A Stingray Stabbing

The ray that got my Pa

Well, Dad took a stingray barb to the top of his foot. We'd hunted the Intercoastal around Ft. Pierce for much of last Wednesday morning, determined to arrow a trophy ray without much success. Freshwater runoff had killed water clarity, even in areas where during high tide clean ocean water usually makes the waterway crystal clear. The majority of rays were either pushed out or just very difficult to see.

We'd spotted a couple smaller rays south of the South Bridge but none were any bigger than what I've arrowed in the past. I wanted a big one for glory, to try the meat, and to donate some parts thereof to the shark fishermen staying at our place in Vero Beach. So with that particular mindset, I'd let the runts escape.

Anyway, we'd pushed further north to where we'd seen big rays before, but the flats were damn near black because of the runoff from Lake Okeechobee. It's a common occurrence right now. With all the heavy rains this summer, inland freshwater was being discharged from Taylor Creek into the Ft. Pierce area. With Lake O's water levels so high, there's fear of the dikes around it collapsing and flooding surrounding areas. As such, they drain the lake as needed - or as determined by an even more murky source.

The effect on the East Coast has been profound. It's quite a sight to see water hyacinths float out into the Atlantic; nothing I've witnessed in 30 years of fishing here. I hear it's worse further down the coast where sugar cane byproduct has not only darkened the water but created an abundance of green slime that has been strangling the coast.

But back to bowfishing, we searched this flat where we'd encountered many large rays in the past. I was dismayed by the elements and time was running out as we'd be picking up Mom and the kids in about an hour for a beer cruise.

Well, wouldn't you know it, even in the compromised visibility, we passed right over top of the specimen we'd been hunting. I released the arrow and the fight was on.

This was easily the biggest fish I've shot with bowfishing gear. Other rays have buried in the sand and it became a heave-ho ordeal - this boy charted towards deeper waters in a hurry. We'd retrieve as much line as possible, then it'd spit back out of the AMS reel, causing Dad to engage the boat and track it down. It was a solid 15 minute ordeal in the early morning Florida August heat and humidity.

A close up of the barb and its shadow

But we're tough guys. After two last runs - one that almost got the ray wrapped around the prop -  the 50-60 lb. fish played out. Dad gaffed him on board and that dangerous tail whipped around like an unattended fire hose, a 10-inch blade of a spine as menacing as a pit viper ready to strike.

Unlike vipers, stingray's poison is not too dangerous if attended to quickly. The pain can be severe for a few hours and parts of the spine often break off and may cause infection. Outside of the legend of Steve Irwin, stings usually are not fatal. Hot water is a well-known home remedy to break down the poisons followed by medical treatment.

The stingray calmed down for a moment as I got my pictures and removed the arrow. His wounds were superficial, but I still wanted pieces of him. How we were getting the flat fish into the ice boxes was another problem you can rightly blame on poor planning, especially with the kids soon to be on board. A live-wire ray and twin two-year olds could be cause for a state investigation. But as I maneuvered him around the back of the boat contemplating its fate, Dad swore out loud profanity that is probably still audible in certain corners of the Indian River.

We're not real sure how it happened. Dad felt he was well clear of the ray and I was pulling it in the opposite direction of where he stood. The next thing he felt was the end of that barb gouging him where the ankle meets the foot. I guess that's the risk of having a beast with a 36-inch prehensile tail with a boot knife attached to it slapping around the back of a 25-foot Aquasport.

Almost instantly, there was blood everywhere, all over the gunnels, fish boxes - it looked like his foot exploded. The ray bled far less and, with a far larger issue at hand, was immediately heaved back into the water where he revived and blasted away into the murk.

Having never treated a stingray stab, I instantly consulted the Interweb on my iPhone, which, by the way, should you land on this site seeking medical advice in such an emergency, my lawyers advise me to say: GO TO THE HOSPITAL.

Now, my father would prefer to cut off his own mangled foot - and possibly leg - than be treated in any medical facility. He applied pressure to stop the bleeding and kept it elevated. Without a jug or pot or bota bag of hot water aboard, I instructed him to say something if he felt nauseous or dizzy. If the wound started to smell funny we'd need to hit a hospital by helicopter. Of course, his feet always smell a little bad, the heat was stifling and would make an uninjured person nauseous and dizzy, so these were all tough calls. He decided to ride it out, pick up the rest of the family and continue as planned.

Today, the doctors took his foot..nah, he and his foot survived. Though the barb did not break off in his foot, he concurred the pain was indeed intense for a couple of hours. He also did not take the full dosage of the barb, just an inch or so. But between keeping it clean with Hydrogen Peroxide, Neosporine , bandages and bourbon, he came through just fine.

A stingray boo-boo

Me? Well, I feel slight pains of guilt but primarily from releasing an injured stingray. I view Dad's incident as another useless casualty in the pursuit of glory. I told him we could probably shut down the stingray program for a couple years or until his nightmares subside, though I still want to try the meat one day. And possibly find one bigger.

It's safe to assume he won't be clamoring to go gator hunting with me this year.

Chasing the Convict Fish

Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Give a man a bowfishing set and puddle him into Amanda Bynes, I swear to God.

Case in point, I missed the same damn gar four or five times Sunday morning. Once, I was even able to glance the arrow off the edge of the concrete dock, shattering my confidence but, luckily, not my arrow. Each ploink in the water, the gar lazily flitted further under the dock, taunting me. It was just about enough for me to bleach my hair, pierce my face, and indulge in heavy narcotics.

In all reality, I should have taken my hostilities out on the few dozen stingrays in the shallows and stacked them up like silver dollar pancakes, but it just didn't seem sporting enough, especially when I was supposed to be helping clean up the river house to rent this summer. If a kill was to be made, it needed to be impressive enough to absorb the verbal beating that would surely ensue for taking a Union Break. The gar just narrowly fit in that category.

One of my first sheepshead when times were easier. Before bowfishing.

Which brings us to the sheepshead, the Ol' Convict Fish. The sheepshead is one of those fish, if you're a real sportsman, you typically don't target between the ages of 13 and When You Have Kids. Don't get me wrong – they are fun sport on rod and reel and delicious, to boot, but it is the equivalent of rabbit hunting. Grander plans hop in the way of a good time, at times.

I've caught, I don't know, hundreds in my youth and hadn't given them much thought since then until I got my PSE Kingfisher a couple Christmases ago and started marching down the list of legal fish I could conquer with a bow. Actually, “conquer” may be too strong of a term given my aptitude with a bow, or lack thereof. In the last 2 ½ years, I've shot at dozens. I can accurately describe to you with mouth noises what my arrow sounds like when it misses a sheepshead.

What makes them such attractive quarry – aside from their excellent table-fare and prison-uni stripes – is their ability to hang around just long enough to make you think you have a chance. They have a tendency to hang in the shallows and feed along seawalls and pilings, stripping them free of barnacles with their creepy baby teeth. They are slab-sided and appear dim-witted, but once you make eye contact and start to anchor your bow, they are gone in a flash leaving you with desperate, flailing shots at where the fish was a split-second earlier, sort of how I've always felt about trying to hit a baseball. It's frustrating. 

So I was caught in this cat-and-mouse game with a fairly large sheepster on Sunday. In between gar misses, I'd catch him under the boat house, or at the end of the dock. In all reality, it could have been different fish, but as a trophy hunter, I believed I was after The One, heroically engaged in a Battle Royale of wits with what amounts to an over-sized panfish. Each time I thought I'd have a shot, he'd spook, either from my shadow or movement or wife yelling at me to help her move some piece of heavy furniture.

Time was running out. As I was making my last stalk along the water's edge, I notice the blue-gray tail of homeboy sticking out from under the dock, high in the surface column as he grazed on the piling. I pulled back the bow and gangster-leaned to the side and plugged him without him knowing I was even there. I reeled him out of the water and hauled him to my wife for her to admire, pleading, of course, for her to put down the box of family heirlooms and grab my camera.

EPILOGUE

I snuck back out and shot a mullet, too.  

The Kansas Gobbler

Nick and I were slipping through a vein of cottonwoods along a creek bottom that dissected two large crop fields, advancing on a distant roosted gobbler that had betrayed his presence to Nick's owl hoots. The morning having cleared from a full day before of rain that had softened our footsteps, we came to a bit of a stopping point. Nick hit the locator again and another gobbler fired up right on the edge of the field in front of us.

Then I saw a bird fly into the open.

We immediately found shelter against cottonwood trunks, not having time to wrestle decoys from our vests. Nick yelped a few times, and the tom's response was immediate and resolute - he was coming in. At 6:19 a.m., with the gobbler pacing in front of me at 20 yards, that morning's hunt had been the easiest part of this adventure - even that was almost screwed up.

Located in Independence, Kansas in the southeast part of the state near Coffeyville, Nick had been living at his family's farm while finishing school nearby. It took him visiting Florida in mid-March and a cocktail-infused evening around my firepit to dream up this hunt. The farm had been in Nick's family for generations, and despite numerous invitations over the years, I'd just not been able to coincide time with funds. We poured over the logistics of a late-April hunt, and after staring at my pennies and securing permission from my patient, turkey-widow of a wife, Harris and I booked tickets with Allegiant out of St. Pete on the 26th to join Nick for a weekend turkey getaway.

Now, everyone who knows me knows I'm terrified of flying, but some trips can't be passed up. As it turned out, the majority of my angst occurred while still on the ground. Despite living in Florida my whole life, I failed to recognize St. Pete had an airport. I'd always flown out of Tampa or Orlando. For whatever reason, Google Maps directed us to a tiny airport in downtown St. Pete. Realizing something was wrong, I ran into a terminal with roughly the square-footage of an average Cracker Barrel and hurriedly questioned the lady behind the counter where I could find the correct airport. Seemingly having been asked this on numerous occasions, she gave me the proper directions. Thank God, too. I wasn't getting on any of those Tic-Tac container-sized “airplanes” littered across that tarmac. So we were uncomfortably behind schedule as we strolled into St. Pete International.

With the worry of missing our flight and spending our hard-won free time at the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa, it was disheartening to see crowds of travelers stuffed within aisles waiting to check-in. I'm not sure what kind of crafts or flannel shirt convention was happening in the Springfield, Missouri area where we would hopefully land in a few hours, but there were deep, winding lines of folks, and with the boarding call closing in fast, our odds of seeing Kansas diminished further. Luckily, Harris had purchased priority boarding but had forgotten about it. Upon realizing this bold strike of fortune after ten minutes in line, he was able to call me up to bypass the masses and drop bags with just enough minutes left to clear security and sit at the bar for a pre-flight nerve tonic which turned out being extremely helpful for my anxiety. 

After boarding and feeling pretty good about having made it in time, we were getting settled in our seats when a guy trying to stuff his over-sized carry-on into the overhead compartment blew a fluorescent bulb and sprayed glass on and around all of us good people sitting near the emergency exits. I think I handled it well. I don't remember screaming, but I don't suppose many do when their lives flash before their eyes.

Let me clue you, the pop of a bulb, the tinkling of glass, and the faint smell of ozone attracts some attention within an airplane. It took 6 airport employees to handle this situation: 1 to see there was a problem; 1 to diagnose the problem; 1 to discern how to fix the problem; 2 to clean up the problem; and 1 to report the problem and tell the guy he owed forty bucks to check his bag. I leaned over and told Harris that if anything else happened, he'd be going solo.

But, we landed in Springfield without further issue beyond the delayed arrival and me being on the far side of comfortably numb. The weatherman was the one who threw a wrench in the issue now. The forecast had called for warm and sunny for the entirety of the trip. We landed in a cold drizzle that lasted through the first day of hunting. We tried a couple of set-ups Saturday morning but with no gobbles, the cows laying down and vultures roosted, it was evident that the only thing we'd be getting on this day was pneumonia. It was decided we should pull up stakes, grab a hot lunch and watch lucky hunters chase gobblers in Kansas via DVD.

As the rains eased later in the afternoon, we took a drive around the property. In this part of Kansas, the turkeys are a Rio Grande/Eastern hybrid. Some gobs have more of one subspecies characteristics than others, but we were in the state's designated intergrade zone which made for a unique trophy. Fascinating, too, was Nick's description of hunting this area. He maintained that gobblers were often a here-today, gone-tomorrow prospect. And while he received a weekend's ration of commentary and jokes about migrating turkeys, it did make some sense.

See, the property we were able to hunt totaled 400-500 acres. In parts of Florida I'm used to hunting, 400-500 acres is dominated by swamps with little clearings and fields toms are attracted to. Navigation through such areas is tricky even for game animals. There are a lot of obstacles that dictate habits. Even on wide-open properties where occasional cypress heads, pine stands, or oak hammocks comprise the only vertical landscapes, Osceolas typically return to the same roosting areas. Also, one has to consider the fragmentation of land in Florida by development and roads and whatnot; turkey populations are, generally speaking, squeezed together - Kansas, not so much. They are free and clear to travel, impeded by very little from what I saw. The turkeys on this and adjacent properties will apparently follow deep creek bottoms for miles picking new places to fly-up each evening. It's why locating and roosting birds in the evenings is an important strategy here, not something I worry about too much in the Sunshine State.

And while I don't want to place too much emphasis on the habits of an individual bird and how that translates into a whole subspecies, this gobbler did everything I would not expect from an Osceola. One was the fly-down time: 6:15 in the morning. I can't recall a Florida tom ever arriving that early – heck, most of the birds I worked this season didn't touch the ground until well after 7. Two, there was a hen calling from the edge of the same field, and he left her and that opening to come to us, crossing a deep ditch - almost a ravine – along the way. I still can't reconcile that. Perhaps that other bird we heard was the dominate animal, and homeboy knew it. We'll never know, but I credited Nick's calling because I'd like to be invited back one day. Three, the gobbler stayed in range while I buffooned with the shotgun.

For starters, everything happened so quickly that I failed to put a round in the chamber. Doing so with an incoming gobbler is a real trick of the pros - said no one ever. Fortunately Nick had, and I escaped without the clatter of fully racking the pump. Then, I'm sure you've heard the mantra, “Don't go into battle with an unproven weapon?” Well, many folks over the years have dusted gobblers with the Mossberg pump Nick loaned me, but I was unfamiliar with the use of the red-dot scope mounted on it. Since we didn't place decoys, the gobbler was pacing along the ditch searching. He wouldn't stay still, and I could not pick him up in dawn's low light with the short field-of-view incumbent with those scopes. He alarm-putted once, and I knew I'd have to get my stink together or catch Hell in camp for the remainder of the weekend. He walked behind a tree, and as he did, I focused the red dot on the trunk. When he stepped out the other side, I moved the reticle slightly to the left and under his chin and crumpled him at 35 yards to save the day. He wasn't hanging out any longer.

Weighing in at 22 pounds with a 9 1/2-inch beard, Nick and I performed the ritual high-fives and recount of the events that occurred  We laughed that the walk in and back took four times as long as the hunt. With the rains history and the temperature warming during a bluebird day, we calculated the gobblers were going to go gangbusters and more gobblers would meet this one's fate, but it wasn't to be. Harris, unfortunately, didn't hear much. A mid-morning hunt wasn't any more productive, and Nick was unable to roost any birds that evening. With great friends, you'd like to see everyone have a chance to pull the trigger.

But that's just turkey hunting - everyone present knew that. We were lucky to have the one in hand. And despite the travel and weather woes, with the company kept and the beauty of Southeast Kansas, it's a trip worth doing a 1000 times over.

Maybe we'll catch that migration one day. 

The Mossy Oak Gobbler

Rick Ferlita and I with our 1st Morning FL Easterns

When chasing gobblers, it always seems like your last easy hunt was yesterday's.

Rick Ferlita and I were camped under a wild cherry tree late Friday morning, quietly chatting about our various experiences afield. We held post on the edge of a small green field situated between a creek bottom and planted pines. We'd started the hunt in the traditional manner, well before first light, in a cut-over where we'd jumped a gobbler and his hen the evening before.

With direction from our guide, we pinpointed several roost trees that bordered the gnarled, open terrain and discussed a plan on how to set up the next morning. Daybreak came with far fewer gobbles than expected. The starlit sky we left 12 hours earlier turned overcast, and the entire mood of the woods felt ill-suited for much activity - except for one distant gobbler that would respond to Rick's calls, the occasional crow, and the lonely howl of a coyote down by the river bottom.

It's never easy to determine when to make a move on a bird, but this one seemed primed for action. We lifted our decoys and hiked back to the main road to get a bead on where the bird had gone. Fast forward a couple miles of walking around impassable blocks of pines and several attempts to get in front of the animal, and we eventually abandoned the chase and elected set up shop on the aforementioned grass patch just to see what would happen late-morning.

And, you know, with turkey hunting there are so many variables in play – what call to use, how often to call, should we deploy decoys, should we use a jake decoy – it can quickly become paralysis by analysis. With gobblers - and all manners of game, for that matter - a little patience and being where they want to be is often the soundest strategy.

But patience is fragile. At quarter till eleven, we decided to give a few more yelps and work our way back to the truck. Save a lone hen that pecked around the patch for a few moments, the sit had been for naught. Rick struck a few notes on his box call, and a gobbler cut him off. He put down the call and flicked the safety off; there was no doubt this bird was on his way.

MO Prostaff with TNT Outdoor Explosion's Marty Fischer to my right

For the first time in the five years since its creation, members of Mossy Oak's Florida Prostaff team devised plans for a group hunt, and we descended upon 4,000 acres of gorgeous river bottom and rolling planted pines near Blountstown, FL in the Panhandle. Hosted by Southern Arrowhead Outfitters, the land was owned by the Atkins/Trammell families, old Florida names well-known in state politics. For several years, SAO has offered semi-guided archery hunts for deer and hogs, but this was only the second Spring where turkey have been hunted in recent times.

While Florida is synonymous with Osceola gobblers, those in the Panhandle are deemed to be Eastern birds which was fine by me. Neither Rick nor I had ever tagged a Sunshine State Eastern. And while there was no doubt the property was rife with turkey, six months of planning could not fend off the monsoon-like conditions that was about to pummel the state. That's the luck of things.

And while the camp was brimming with turkey hunting talent, it was also luck that Rick and me pulled each others' numbers out of a hat Thursday evening. Lucky, too, that we drew a block of woods on the high point of the property. A wet spring had flooded the river bottoms, and the turkey were moving up to get out of the water, and, possibly, the hordes of mosquitoes incumbent with such conditions.

Still, it's always hard to gauge how two people who've met only briefly would work together when turkey hunting. I'm a big proponent of the One Chief Theory. When I take someone out on my own time, I want to run the show; however, Rick makes his own beautiful box and scratch calls that he sells through his Cypress Creek brand. I quickly offered the reins to him, figuring I may learn a thing or two on this hunt. My inaction paid off at that gobble. Rick had won the coin-flip to decide who would shoot first, and I was more than excited to lend moral support and end this morning on a high note.

After five minutes or so, Rick whispered that he could see a tom enter the access road into the clearing...then another, then a third gobbler. We were primed for a double. I told him that when he shot, don't hop up, just yelp or cut to the survivors to see if I could tag one, as well. The three came in a line, not in a hurry, just ambling, heads down and beards a-draggin'.

The final gobbler was obviously the older animal as he finally broke rank and full-strutted between the other two right up to my jake decoy. Marty Fischer of TNT Outdoor Explosion had joined us in camp and explained the difficulty of getting footage like this on camera - the hours of film and effort it takes to produce a half-hour segment. It's a shame his equipment was not with us. The cinematography was perfect.

When the satellite gobblers cleared and the strutter de-poofed, Rick lowered the hammer, folding him at 10 yards. One bird immediately rocketed to greener, lead-free fields, while the now-abandoned survivor tossed up in the air before landing back in the field. It turned to run, but Rick hit that mouth call - a Gagging Yelp, I would describe it - which froze the gobbler long enough for me to fire a 3 1/2-inch load of #5 Winchester Supremes out of my Mossberg 835, crumpling him into the sod. 

Nervous about the 40-plus yard shot, I immediately leaped out of the blind and raced to the gobbler, later discovering my old and faded Mossy Oak Obsession hat caught in the cherry tree. Realizing it missing, I couldn't recall if I'd inadvertently tossed it aside in the excitement or the recoil had blown it back into the bushes. With two toms in hand, we had our first Florida Easterns. Words failing each of us, high-fives and back-slaps were about the only intelligible form of communication we could muster for ten solid minutes.

I had remarked earlier how quickly things could change with turkey hunting – the few miles of hiking, several hours of sitting, and desperate strategies were struck from memory as we celebrated back towards the truck. Each gobbler had 10 1/4-inch beards while Rick's tom sported a pair of 1 1/4-inch spurs that easily trumped my duo of 3/4-inchers, his clearly a three-year old with worn wingtips and a feather-less breast from strutting and breeding.

Our shooting for the weekend finished by the one-gobbler-per-person mandate, the next morning Rick and I teamed up with Kevin Faver from The Outdoor Show and Regional Manager of Florida's Mossy Oak Prostaff to try and get him a gobbler. We sat in a different section of property and heard a tom gobbling from the roost down towards the river. We advanced on him and called until around 30 - 45 minutes after daybreak when the winds picked up and the temperature quickly cooled, betraying the approach of thunderstorms from the Gulf. For the next two days it would downpour. Although those boys didn't give up all day every day, no one tagged another bird until Sunday morning.

We hurried back to the truck, and while Rick and Kevin decided to give it one last shot before the rains, I chose to rest on the tailgate, my balky back threatening to seize up after hours of sitting and traipsing the undulating terrain.

As I watched the clouds darken and listened to the thunder roll in, I couldn't help but think how much easier the hunt was yesterday.

(Thank you to Mossy Oak, SouthernArrowhead Outfitters, and everyone who participated in the hunt.)

Further Thoughts on Wildcat Hunting

Over the last two months I have been murdered by reader e-mails and comments over a post I released two years ago about bobcat hunting. In five years of publishing content online through various forums and websites, I've covered at least a little bit of just about every kind of hunting in this country and others, whether it was based on personal experience or commentary on an issue. Combined, the topics of these posts haven't attracted this level of vitriol. Why after two years has one little article attracted this much attention? Is it because of my ascending stardom among the Outdoor Community? 

Yes, probably. This post has hundreds of hits a day now, which is great because it generates traffic, but judging by these sentiments, not all that sure I'm hitting my demographic.

Anyway, I published a couple of the comments; deleted those that crudely diminished my manhood - in both an ethical and anatomical sense - and those so poorly written they made me weep for our education system. All of them signed, "Anonymous."

Bold.

Look, it's quite clear few of these people actually read the post. In it, I argued that while bobcat hunting is fine sport, and they require management on certain lands, it's not like I'm out to butcher every one I run across - the reasons for hunting them are separate and apart.

But there is really no value in rationalizing with these folks.

Let's go ahead, though, and run through some of the major points surrounding bobcat hunting.

1. It's legal, at least in Florida and most of the Southern states. They are not endangered or considered threatened in any way.

2. Calling in a bobcat is the outdoor equivalent of a scary movie. You know that scene in those horrible flicks when a character is washing his face in the bathroom sink and looks up into the vanity to towel off and startlingly sees the image of a child with cold, frightening eyes standing behind him in the reflection? That's about what it's like to be in the middle of a calling session and realizing the cat is right there, and you're not sure how that came to be true so suddenly and quietly.

3. Bobcat management is a somewhat debatable practice, but most folks believe that the removal of a few a year will help turkey, small game and songbird populations - when combined with other land management tools. I've seen them on properties follow flocks of turkey like blacktips shadow schools of mullet along the East Coast beaches each summer. It's not healthy to wipe them all out - and you never could, anyhow - but taking a limited number each year is wise.

4. Nobody really eats bobcat. Now, I say nobody with the full intention of realizing someone out there probably does, but it's not common practice which turns off plenty of hunters and non-hunters. I feel no need to justify my actions today; I shot a lot more when I was younger and more blood-thirsty. I have a mount I'm very proud of. I've let several walk since my last post about the matter, but I'm going predator hunting this weekend and may very well be holding up another one by Sunday evening because of the three other reasons described above.

So there it is. I realize that bobcat hunting doesn't sit well with a lot of people - especially in a world where some members of our citizenry place felines on a pedestal, though domestic and feral cats are among the gravest pestilences that have ever struck our native ecosystems.

There's some temptation to argue back with the knobs who leave these comments, but most would be over-matched and the balance wouldn't care. I'm OK if you disagree with me. Promise.

Just don't expect me to be insulted over it.

"You're the worst kind of human being. You surely will be shot and skinned in your next life. ENJOY!!! " -  Anonymous