On my 5th birthday, I received a real fishing pole, just as I had requested. No Snoopy rod, for me, please. I was fishing with my dad on the peirs at Roosevelt Roads. I hooked on something, don’t know what, but it wasn’t anything special. It was still a couple of feet down when a barracuda decided it was dinner time. I actually had both fish hooked for a couple of seconds before the toothy predator cut the line. While it’s not an orca or great white, a 4ft barracuda to a 5 year old may as well be.
A few years back I was bottom fishing from a head boat out of Islamorada. I had hooked a small bottom fish and had reeled it almost to the surface, just enough to see a flash of silver, when a brown and white flash engulfed it and line began to scream off the reel. I told the mate “A damned shark”. Wrong. Ten minutes later I brought a 24 pound Cobia to gaff. Delicious!
Great story!