Florida Grouper Chapter

I had a friend who occasionally would trip himself, stumble about 40 or 50 feet then hit the deck with a big "thud". People would run up and ask him if he was alright and he would be looking up, grinning.

I decided to try this trick in Tampa Florida. I chose an architecture firm called Rados and Partners. As I walked through the front door, I tripped, flew past the receptionist and landed on the floor in front of a bunch of strangers. I looked up and said "Hi, I'm Larry Stark, can I show you my art?" By the time Rick Rados got there to save them, I was friends with most of the people in the office including Jim McLean, who is the star of this story.

Jim is addicted to boating and since I started the Fishing America project, Rick has become addicted to fishing, so they made me sign a contract stating I can't go to Florida without fishing with them. Therefore, we fish every time I'm in Florida, rarely catching fish, drinking lots of beer, talking art and design and having lots of fun. Jim has earned the title Captain Pinfish 'cause that's mostly what we catch.

During one visit, Jim and I went fishing the first afternoon to get some practice, but we only caught a couple of nuisance catfish. Even the pinfish eluded us. The second day Jim and his wife, Chris and I went fishing. By the time the fish started biting, Jim and Chris were bored and I was the only one fishing. I caught several baby Jack Crevalle about ten inches in length; fun!

Jim wanted to lose the title Captain Pinfish, because it sounded too much like Captain Pinhead and he wanted to be called Cheater Jim, the reason for which was never explained. The next day was his big chance, his last opportunity to get Rick Rados, Larry Gene Wilder and me together to prove he could do it. We went out in the gulf where the horizon has no land, where another boat is rare.

On the way out, we trolled through the areas where the gulls were feeding on the water surface, where Larry Gene caught four Spanish Mackerel. This made Jim happy, but his real plan was to get us over 80 feet of crystal clear water and a coral reef bottom where a school of Grouper would be feeding.

Jim had gone fishing with another friend a couple of weeks before our trip and they had caught some Grouper. The friend had a Loran satellite tracking system and he knew exactly how to get to a place where he had previously caught fish. Jim didn't have a Loran system and he only knew approximately how many minutes it would take us to get to the area.

We anchored a couple hundred yards from the only other boat in the area. These fishermen got mad at us and left, leaving us all alone with nothing but water and sky. After we figured out what we were doing, we caught a Grouper 3/8th of an inch from being big enough to keep. We ate lunch and we drank beer and it didn't really matter we weren't catching many fish. We didn't care if Captain Pinfish became Cheater Jim.

Eventually Jim decided we should move to another spot, so we pulled the anchor and started the engine. We hadn't gone 20 yards when Jim noticed his depth finder read, "hole-three to five foot deep-10 feet wide-length unknown." We lowered the anchor again and dropped our lines baited with pieces of cut frozen fish. As soon as the hooks hit the bottom Larry Gene caught a Grouper. While Jim was measuring it to see if it was a keeper, I got one. Both fish were 19- 5/8 inches, 3/8s of an inch short of a being a keeper. Rick got the next fish and it too wasn't a keeper. Jim wasn't fishing; because he was too busy doing boat captain stuff and smiling. Soon the three of us had Groupers on the lines at the same time and this time they were all keepers. It went on like this for more than an hour as we filled the fish box with 20 to 30 inch Grouper and returned the almost-big-enough fish to the water. At one time Larry Gene and I were bringing in fish, but Rick didn't have one. I said "You probably don't have any bait on your hook." He checked. He didn't. Later, Larry Gene and I each caught two fish during the time Rick was trying to get the hook out of a fish's mouth. Rick says he doesn't remember it that way at all (see "The Rados View" photo).

This was some of the best fishing I've ever had. Rick referred to it as a feeding frenzy and added, "The fish were probably having one too." It was great being able to act like little kids. The fish stopped feeding one fish short of our limit, so we went swimming to make the day perfect. Jim was grinning, because he thought he would be called "Cheater Jim" from now on.

One thing I remember about this scene is the water being so clear. When I hooked a fish and reeled it in, the fish appeared very small, getting bigger and bigger as it came closer to the boat.

I left "Lucky Jim's Marina" on Treasure Island at 11:00AM on Sunday and I was home in Minnesota by 2:00PM on Tuesday. When I drive long distances in short periods of time I tend to have vivid dreams the first night I'm home. This night I had a horrible nightmare: I was on Lucky Jim's boat and we were both wearing "Lucky Jim's" baseball caps. I wanted to stop fishing and I couldn't. Each fish I caught was almost too heavy to lift from the water and the boat was filling up with fish. Lucky Jim was baiting hooks and removing fish and baiting hooks and removing fish and stacking the fish like cord wood. I was fishing alone, grabbing the poles and reeling in the fish. Just as a fish entered the boat, the other pole bent and I had to grab it to keep it from going overboard. In order to keep the boat from sinking from the weight of the fish, I woke up.