I never fished with him but i knew about him. One night I almost got my legs chomped on by a Mako he caught.
I was supposed to go to a bar/club ( the Oar house )with my friends one night and was dressed appropiately. There was Fred night fishing @ Gladstones for sharks. I saw him hooked up and asked what do you catch over here? Shark was his reply. I asked do you need any help? a gruff NO was his reply.
I went back to the pay phone to see where my flaky friends were and he was still fighting it. I came back and he was still fighting it 15 mins. later. I go back and try to call some more friends to see if we were still going out. Every 1 was occupied, so the night was a wash.
I go back down the road a bit and ask him if he needed help 1 more time, suprisingly he said yes. Now keep in mind these factors -
#1 the tackle he was using was a 10'+ rod that might have been a little softer than a cue stick,with a huge senator type reel. I would later find out he was using a#250 wire leader with a whole frozen big mackerel flylined. taht should have been clue no. 1
#2 it's a dark moonless night with myself dressed in club/bar type clothes, especially slick no grip dress shoes.
#3 I being the young know it all ASSumed he just had a Bat Ray...this was the late 80's and flylining Makos off the beach wasn't a well known technique at the time.
#4 I offered to gaff it and ASSumed it would be easy. He didn't ask for my gaffing credentials and I didn't offer him the reality of having no experience at all. I mean how hard could it be?
So he told me where the gaff was ,I grabbed it and proceeded to walk down an asphalt type landing/road which almost reached the water and the surf. I m young and full of myself and assume i will be gaffing a Bat Ray or a Leopard shark at most.
So he tells me it's close - and I keep asking where is it? there are no lights and it 's dark with a 2' swell crashing into the so called beach which is composed of mostly trash can sized rocks and smaller mixed in.
I'm looking and looking assuming its a Bat Ray and cant see S#iT. He yells " it's right there " I'm like where? in my head. A wave crashes on shore and there it is. It's a 7'+ Mako ,the 1st 1 I have ever seen in my life. It's less than 3 feet from me and it suddenly becomes a little red riding hood moment.
What's a little red riding hood moment you ask? well my 1st thought was - my what big teeth you have , my second thought was "i think it's pisssed off". I could tell by the way it kept chomping it's jaws over and over again. My 3rd thought was i could easily fit in that mouth- whole. My 4th thought was it's only 3 feet away. My 5th is this is a real life Sea monster and it's going to eat me. 6th is gaff the effer to defend myself and I did.
Now telling this took about 50 times longer than the actual events happening. I processed all these thoughts within a second easy and that's with about 20 extra curse words added into the thought process. ...... Oh and it gets better....
So do you know what happens when a PISSEd Off 7'+Mako ,with a hook in its mouth flailing 1/2 in and half out of the water on rocks Aaaaand now with a gaff in its nose does? Weeellll let me be the 1st to tell ya. It goes ballistic, It goes Ape S#!T It starts to roll,it chomps its teeth even quicker and it proceeds to shake my hand off the gaff. And as if God or the Devil or Poseiden or whoever wasn't having a great enough time falling off their chair in laughter at my misfortune. My dress shoes lose there grip by probably hitting that slimy brown algae film. So there goes my feet from underneath me ,I'm sliding towards those chomping jaws that seem 4' high. I say a micro second Oh S#!T in my head and think about losing my legs.
Now if there was ever to be an Olympic event of quick thinking and scrambling out of the way, I won it that night easily - I took the Platinum medal home.
Fred drops his rod and grabs the gaff, He STARES at me -Thaa STARE somewhere between the U R an effinn Idiot and I cant believe That happened..with some humor mixed in.
As i shook myself off slimy,scraped wet,bloody and bruised...I asked "are you ok? do you got this?" he snorted than just grinned . I took my leave battered ,humiliated,slimy and bruised.
And that is the only time I met Fred Oakley while he was fishing
I was supposed to go to a bar/club ( the Oar house )with my friends one night and was dressed appropiately. There was Fred night fishing @ Gladstones for sharks. I saw him hooked up and asked what do you catch over here? Shark was his reply. I asked do you need any help? a gruff NO was his reply.
I went back to the pay phone to see where my flaky friends were and he was still fighting it. I came back and he was still fighting it 15 mins. later. I go back and try to call some more friends to see if we were still going out. Every 1 was occupied, so the night was a wash.
I go back down the road a bit and ask him if he needed help 1 more time, suprisingly he said yes. Now keep in mind these factors -
#1 the tackle he was using was a 10'+ rod that might have been a little softer than a cue stick,with a huge senator type reel. I would later find out he was using a#250 wire leader with a whole frozen big mackerel flylined. taht should have been clue no. 1
#2 it's a dark moonless night with myself dressed in club/bar type clothes, especially slick no grip dress shoes.
#3 I being the young know it all ASSumed he just had a Bat Ray...this was the late 80's and flylining Makos off the beach wasn't a well known technique at the time.
#4 I offered to gaff it and ASSumed it would be easy. He didn't ask for my gaffing credentials and I didn't offer him the reality of having no experience at all. I mean how hard could it be?
So he told me where the gaff was ,I grabbed it and proceeded to walk down an asphalt type landing/road which almost reached the water and the surf. I m young and full of myself and assume i will be gaffing a Bat Ray or a Leopard shark at most.
So he tells me it's close - and I keep asking where is it? there are no lights and it 's dark with a 2' swell crashing into the so called beach which is composed of mostly trash can sized rocks and smaller mixed in.
I'm looking and looking assuming its a Bat Ray and cant see S#iT. He yells " it's right there " I'm like where? in my head. A wave crashes on shore and there it is. It's a 7'+ Mako ,the 1st 1 I have ever seen in my life. It's less than 3 feet from me and it suddenly becomes a little red riding hood moment.
What's a little red riding hood moment you ask? well my 1st thought was - my what big teeth you have , my second thought was "i think it's pisssed off". I could tell by the way it kept chomping it's jaws over and over again. My 3rd thought was i could easily fit in that mouth- whole. My 4th thought was it's only 3 feet away. My 5th is this is a real life Sea monster and it's going to eat me. 6th is gaff the effer to defend myself and I did.
Now telling this took about 50 times longer than the actual events happening. I processed all these thoughts within a second easy and that's with about 20 extra curse words added into the thought process. ...... Oh and it gets better....
So do you know what happens when a PISSEd Off 7'+Mako ,with a hook in its mouth flailing 1/2 in and half out of the water on rocks Aaaaand now with a gaff in its nose does? Weeellll let me be the 1st to tell ya. It goes ballistic, It goes Ape S#!T It starts to roll,it chomps its teeth even quicker and it proceeds to shake my hand off the gaff. And as if God or the Devil or Poseiden or whoever wasn't having a great enough time falling off their chair in laughter at my misfortune. My dress shoes lose there grip by probably hitting that slimy brown algae film. So there goes my feet from underneath me ,I'm sliding towards those chomping jaws that seem 4' high. I say a micro second Oh S#!T in my head and think about losing my legs.
Now if there was ever to be an Olympic event of quick thinking and scrambling out of the way, I won it that night easily - I took the Platinum medal home.
Fred drops his rod and grabs the gaff, He STARES at me -Thaa STARE somewhere between the U R an effinn Idiot and I cant believe That happened..with some humor mixed in.
As i shook myself off slimy,scraped wet,bloody and bruised...I asked "are you ok? do you got this?" he snorted than just grinned . I took my leave battered ,humiliated,slimy and bruised.
And that is the only time I met Fred Oakley while he was fishing
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