sting ray attack!

Besides the beautiful views, warm weather and chilled out lifestyles, the big attraction to cedar key is fishing. Without going into all the different game fish and areas to hunt them, lets just say that this place is angler's heaven. Yesterday we were out in fan boat fishing for Redfish, and today we were in a flat bottomed jet boat fishing for Spotted Sea Trout. Both expeditions were memorable and worth recounting.

Redfish

(Sciaenops ocellatus)

Redfish (also Red Drum) are the top inshore game fish in this area. Inshore means close to the shore in the very shallow tidal waters of the Suwanee estuary, which is made up of oyster bars, small grassy keys and endless miles of tiny waterways winding through muddy tide flats. A great way to catch Redfish is to find a tidal pond that has been temporarily isolated from the ocean by receding tides. The trouble in getting to these is that most boats can't get to these areas when the tide is out, and believe me: walking is not an option. Enter the airboat. Airboats are flat bottomed boats with an airplane engine (seriously) mounted on stilts on the back, driving a large airplane propeller. The prop never gets near the water, so the boat can run in extremely shallow water with no worry of striking bottom. Zipping along in an airboat in one or two inches of water is very common, and very useful in swampy areas. In fact, they can actually run across mud if the mud is wet enough, and we did quite a bit of this yesterday. My dad had a really cool airboat that he kept down here for fishing expeditions, and after he died, we sold it to a local guy named Jeff. Jeff and his pal Donny took Ethan, Reba and I out to get Redfish in my dad's old airboat, and applied the tidal pond strategy outlined above.

Donny and Jeff and the airboat

After 15 minutes of navigating various waterways and mudflats, we settled into a spot which was to later deliver my most productive day of fishing ever. However, before we started casting, Jeff pulled out a small boombox and played Sweet Home Alabama for us, per his and Donny's tradition. The irony of this is not lost on either Jeff or Donny, they're both from Florida, love "redneck" sports like hunting and fishing, and think it's funny as hell to play the whole thing up by turning on the Skinnard. Of course, during the week they both work for an insurance company in Gainesville, but on the weekends they head out to Cedar key and adopt a slightly more down-home lifestyle. I tried to imagine how my Oxford pals would react to this scenario: fishing from an airboat in the middle of a swamp, drinking Coors and playing Skinnard... this would be weird even to my Seattle friends! In any case, we all had a laugh and got down to fishing, and what great fishing it was! We found a spot that was so good that we hooked fish on nearly every cast, which is simply unheard of. By way of illustration, Brandon: this would be like if you went to a cheesy meat market bar in London and instead of the usual scenario, girls were fighting with each other all night long to see who got to go home with you. We got lots of little Redfish, and quite a few keepers (18"+) as well. Reba got the biggest: 21 inches. That's a lot of Redfish, friends. We probably hooked and released 50+ fish that day, and we went through all 110 bait shrimp that we brought. I've never experienced this kind of thing before, normally I spend all day getting 4 or 5 bites. Anyway, it was just awesome, and we all had a super great time. After, we all went back to Jeff's picturesque gulf side home, and watched the sunset while we barbecued and cooked Redfish. A simply awesome, unmatchable Southern USA experience.

Reba's big Redfish

riding in the airboat

Spotted Sea Trout

(Cynoscion Nebulosus)

Today, Reba and I went after Spotted Sea Trout with Tony, and old fishing buddy of my dad's. The trout are also a top local game fish, but they tend to be a littler further out from shore, still amongst the oyster bars and small keys, but out away from the mudflats and swamps. They also like the shrimp lures that we uses when pursuing Redfish. Down here, being slightly farther out, but still technically "inshore" always deliver breathtaking views. The huge blue gulf frames in the offshore keys, the shore is forested and wild looking, there's an outstanding variety of gorgeous sea birds, and you even occasionally run across porpoises hunting. On hot days (every day here) it feels so very good to step out of the boat onto an oyster bar and fish knee deep in the cool water.

inshore

Reba fishing an inshore oyster bar

Of course, ice cold lager always helps too. :) Tony is another weekend denizen of Cedar Key, he runs a lawn mowing business in Gainesville during the week, but comes out to his little island house to fish on the weekends, something he's been doing for over 30 years. He and my dad spent many many hours fishing here, and it was cool to spend some QT with Tony. Tony has a more typical flat bottomed "sled" style boat... made for running in shallows, but with a regular engine that sticks down in the water. He happens to use a "jet" engine, which looks just like a regular outboard motor, but uses a high speed water pump to move the boat instead of a propeller. This lets him run the boat in 4 or 5 inches of water or more, so this is perfect for going after trout. We caught plenty of trout, and threw lots back, even though we had enough for several dinners at the end of the day. However, the constancy of hooked fish was nowhere near where it was yesterday, even though this is probably one of the top 20 fishing days I've have. The real excitement came at the end of the day however.

Most of the fish that you can catch in these shallow waters are harmless to people, but there are 3 that can be problematic. In no particular order:

#1 - Black Tip Shark.

The grown up versions of these can get pretty big, but I've only ever caught little 2 to 3 footers inshore fishing in Cedar Key. They're really only dangerous in the same way any shark is when you pull it into your boat: they're frigging teeth with fins, and with their high speed reflexive chomping, they can take your finger right off if you put it in the wrong place.

#2 - Catfish.

These fish have spines in their fins, which are covered in a slime that can cause a painful infection if they pierce your skin. I have heard rumors of lost limbs, but have no confirmed stories.

#3 - Stingrays.

These are like any other ray, but right above their tail, they have a very sharp spike (called a spine), almost like a rigid second tail. When agitated, they wave it around and often stick it straight up. The spine itself is like a long spear point with sharp teeth pointing back away from the tip.

tip of a stingray spine

The rays also store a venom in their spine, and it is released when the spine stabs into something. Even more sinister, the teeth tend to break off inside whatever the spine pierces, and the spine itself is quite brittle and snaps off readily. The venom can cause humans to experience nausea, fatigue, headaches, fever and chills, but most often simply causes excruciating pain. Fishermen, guides, and commercial clammers all talk about how much this venom hurts, apparently it's quite shocking in it's intensity.

So guess what happened today? :)

I was standing on an oyster bar, fishing in a promising looking bit of deep water, and hooked a stingray. This is a very common happening here, and every Cedar Key fisherman has his way of dealing with extracting a hook from a wriggling ray's mouth without getting stung. Since I am a giant weenie, I err on the side of hyper caution. Here is what I do to avoid stingray issues:

* land the stingray on the dock, beach, whatever

* give it time to settle down a bit

* flip it on it's back (the mouth is on the bottom side, so the hook is always there)

* lay something wide and inanimate on the ray to keep it very still, I usually use a wide flat oar

* use pliers to very cautiously remove the hook from it's mouth

* use the oar to flip the little bastard back into the water

Alternatively, if I'm feeling like this recipe isn't going to work, I just cut the line and let the ray swim away with my lure stuck in him. I understand that hooks generally work their way out if they don't rust apart in the saltwater first, but even if my hooks kills the thing I don't care, they are nasty little beasties. Besides, the sharks will appreciate the extra chow anyway.

In any event, I landed the ray on the beach, and was beginning my meticulous procedure of hook extraction when Tony hopped out of the boat to de-hook the ray. As the guide, it is technically his responsibility to do this, so I didn't say anything. Unfortunately, Tony tried to hold the ray's spine and tail still by stomping down on it it with his rubber boot. BAD IDEA, TONY. The ray flipped his spine up at just the right moment, and Tony impaled his foot on it. He started yelling, "oh shit, he got me", etc., and then holding his rubber booted foot up, told me to "pull it out". I couldn't see the spine, so we decided to take his boot off to get a better look. This was apparently very painful, and after struggling for a few moments, we got it off. There, sticking out of the soft flesh between Tony's third and fourth toes, was 1 inch of stingray spine. Again, Tony shouted "pull it out! pull it out!" I grabbed the pliers we use for removing hooks from fish, and paused just before grabbing the spine. For a moment, I thought of those movies where some knight or cowboy or whatever gets shot with an arrow, and shouts "pull it out pull it out" to his buddy...(exciting!) then I took a breath, grabbed the spine, and pulled. Along with a good deal of blood, it came right out, but I could see where a few of the teeth had ripped out in Tony's foot. The whole thing was probably 2 inches. You could tell that he was in serious pain, and Reba and I quickly moved to call it a day. Tony, brave old salt that he is, actually wanted to fish more, because we'd really only been out for half of a proper charter at that point. Reba and I simply argued more strenuously, and Tony gave in. It was interesting and weird to watch him go through the various stages of pain as the stingray venom kicked in... whistling softly to himself, then exhaling and inhaling deeply, for a while standing and then sitting and then standing, then wincing, and finally obtaining a reserved, stoic sort of look. I have to say: Tony took it like a man.

Being unaware of the specific implications of stingray envenomation, I was worried that he might be in some greater danger. So I kept a close eye on him as we jetted back to the boat launch... but aside from the stages of pain noted above, he seemed to be fine. When asked about numbness, chills, light headedness, etc., he seemed fairly certain that he was simply in pain, nothing more. Upon reaching the ramp, Reba zipped home in the rental car to check the internet for details on stingray venom, and I stayed with Tony to help him trailer the boat, clean up, etc. During the ride home, phone calls to Reba and to a commercial clammer wise in the ways of stingray stings indicated that aside from infection and tetanus risks (typical with any puncture), pain was the only thing Tony had to worry about. Also, both sources located a method to slow the pain: soak the wound in near-scalding water for 60-90 minutes. Apparently this breaks down the venom, slowing down the increase of pain, but no not eradicating it.

In the end, we got our guide home, he soaked his foot, drank a sixer of lager, and seemed to feel marginally better. I'm going to check in on him tomorrow. Adventure on the high seas!

Tony and a Spanish Mackerel

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