake Buffum for a Saturday hunt on my tags – after weeks of keeping watch, he was nowhere to be found when the time came to collect. These are the elements of most failed seasons.

Harris, Belle, and Krunk with a 10-footer

The real kicker, though, is the crew I hunt with has persevered through these obstacles and landed fine gators. Harris and Krunk tagged two 10-footers in consecutive trips after I had been unavailable for the hunt. That’ll drive anyone nuts.

The nice thing is there’s still plenty of time in the season. Between us we have six permits and a month-and-a-half left to use them. After the 4^th phase ends Wednesday morning, at 5 pm on the 12^th, anyone with leftover CITES permits may return to their respective lakes and double their efforts. This 2012 general season will conclude at 10 am on November 1^st.

As with hunting and football, you have to keep trotting out there, make the most of your chances, and believe things will break your way over the course of a long season – even if the year was not the one you were expecting.

High Water Hogs

The fall and winter of 1997-98 was a banner time in my life. It was my senior year of high school, and I’d be departing for the University of Florida the following autumn to study...something. That August I took a velvet buck in South Carolina and followed him up in November with a fine trophy Florida whitetail, two mounts I still gaze upon fondly. In October I flew out West for the first time on a successful week-long mule deer and elk hunt in the mountains of the Roosevelt National Forest in North-Central Colorado, an adventure that will never be forgotten.

And I way-laid a ton of hogs that winter.

Florida experienced an exceptional amount of rainfall during November and December of that year. We were trapped in the effects of an El Nino cycle that deluged the state. All of the creek bottoms on the properties we hunted flooded. Trails and roads were impassable with anything shy of a canoe. There was a chop of whitecaps across cow pastures. Normally this extra water would've receded in a matter of days, but the rain just kept on coming.

As a result, the game was pushed up on high. The sounders of sows and shoats were particularly susceptible while the bigger boars that were once inviolable were forced onto the dry land. I don’t recall the accurate number of swine we popped…let’s just say it was quite a bounty to this young hunter. We’ve had wet years since, but this one will always stick out in stories.

With two tropical storms and our usual buffet of evening thunderstorms, Florida has had a pretty wet summer. If this continues – which is a big “if” because we typically experience dry autumns and winters – we could realize another hog year like that one. Already on our lease - which is as dry as a box of matches – after months of no hog sign, a few showed up on trail cameras after Tropical Storm Issac passed, no doubt the result of the stormwater pushing these fellows out of their comfort zone. And I’m noticing hogs and hog sign everywhere recently, just driving through the state.

There's no question wild hogs like the water, and it's why they're regarded as cagey swamp dwellers, but pigs aren't aquatic mammals. They don’t possess sweat glands which render them sensitive to high temperatures. If you've ever held a hog hide, you've probably considered how awful it'd be to wear that in the warm months. That and being covered with ticks would be pretty horrible. So to regulate their body temperature they wallow and take to swamps with that wonderful combination of cover, shade and moisture that lends to a life of leisure for a pig. 

Even still, while hogs prefer this habitat, don’t mind traveling through water, and are powerful swimmers, too much is too much. When their bedding and feeding areas flood, hogs behave about like those little sandpipers and plovers you’d see at the beach - they don’t care if their feet get wet, but they’re not going to nest there either. Hogs will be pushed to the peripheries when it's too wet for comfort, and it’s a boon to hunters when this happens.

And I typically witness this during the summer and note on dry years how we don’t see the numbers of hogs we're accustomed to. Travis, Krunk and I were hog hunting in Sarasota County a couple weeks ago. It was blazing hot, and the property was, in its driest areas, a marsh. We saw hogs the majority of the day, atypical for a place where your best afternoon opportunities occur an hour before dark but the hogs had spilled their banks. We should have rung up high numbers with the rifles, but we were spotting and stalking from the truck. The ground was so soggy that the splashing tires alerted the hogs before we could shut off the engine. Our spy-to-kill ratio was remarkably low. With the number of hogs were were seeing, though, a chance or two had to ultimately prevail. 

Around 5:30, Krunk shot a nice sow that hesitated a bit too long before retreating in the palmettos. Soon after, Travis and I bailed out on a sounder feeding in a dry patch of tall grass, probably sharing that patch with fireants, ground-nesting birds, and any other critter seeking the Ark. Travis split left for a direct approach while I moved to the nearest woodline to cut off their retreat. Unfortunately they spooked before T got a shot, but I was ready. 40-pounders burst from the grass as I armed my AR-15. I sorted through the runts until a large sow erupted from cover and into a hail of .223’s.

But that’s summer-time hunting. With deer season starting soon, most of us will be in treestands. Anyone with stands on the water’s edge is likely to have run-in’s. It’s not like you’ll need to keep a watchful eye; you’ll hear them come, a-splishing and a-splashing and a-grunting. 

If the heavy rains do cease like during most FL winters, the hogs will retreat into their swamps, popping out to feed on acorns, palmetto berries, crops, and return to whatever semblance of a normal life a hog has.

But if you have a wild hog on your wish list this year - for a BBQ or for a shoulder mount - I’d continue to pray for rain and swollen rivers and swamps.

It’s about as good as hog hunting gets.

The Case of a County-Run Hunting Program

I attended Duette Park's mandatory hunting orientation last Saturday morning. Manatee County runs the show and, to my knowledge, Duette is the only tract of public land in Florida where the county designs the hunting program, within the guidelines of state law. Over 21,000 acres, the land is home to the headwaters of the Manatee River which favors healthy populations of deer, hogs, turkey and other game animals. Duette shows scars of human use from a couple generations ago and is still surrounded by agriculture and phosphate ventures. Today, it's managed with a plan to restore it to its native, natural condition - with shell roads, power boxes and fences, of course.

Part of their management plan includes this unique hunting program to keep the deer and hog herds in check. Several weekend hunts are sold through a random-draw system. The added income helps fund conservation projects such as longleaf pine restoration, and land management tools like prescribed burns. These hunts have been held every year for nearly 20 years and enjoy a loyal following. In a section of the state where public land is limited, it's valuable real estate.

And it's a lot to ask for in these days of shrinking local government budgets. These hunts aren't overflowing the coffers considering labor costs, machinery, etc. A few seasons ago the hunt program was very much in doubt as the entire state buckled under the recession. So take a tough economic climate and add the wishes of sportsmen, and the challenge for the county comes down to satisfying paying customers while keeping management plans in check with the limited resources available.

I remember the first orientation I attended. The park biologists and managers stood in front of the drawn hunters and read through the rules. Then they were verbally accosted for all manner of  supposed transgressions. Quite a few in the mob – many of whom couldn't even spell "diploma" – queried the biologists on their qualifications to enact management policy. It was known that a lot of the staff were non-hunters, though they worked closely with FWC to draw up management goals from season to season. It was as close to a public flogging as I'd ever seen, and honestly made me worried sharing the woods with these folks.

Duette Park 8-pt

I left that year thinking, "Why do they put up with this? No way can this last." 

But, to their credit, the show’s gone on. 

Since then these annual meetings have been pretty tame, and I'm recognizing the same outdoorsmen from year to year; the majority of the loudmouth malcontents have since packed sand. This year, though, I thought would attract scorn. One, there were no hunts in November, the prime rut period in this section of the state. Two, it didn't appear there'd be any doe tags this season. Three, they raised the antler restriction to 3-points on one side, up from 2.

I figured the antler rule would rile up the most derision. It was front and center in the debate 6 years back. Then, they proposed a modest increase from spike to forkie to improve the age structure and trophy potential, and Holy Jesus, you’d thought they’d been restricted to shooting fictional creatures.

It passed without a peep this year. People will surprise you. It was explained that, yes, they’d still like to improve the age structure. Not a murmur dripped from the crowd. But that’s not the most shocking point to this lack of aggression. See, it's not a free-for-all deer slaying; they work on a quota system. Usually the number of bucks that can be taken on a weekend is 4 – 6. If that is met or exceeded on Saturday, bucks are off-limits on Sunday, allowing only the harvest of pigs or does – if one possesses an antlerless tag (be there in a second). For a 100 hunters paying $80-$90 a hunt sharing a bag of 6 bucks, it's tough to swallow expectations of a whole weekend and only getting a day for that Big Buck. And Big Bucks are tough to do in a day.

Again, not an eyebrow raised, and I believe the rangers relaxed enough to uncross their legs.

As for the doe situation, the guy running the orientation this year, now confident in the calm, claimed he’d prefer no doe tags for the next five years. Nighttime surveys convinced them they’d been a little too liberal doling out these special permits in the past. Bowhunters were welcome to pop a flathead, but the rifle crowds were out.

A striking silence with hunting opportunity shrinking by the paragraph.

The final issue was a lack of hunting weekends during the rut in November, save for one Youth Hunt – youth recruitment was also a big topic this year, happily. One guy stepped forward to challenge this decision, maybe having concluded we were getting chumped out of the best time to hunt. The Man in Charge flatly told him they didn’t have the staff. The limited crew was spread out between here and several other parks throughout the county. With the holidays and influx of Snowbirds flocking south, they just didn’t have the manpower or budget to accommodate November hunts. The gentleman ghosted back into the corn.

All in all, I was impressed with the crowd. Though the added money is critical, hunting is not a priority on this property and this group seemed to understand. Or maybe it was hot and they were lazy, who knows? The County certainly doesn’t need the hassle but has put together about as fine of a quality deer hunting program as you could expect, given the variables. 

The major attribute I see in this success is the communication. The park employees ask hunters to volunteer input on season dates, recommendations for the park, and ways to improve the program. And they appear to be listened to, in some form. A few years back it was suggested to open up the park in the summer for hog and predator hunts. The hogs are rampant here and need serious thinning, a point on which the biologists and hunters always agree. This year they obliged, and it was a superb hunt. As an added bonus, the proceeds of the weekend went to the United Way.

One last remarkable part of this program that other state agencies would do well to notice – the place gets quite a bit of traffic from equestrians, hikers, birdwatchers, butterfly gazers, etc., and there appears to be little conflict, though the park is closed to outsiders during hunt weekends. Beyond the game animals, Duette is also home to endangered scrub jays and indigo snakes and other special species such as gopher tortoises all living in delicate ecological environs. If in nearly twenty years the sanctity of the park’s mission to protect and restore this vestige of native Florida landscape was threatened or conflicts arose with other user groups, I think us hunters would be shown the door in hurry.

Thankfully that’s not happened. It’s a rare piece of property in this state and a fine example of not only assimilating hunters and sound land management practices, but also allowing various populations of outdoor enthusiasts to enjoy the land. We need it in Florida. 

Think folks understand that, too.

Assault on the Stingrays

My feelings on arrowing a magnum-grade stingray flip-flopped over the last year. Before I just didn’t get much sense of sport from it. But I eventually talked my way into believing otherwise, if you’d like to follow my manner of thinking here. For one thing, it’s been a non-productive year bowfishing. Whatever chances I have had were crippled by murky water or crying children. Success can come in any form, I suppose, even if it is flat and ugly. Next, I wanted a trophy-sized fish. Much like mourning dove, mullet and gar don’t hack it in this regard, no matter how many I shoot. Granted, I would have preferred something a little tougher, a little stronger, a little more trophy-like than a ray, say a shark or marlin, but neither of these are legal to shoot in Florida, and I don’t tend to run across marlin in the shallows with any frequency anyhow.

So stingrays. Every summer since I was born my family has stayed in Vero Beach for a week. We haul a 25-ft. AquaSport over to fish around Ft. Pierce or Sebastian Inlet. If the weather and will to get out of bed before sun-up cooperate, we’ll run offshore to troll for dolphin and kings. Some years we bottom-fish the numerous wrecks and artificial reefs along the Treasure Coast. Last year I mixed it up with my first attempt at bowfishing this region. I coveted a barracuda; however, circumstances intervened, and my boating days to overcome these were limited by a very pregnant wife. So I settled for plunking a few mullet on the flats.

While out there, Dad and I noticed a bunch of very large Southern Stingrays. I was timid. I’ve caught plenty on rod and reel, and their fight is a short run at high speed, slows to jog and is followed by an endurance contest akin to hauling an oak door through the water. I wasn’t real sure my AMS Retriever Pro was up to the task. I envisioned the PSE Kingfisher being yanked from my hand and towed across the flats in a hasty wake.

Plus, I just wasn’t sure what I’d do with a stingray if I shot it. They are good shark bait, but I don’t want to catch sharks – just arrow them. I suppose I could have one mounted and placed by the front door like a bear rug - that’d be a conversation piece. I’ve since learned they are edible, and there are an astounding number of YouTube videos demonstrating not only how to clean but also how to cook stingray. The Internet is everything its innovators hoped it would be.

So with a little more purpose and a bundle of willful stupidity, Dad and I spent Tuesday morning hunting the Indian River for my prize. And one would think that it’d be easy – even for an archer of my sub-standard proclivity for hitting what I’m aiming at – to drill the piscine equivalent of a broad side of a barn, but that just shows me you’ve never bowfished.

My first shot on a 25 - 30-lb ray was batted away like a bubble caught in a stiff breeze. He was on a gentle cruise, maybe ten yards off the bow in three feet of water. Though the arrow entered the water at the bulls-eye position, at that particular shallow angle and with his wings flapping, the arrow planed off the mark amid the turbulence of his motion. I doubt the Muzzy tip even glanced his slimy back, but that fish certainly scooted showing nothing but the taillights and plumes of sea mud across the grass bed. Lesson learned. I required a fish closer to the boat to take a more direct shot. Wonderful. I mean, stingrays aren’t the brightest animals, but even they get leery by a lurking boat and the shadow of a large sweaty guy standing on the anchor pulpit with a bow.

The next attempt was a failure by way of taking an ill-advised shot. This ray was settled on the bottom in five -six feet of water. At this depth, I’m not sure a .223 would kill one. That water resistance is simply too much to allow a broadhead much penetration, at least with my rig. But that’s a charm with bowfishing – the arrow is on a string and easy to retrieve. Might as well try. Still, the arrow harmlessly tapped him as he scooted away.

Things were starting to feel awfully incompetent by this point. Dad was getting restless and decided to anchor near a grassy sandbar to castnet live bait to fish with. I sensed he’d lost faith in my skills. I was sour. I’d also missed a couple mullet and a nice sheepshead to much dismay and profanity. A break was probably in order.

As I watched Dad fiddle with the castnet, I noticed a dark shape stroking our way. Catching sight of the boat, the ray came to a stop and dug into the grass. Directly beneath me and in less than 3 feet, if I’d missed, the bow would now be lodged in the muck on an otherwise non-descript Ft. Pierce, FL mangrove island. I drew the recurve back like I was about to shoot the moon and let the arrow fly.

The ray did exactly what I figured it would – kicked into high gear and made a run across the flat. Like I described before, though, it starts with a quick run, slows to a chug, then it’s a matter of muscling it in boatside.

Ft. Pierce Southern Stingray

I wasn’t too sure how to handle this. It’s not like fishing tackle where you pump and reel – in fact, reeling was about worthless. Fortunately the ray made another error. After making his initial run, he chugged back towards the boat and into the deeper water off the transom. This allowed Dad to participate. He grabbed the orange line and heaved while I reeled in the slack. When the fish was at the foot ladder, Dad yanked him aboard as we all stood back.

A fresh stingray on a boat deck is a live wire. They don’t flop about like trout or tuna. No, they possess that long tail with a barber’s razor towards the end of it – in this case, the spine was every bit of ten inches long. And, man, he was waving that that blade around menacingly. Approaching the beast reminded me of those games they play – if I’ve learned anything cultural from Indiana Jones movies – in places like India where they have a live cobra striking at the hands of, well, let’s just say it, idiots reaching within the strike range for coins, jewels or other baubles.

I wanted to pull the arrow in a hurry to get him back in the water as quickly as possible. A stingray’s wing is meat and cartilage; in a sense, I pierced his ear. It’s a lighter shade of cruelty, and I was prepared to carve him up had the shot been in the vitals, but this guy could fight another day provided he steers clear of any hammerheads or folks with bowfishing gear. While keeping an eye out for his tail – as a tall person would keep a heads-up for low door frames or rotating helicopter blades – I carefully removed the arrow. Once clear it was a matter of sliding him back in the water, not an easy task with an animal that’s tough to handle and potentially lethal. But we safely got him back into his stomping grounds. He lingered on the surface for a moment and then shot down into the depths, seemingly no worse for the wear.

We saw plenty more stingrays that morning but all were about the same size, and I’d had my fill. We guessed our one victim to be in the 20-25-lb range. I’ve seen much, much larger fish in these waters, though. I may stand up to that challenge one day and will definitely look to shoot a bigger fish if I do. I have learned it is more sporting than originally thought, and I’d love to try the meat sometime.

Plus, I think that mount would look awesome at the front door.