by Marty | Sep 3, 2012 | General Pearls of Wisdom, Reviews of Stuff
In August, a miraculous thing happened for me. It took a family, a huge fish, some other huge fishes, and then even more family, and then some extra stuff and then contemplation to figure it out a little more – but it gave me a good look at irony as a nice little motif here, but it had a happy ending and I get to share more fish pictures.
And it all started with my family’s art show.
I know what you are thinking immediately: how does your family’s show depicting 3 generations of art and music compare with all those others out there? And to you, I say pish tosh, mostly because effete people get to say things like that, and I should qualify there. Been practicing forever.
{EDITOR’S NOTE: there used to be 3 links to press releases here, but over time, those press releases were not archived, so the links and the mention of them were removed. Carry on. }
And finally, here’s the clan, accurately portraying the way I think of them (I am dork central, spastically holding 2 drinks…my huge brothers are on your left -I am right next to my dad):
So many months before those poor journalists hurled such positively-spun epithets at my brood, my dad asked me what I was going to do here.
I was a bit perplexed – I wanted to do something appropriate. Art, to me, is often an oddly-shaped prehistoric bird living in my skeleton (but fighting its way out), or maybe more accurately, an inverted funnel that accidentally explodes everywhere…so I have a hard time translating that into terms people can agree with or see the same way. A lot of my art is/was confrontational too, because I think sitting on a fence is not anything even a crow truly wants. It made my stuff primitive at best – hacked, more accurately.
But more to the point, I have not done anything physical with art of a tangible variety in years (decades, probably) so it felt kinda wrong too, to put up shit I did way back in my routinely misspent youth, but don’t do any longer. None of that stuff was very good anyway – not meant for public consumption. My family has practicing artists – I am not of that ilk; I am more of a weekend duffer, and a great appreciator of all things art. I have found little ways to let art bleed into everyday stuff like cooking or copywriting or web design, so I need to have it concentrated less…which means I am not as driven to it every day, like I used to feel. I don’t draw anymore, and simply don’t have enough time to do any of the many things I like to do most often. But I do play a lot of music, or have most of my life anyway, for better or worse. A bit of a hack there too of course, but more time woodshedding, and more public stuff.
So we worked almost immediately on me doing some music for this thing in some way…I have a lot of toys here, and just enough brass left tucked in the sack to get up and play on them in front of people, as if I can.
Being an art show, I went for piano: I started playing that when I was in high school, and still do a bit. I am a noodler, and play by ear. But there is a caveat here, in that I hardly ever play music at all anymore. Family life was more of my drill. When I do get a gig now, I need to play for a few weeks to re-learn everything my muddled middle age likes to forget, be it on drums or guitar or (shudder) singing…but I hardly ever, EVER get called on to play piano for anything. It has been YEARS, and typically it is only a couple wedding songs or something. Pianos are just too hard to lug around.
Still, this was important to my dad and my family, and piano seemed to be the right thing, so I committed to playing for a few hours, figuring I could fake my way through it all.
…and then, I started practicing like a crazy man. (Thanks again going to my wife and son, who had to listen to it for months, and help me to not spaz out because I KNEW I was going to be terrible. They had to hold my hand quite a bit more than they usually do.)
I played for at LEAST an hour a day (going into 3 or even more in the weeks right before the show) – and started writing out a song list. I was trying to remember anything I thought people might know or that I could play (lucky if it was both), and trying some stuff I never had, but thought I could get away with. I worked on a bunch of songs I wrote myself, back when I used to do that…and then started going thru Beatles songs, and Billy Joel and Elton to find shit I could fake. I saw a movie that used Mad World by Tears for Fears, and added it. I remembered a couple mellow Velvet Underground songs I could play on guitar, so added them. I think I came up with about 68 songs in all…scrawled on one coveted masterlist.
But the point is, it mattered to me a great deal that I could do it, and do it at least marginally well – I was representing, as far as I could tell. My family is VERY musically gifted, so I wanted to be semi-good for all of us, as a way to display it publicly…you know? I wanted to display both taste and style – two things I typically could care less about at a gig. So I practiced, daily, for months. Practice, panic, sweat. Practice, panic, weep. Panic, panic, practice.
But it came together, and I was getting pretty psyched. I had not seen a lot of my family’s work, not like this – especially not all in one place.
When I got down there (rented a car, and drove solo), I went in when they were moving in the art and played on the piano a bit. Mine here at home, is a cabinet grand built in 1908 (rebuilt by me a few years ago)…it is a bit of a chore to hit it properly, but I do love it so. The low range just punches you in the chest – sounds like heaven probably tastes, to me. But the art center had a Steinway grand, that even though it was just a little out of tune in a couple spots, it played like butter, comparatively. I looked like butter, so it was a good match.
I played it for a bit and it felt really good to me though, and so did my head, really – I felt I was adequately prepped, I had my list, the axe was a good one, and I was ready to go…I even determined a few things that this piano would allow me to do that mine kind of make tough…trilly stuff, and happy tinkles. It seemed like everything was a lock – so I decided to go fishing that night.
As I have mentioned out here before, my buddy Darin is an amazing fisherman and guide, and is generous as hell with boat time for me in Florida, taking me out every time he can when I am down there. This was no different: we had arranged our night before I even left Atlanta. Fishing around Sanibel Island is truly spectacular – I can’t recommend it enough. And Darin is an expert, so going with him is even better than simply going out. We have a lot of fun out there.
I got to his house a bit early, but we went straight out on the water with enough gas in the tank to cruise for a while before the bait came up. Truly beautiful stuff…and I was sending my son iPhone videos, asking him what he was doing while I was forced to be out on the boat (he loves the water and fishing as much as his old man).
So after Darin and I checked out the sunset, we caught some bait (ballyhoo!) and went to work.
I dropped the first bait down, and literally within about a minute (not stretching that one either), tied into a big old tarpon.
I love this game fish a TON – and this guy, though not my biggest one ever, was super strong, and a great fighter – he jumped out of the water at least 6 times while I tired him out. I got him to the side of the boat (after about 3 false positives, where he got up there and then took off again), and we decided to haul him in for pictures.
The way you grab a big tarpon if not using a gaff, is with your thumbs under his bottom lip, and your fingers curled into his mouth – you grab and hold. This guy was somewhere between 50 and 80 pounds I would think (about 5 feet long), and I have only held a couple this big before…so while Darin was getting the camera out, this palooka decides to try to wiggle out of my arms, and his full weight came down on my right thumb.
I dropped him onto the deck, and saw stars for a minute – but quickly picked him back up for the pix, because we wanted to get him back into the water ASAP. Darin snapped one, and I tried to move the fish and my hand screamed at me – I knew something was wrong, so held it a different way as you see in this pic. But adrenalin was high, the night was just starting, we got our pix, so we got him back into the water.
He actually floated back up, and we had to motor over to him to help revive him. I grabbed him in the water, flipped him over and held him in the current until he pulled away from me (again, strong as hell-a feeling hard to describe to you, but immensely powerful to experience). He was fine.
But this was not all the night had for us out there by Sanibel Island – we caught a bunch more fish, including some snook, which are my all-time favorites. But these were not ordinary snook, in the 20-25 inch range: some of these were just monsters.
After a couple decent sized fish, my thumb was obviously not OK. The tarpon had jammed it bad, and it was hurting more every passing minute – but the fish were hot, and I did not want to stop. In this picture, I am trying to hold the snook with my thumb in its mouth but pain made me switch to my never used left hand…I look like I am going to puke, but I am only trying to figure out just how badly I am hurt (this snook was not too big, but I still couldn’t hold him), and panic is rising in me a bit.
…and then, I caught the bad boy.
I knew from the first hit, this was a big fish – and his fight was epic. But about halfway thru it, my thumb quit completely, so I was trying to reel in with a club that was dangling useless digits. I was incensed: I had a huge fish on, and could not get it together to land it properly. The pain was making me spaz out…I got the fish within a few feet of the boat, and begged Darin to take to pole from me, because I could not even hold it right, and started fearing this fish would rip it from my paws. Darin did – and he would not let me let this great fish go…netting him in short order. So technically, I did not actually swing him over the side: Darin did it for me, because my thumb made it impossible to think, much less reel. But biggest snook I ever caught (damn right, I caught him – only a fool would not claim a fish like that!) – he was a beauty. Note, I am holding him lefty, and we could not really get a good pic of him, because my left arm was too weak to hold him dangling full-length, so I’m holding the tail, which put a bend in him (and yes: we let him go like the rest, and he was also fine).
But at this point, my thumb was such a problem, I actually stopped fishing. Sat on the bow, and watched Darin reel in a few.
I use this only to illustrate how dire it was: I was in the thick of big snook biting (which is like an angel’s handjob to me), and opted to watch for a while rather than living it. It’ll never happen again, I am sure – and if I didn’t have to play the next day, I would have ignored the pain completely. Taped it down. Chewed it off. But each fish I caught was making it worse, so I just had to stop and sit down to panic a bit more. Then I tried to fish, but the tides were shifting and things started to slow down anyway. Needless to say, we ended shortly after that…it was late, we had landed big fish and actually had pix of a few, and I was now looking kind of pathetic and pale, and mumbling things incoherently about pianos, and total idiots, and woe-is-megasms.
Darin offered the whole time to take me home (half-mockingly), reminding me that fish for him, can be a near weekly thing: he was super cool to offset my spaziness. But I didn’t want to leave, even though I was thinking it was probably better to go, and not risk really doing some damage by tempting myself anymore with these horribly beautiful fish.
Driving home was amazingly hard – try that sometime without ever using your thumbs. Try most anything for that matter. 🙂
But the next morning I awoke at my friend’s place to find I could not even bend my right thumb any longer: that fucking tarpon apparently wrecked my gig completely. Months of practice, done. Family depending on me, done. Cue massive irony swell, with Satan giggling as he rides his surfboard on the crest of my crestfalleness.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttttttttttt.
I went over to my folks’ house, where my mom, Parkinson’s and all, was busy cooking everything on the planet. She catered the whole evening, which was an amazing feat for anyone to do as well as it went, much less solo – but with her physical issues it was monumental, really. She fed hundreds of people cooking everything in her kitchen with her sister and carting it over to the art center… and it lasted all night long – and people absolutely loved her food. So I had offered to come over and help – but as I drove over there, I just kept trying to figure out how to tell them what happened. They also have a beautiful baby grand, which my mom even had tweaked for me to practice on – so I was going to see if I could play anything at all.
I got there, and made a few jokes about it -but was only trying to downplay it. I sat at the piano and tried, and it did not look good at all, feeling even worse – I was about 7 hours from the gig, and just could not play without the lightning and laser show going off in my hand. The location of the issue could not have been worse – I kept downplaying it as much as I could, but I was totally freaking out in my head.
My uncle was there, and he has a good number of years being a coach, so he came over and worked on it, which helped a ton…and he told me to start icing it no less than every 1-2 hours for about 20 minutes. I made a mitten out of a plastic ice cube sheet and a rubber band, and did what I was told. I helped my mom with a couple things, but was so wrapped up in my private panic and so useless without my right thumb, I was good for nothing that wasn’t focused on ME, and not doing too well with those things either. She didn’t need me at all anyway, but still.
We carted stuff the rest of the day, and I kept my regimen of icing it down and babying it, and my uncle massaged it a couple more times. I was so distraught about everything, I actually ran right into a truck on the way back to my parents’ house to get changed for the gig – I even dented the rental. Luckily no one hurt, so I simply got out of there as fast as I could and went on with it, but was wondering what the hell was going to go wrong next.
Turns out only one thing: I got there and left the song list in the car, and sat down to play before realizing I would not be getting up for a few hours in a row. Ironic bliss showers over me once again.
But by the time I started to play, I was doing it in part, just to see if I could. I was so worried about my thumb, I forgot to be nervous about playing at all, and sailed thru about 2 1/2 or 3 hours before I even took a break. I was winging stuff, and doing what I remembered from the list – but it just kind of fell into place, and felt perfect. Slightly painful, but emotionally fulfilling to say the least. I can’t say what it sounded like, but it seemed to be going over well.
I took a break, and my nieces both played – they each have waaaay more talent than me, and both can sing like angels. We then switched around for the rest of the night, taking turns entertaining the masses. I was outclassed, but proud to be there.
At the end of the night, my thumb was turning purple and swelling up again – but I did not care anymore, I had made it thru.The show ran for a month, and just ended…but I heard it was a very successful opening night for the art center, too.
The end result, was they sold some art, mom fed half the city, everyone represented well, hundreds of people came and saw it (thanks again, all you kind people) – and I learned even a tarpon is not going to keep me from hamming it up whenever I get access to an open stage. I suggest to hide the mics if you see me coming – not all of them are friendly art shows. 🙂
by Marty | Apr 6, 2012 | General Pearls of Wisdom
Hopefully, you have never heard of Stephen Pierce. And unless you either frequent internet marketing dens of inequity or have accidentally answered the phone, chances are good you haven’t (we hope). But there are a lot of people that have heard of him, and as a result, many of them end up with a lot less money and no good explanation for it. I will let my friend the Salty Droid tell you all about it in his recent posts: Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP, and Stephen Pierce…standard warning about the filthy language over there, and I do encourage you to do enough reading and link following to understand the specifics.
According to Salty’s investigating, Pierce not only has scammed tens-to-hundreds-of-thousands from people buying biz-ops, but he also flexes his lawyer on them, and sues people all the time. It doesn’t take a genius to do a little web searching and find tons of complaints on Pierce – but these are common in the stinking, scuzzy world of biz-op Internet marketing. What is not common is to sue people as much as Pierce does, and this is pretty unappealing by most standards. It’s like stealing the wheels off wheelchairs, or raping the wounded.
Here’s the interesting thing though. There is a legal action brewing against Pierce and his company, led by an attorney in Dallas named Allen Rosenberg. The way a suit like this works though, is the attorney for the plaintiffs cannot solicit more folks to join in – so the word has to be spread in other ways. Like on Salty’s site, or this blog post.
To quote the droid from the most recent post, The People VS Stephen Pierce:
Dallas Attorney Alan Rosenberg is preparing to bring a lawsuit against Stephen Pierce International {and affiliated companies and individuals} for the victims of SPI’s various scams :: fake opportunities :: and boiler room soul crushings. Alan and his firm :: Chamblee, Ryan, Kershaw & Anderson, P.C. :: have agreed to take the case on a contingency basis … which is super awesome of them because people who’ve just been scammed for insane monies don’t tend to have lots of cash lying around.
If you’ve been scammed by Stephen Pierce {or a phone room calling in his name} you should consider being a part of this suit. Not just for yourself :: or for the money {which you deserve to get back} … but because it needs to be done for the greater fucking good. Because it’s not going to stop unless we all step up and do our part to stop it.
Contact Alan Rosenberg at this email address for more details about getting involved in the suit.
All of the links there are live, and I do encourage you to reach out to Rosenberg if Pierce’s organization (Stephen Pierce International) had or has you in its tendrils. And, if you have a blog, or Tweet, or Facebook all the time or something, make sure to help spread the word, so victims can learn about this action and come forward, and hopefully get back some of what they lost here.
Here’s hoping this suit gets huge, and brings more light to this subject matter – not to mention a little well-earned restitution!
by Marty | Feb 23, 2012 | General Pearls of Wisdom
Over on the Salty Droid site today, he released some audio files and a very strong message about the lack of (seemingly) any accountability for many well-organized online marketing scams. The audio tapes give clear examples of telemarketing fraud happening every day – thousands of times – to vulnerable people who are fed lies about how easy it is to make an online fortune in your pajamas without knowing a thing about business.
I really suggest to give this post a read and a listen – and if you are not familiar with the droid’s stuff, be warned – language on the site gets filthy dirty, and it can become very heated. While not for everyone, it is a site I would highly recommend to anyone considering entering the world of Internet Marketing, and I personally find him to be a very funny writer.
The audio tape is not something the scammers who orchestrate these sales assaults want anyone to hear – because it makes the fraud and deception blatant. Yet the point I got from Salty’s post, is they are not spending any time defending it – they are free to do as they wish, seemingly with no retribution.
Salty’s post and the commentary are going to do a fine job of tackling the topic of the legal aspects of accountability, so I want to talk about this ridiculous message – this unicorn dream these assholes are pushing.
Easy = Experience+Skill
One of the main dreams being sold (aside from the mounds of money everyone makes online), is how easy it all is. “Look: I just turned on a website, and it was just like turning on a magical fountain of riches! I never even look at it for more than ten minutes a week, and make a zillion dollars a year from the beach – and you can too!”
OK – it is true, turning on a website is easier than it has ever been. No rocket science needed in launching a blog or using some other free option to do the heavy-lifting of code writing. But the difference in launching a site and having a successful one is not mentioned. Instead, it is quickly shifted from the work you do or knowledge/experience you need (which is downplayed, obfuscated or even refuted) into how quickly you start earning.
Often, they’ll tell you they are sharing Mysteriously Powerful Internet Secrets that experts use all the time and hide from the peons, and that is why they are successful…and you can too! But there are no hidden secrets like this – it is another lie. Having tricks or tools to save time is a great thing, but it is not the miracle that makes work disappear. If you buy the best lawn mower made, you still have to know how to operate it – and it doesn’t cut the grass on its own.
These vipers are intentionally targeting people who are elderly, struggling or show some exploitable vulnerability – they look for personal pain points, offering the scam as the wonder-salve. In the audio Salty had, the phone weasel quickly uncovered personal financial information he used to pressure his sales pitch. Regarding this poor guy falling prey to it, Salty said:
His desperation is obvious :: but everything Artino says to him is a blatant lie … and he’s totally sold after just a few minutes.
This is what really infuriates me about this shit…greedy manipulation in the guise of “we’re helping you to help yourself.”
And blatantly lying about earning potential and easy is how these dripping pantloads continue to wreck people who show vulnerability and need.
Easy is a lie. Easy is only experience – and without it, your business idea will need to grow – and it is really hard to make a good business idea work and grow. There is a lot of failing, making mistakes, and rough times. And the reality is – most people won’t make the kind of “decent” money online they need to survive. Because work is hard, and so is business.
You don’t start a legitimate business thinking, “I am going to make easy money online.”
If you have a legitimate business, you can promote it really well online, and earning potential can be amazing…but easy is still not going to be part of the equation for you.
A legitimate business requires work and effort and skill and everything that the phone scabs intentionally avoid telling you, as they root through your past for new pain points to salve. Hard work doesn’t fit on their unicorn’s backs – truth doesn’t up-sell – reality won’t get you thru the re-billing turnstiles.
I really hated listening to that audio because of what it represents – it made me mad as hell, again, that these predatory sleazeballs just won’t stop – and that the consumer protection agencies don’t appear to make them sweat nearly enough. But once again I applaud Salty Droid’s willingness to expose this crap and to take the associated risks involved in doing so. If I can add to the spirit of his important work, let me express emphatically, there is no EASY – online, offline or otherwise. If they get you to believe in easy, you are halfway up the unicorn and on your way to losing – not earning – money.
Salty also likes to say “You can’t make money online” and while I laugh at that statement (I make plenty of money online, silly fake robot), I understand what he means by it and for most people innocently answering the phone, I agree. Anyone can make a little bit online for sure – but not the kind of money you are being told. Most of those zillionaires, aren’t, weren’t, won’t be. Call me a hater.
Protect yourself from getting horn-swaggled by these kind of scams through identification of the scammer’s tactics – just remember if something sounds too good to be true, it is likely coming off a well traveled script in a Utah boiler room…and you may already be a mark full of pain points for these con artists to wear down aggressively.
I’ll join what I felt to be the droid’s lightly veiled plea to federal and consumer-protection-oriented powers-that-be: Please make it stop…pay attention.
by Marty | Aug 31, 2011 | General Pearls of Wisdom
by Marty | May 23, 2011 | General Pearls of Wisdom
A while back, I wrote a post about how A Goliath Grouper is Like a Successful Marketing Plan. It ended with a threat about me getting amped on sharks – and look :: here we are.
I just back from a trip to Hilton Head island (on the South Carolina Coast) where a shark fishing morning clearly showed me that shark fishing is exactly like online marketing.
Really.
It has nothing at all to do with me wanting to talk more about shark fishing. 🙂
Gear-up for the Local Conditions
I live in Atlanta, so I don’t fish off the Atlantic coast too often. However, I have been there before, and it helped me know what gear I needed to bring this time.
Last time I went to Hilton Head, I didn’t know what I needed so brought a lot of tackle. Very touristy. I lugged my big tackle box down with me to the beach every day, but never really pulled anything out of it. I was actually only using the same basic set-up all day, and just throwing cut bait.
All the lugging did for me, was compromise all the lures and gear in my tackle box. I got sand in everything and the sun just beat down on it mercilessly every day, for no good reason. A lot of undue stress and wear-and-tear on stuff I wasn’t even using.
On this trip, I learned from my previous mistakes. I went through my tackle ahead of time, and pulled out only the weights, hooks and steel leaders I would need. I took a bait knife, to cut the squid. I took a pliers, to pull hooks from shark jaws. I even took WD40 this time because last year, my pliers got corroded in the salt air and made it tough to open them. I didn’t like the alternative, of using my hands to take the hook out, so keeping the pliers functional was a must. I put in a couple hand towels, because even without reaching into sharks’ mouths like a hero, it always gets really messy. Flashlights, sun block and bug spray and some extra line. I put all this stuff in two ziplock bags, then put the ziplocks in a nylon bag and left my tackle box at home.
I had one salt water rig (pole and reel), so I got new line for it (20 pound test) and oiled it up. Got it working well, with a full spool of new line to get me through the week.
In a word, I was prepared with specific gear for this specific trip. The kitchen sink stayed home.
Based on what I encountered before in Hilton Head, I knew this time around what I needed to increase my chances for success. I cut out the extra, and made sure my stuff-to-be-schlepped was efficiently considered. I hit the beach with only what I needed, all of it well protected from damage in the sun.
Use Experience to Reduce Investments
I knew from the last time I was fishing here that I could throw cut squid into the surf, and likely catch some sharks. I had learned how to cut the squid and get it to stay on the hook from a guide we hired on the last trip. I knew one bag of frozen squid would last us all week unless the fishing was crazy good. On the last trip, I bought way too much squid and had to give away bags of it when we left.
I also got some frozen shrimp this time, because I know from experience in Florida that shrimp are pretty much a go-to bait in any body of saltwater. I had never used them here, but figured they would be a decent bait to try if the squid was not being effective. Figured they might get us smaller fish we could use as cut bait.
I was able to use the money I saved on excess squid to pay for the shrimp, and still paid less overall than I did last year for bait, for fishing a couple more days this year with more people.
My experience allowed me to reduce the investment without affecting the number of casts I could throw. Actually, because they were headless, the shrimp proved to be harder to keep on the hook than the squid (plus, small fish nibbled them down)…so I had even more casts than I anticipated – but spent less to get them.
This year, I also knew a party boat would not give me the fishing experience I wanted. Last year, I hooked into a 6-7 foot shark on a party boat, but the gear on these boats is made for people who don’t fish – I found it frustrating, and pretty dopey. Like using a telephone pole and cables to reel in a car.
I wanted to catch, fight and feel the power of a big fish – that was why I liked catching these things. Spending the extra money to get out a bit (like party boats) certainly increased my chances of catching some different things (and we did) – but I was content to stick to surf casting this year, using gear I knew would offer me a richer experience should it prove effective. The extra money saved from the party boat was spent on a couple dinners in some nice restaurants. And cupcakes – found a place that made only cupcakes: amazingly wonderful. I swear the éclair one they served as a Thursday special was like making-out with Heaven.
Overall, I spent considerably less money to be fishing much more often on this trip than I did on last year’s, with more people. Used the savings to increase more fishing opportunities and also to enjoy other, non-fishing vacation fun…let me repeat: they made ONLY cupcakes.
Be Willing to Adapt
Last year, when we were throwing squid out into the surf we caught little black tip shark pups – lots of them. It was on almost every cast for a while – just lots of little shark action over the whole trip.
This year, we didn’t catch any. Didn’t see that coming at all, and it took us all by surprise. No telling why – but there just weren’t bunches of little shark pups waiting to be caught this time, even though we were prepared. Despite the numbers and data to support otherwise, squid was falling flat.
The shrimp allowed us to catch some Whiting – which are little fish common on the shore – but even these were few and far between. Personally, I didn’t catch one, but my son and his friend Trey did. On the third one they landed, we used my bait knife to throw out pieces of the Whiting as cut bait. One piece I pitched out there got a decent hit, but nothing noteworthy.
As I stood there in the surf not catching anything but a tan, a man came down the beach and asked how I was doing. He said a guy down a ways had caught some huge Cobia over the last couple days. He was also surf casting like me and the boys, but he was taking the Whiting he caught, re-hooking them as bait and throwing them back out, live and whole. He said the Cobia came in an hour or two, every time…they always just grabbed the bait and ran and jumped and thrashed and eventually broke off – but it made me want one, real bad. All that running and jumping and thrashing sounded like exactly what we were after.
We had not been using the Whiting like this, and my cut bait approach was not getting results though it always worked in the past. Neither was the squid, even though last year, I couldn’t miss with pieces of cut squid. Nature: 2; previous experience: 0. The shrimp was working for the boys to catch Whiting though, so the next one Trey caught, he re-hooked like the guy suggested and threw it back out.
And in a little less than a hour, he yelled as the rod doubled over, and a 5-6 foot shark rolled. The shark jumped and thrashed violently, and the line broke. It was really exciting, but short-lived. Luckily, we all saw his fish, too, which made it better.
Let’s review here: none of the things I thought would work, worked. It did not make us stop fishing or anything, but it made us adjust what we were doing to increase the likelihood of success. Trey hooking into that monster was great – it made the day really exciting, and the fishing adrenaline go to full-boil.
But most importantly for me, there was now a method I could see that worked. Unfortunately, it seemed to require Trey or my son catching a Whiting for me since my fat, cupcake-filled butt couldn’t seem to catch anything at all. Even here though, I was willing to adapt.
Patience, Grasshopper…
We were on the island for a week, and fished almost every day there. This did not stop me from never catching anything – but I didn’t mind. I like fishing as much or sometimes even more than catching, so it works out well for me. And there were cupcakes.
But despite the achieved Zen and the delectable butter-creme frosting, on our last day, I secretly hoped I could do better. Little did I know, I would soon do much better than I had hoped.
We packed stuff, and then returned to the beach for one last morning before heading back to Atlanta. We spent a lovely morning there – but nary a nibble for hours on end.
Trey gave me a Whiting he eventually caught as our time wound down – turned out to be the only one of the day. We were running out of opportunities yet he was gracious enough to give me the lone baitfish so I might catch something. I was not too proud to accept it, either.
I put on a slightly longer steel leader (because Trey’s shark had broke-off on a smaller one) and a larger hook for the Whiting. I threw it out in the water, and went back to stand on the shore, hoping for something to end the week with. I thought Cobia, but was fine with anything.
In about 30 minutes, I felt the Whiting wake up, and start to swim frantically. I told the boys to watch, and reeled down the slack, lowering the tip of the rod. I yanked up to set the hook, hard. The rod doubled over, and I felt the weight of a very powerful fish as I tried to turn it around under water.
And it was on.
For the next 45 minutes or so, I wrestled with this big fish (safely from shore, of course).
He broke the surface more than a few times (so we saw it was a shark), but mostly just drove out. I would reel him back in, and he’d do it again, reel screaming-out line, the drag (and me) frantically holding on.
The rod I had made this really fun – as did the fact I had 20 pound test, while trying to land a fish easily over 90 pounds. If I tried too hard, I would lose it. I needed to keep playing it, gently, or the line would snap.
However, I did not count on my reel being grossly outmatched here – it took the brunt of the stress, and ended-up conking-out on me. I think the gears wore down in it – I got to a point at the end, and simply could not use it anymore…but it held.
Unfortunately for me, this was at a point when the shark was still a few hundred yards out in the surf. So I started backing up, pulling him into shore. I had to again move slowly, or I would accidentally break him off. But I had a clear path and it was low tide, so there was a bunch of beach behind me.
I ended up causing a bit of a fuss on the beach with all this commotion, and the Beach Patrol came to watch. I pulled the shark about 3 feet from shore (I was waaay back on the beach). He was exhausted, and I was too. But then I tried to yank him onto the sand, and I snapped the line.
People came up to me saying they were sorry I lost him after such a long fight – but I did not want to land the thing, really – I had no way to deal with a shark. I left all my tackle at home, and even with it, I had nothing to make a monster like that submit. I wasn’t going to eat him or anything, or keep him. I had tried to get him on shore, but had no idea what I would have done once he was there, so it was better this way.
Totally fine with me – he ruined my reel, and I gave him a workout to remember – figured we were even.
Even free from my line, he was dazed and tired for a few minutes, before he flipped tail and went back out to sea. He was OK, and would live to eat more Whiting.
The Beach Patrol came over and told us we couldn’t fish anymore that day, which was fine – we were leaving anyway, now a bit later than we had planned. (They don’t want you to catch sharks, which I respect.
Doesn’t stop them from being there though, and I am not trying to hurt them – just catch them for a little while if the Cobia are less willing to play.)
There was only about 10 yards left on the spent reel, which remain there today. I removed it, so it’s like a trophy for me. The rod held up like a champ so I’ll use it again, but I learned that next time, I need a stronger reel if I am going to go after these bigger fish.
Makes for a great memory anyway, and the trophy serves as proof. The reel was well worth the expense to me…and infinitely less expensive than even one seat on a party boat would have been.
Let’s think of this a little like my metaphor should imply.
- I planned for success, based on something that had worked in the past. My plan did not work, despite being well budgeted and well implemented. Unwilling to bail, I adapted.
- Current situations changed the viable and known tactics, and had I not adapted, I would have left (clutching my data) skunked.
- I listened to what was happening around me, and acted on it.
- I used the help of others when I could not do it all myself.
- I traded the telephone pole and the cable deal for something more specific and meaningful, and ended-up with a fishing tale I will have forever. I pinpointed my approach, waited, and eventually connected in a very meaningful way.
- If you do land a big one, expect the Beach Patrol to come and shut you down (cough *G-word* cough).
I’ll probably get down to Florida soon, so I’ll likely be able to figure out how other fishing is just like something else. Until then, feel free to give me a call and get me out on the water for some business advice…who knows what we’ll catch. Until then, swim carefully – especially if you look anything like a Whiting! 🙂
by Marty | May 2, 2011 | General Pearls of Wisdom, Reviews of Stuff
There is a great post Geordie wrote a couple weeks ago on PPCblog.com about building lifetime customer value. (in case my link doesn’t work, go ahead and paste this: http://ppcblog.com/building-lifetime-customer-value/)
I have talked before about how much I like Geordie’s style of writing – he has a lot of great experience and knows how to get to the meat of making money, and staying profitable. Had the pleasure to co-write an article with him, and his technical deftness is also top-notch – but you’ll see that quickly.
This post comes soon after a huge shake-up for many online professionals, so I think it is particularly relevant and worth a read. When finding new customers is always going to present unique challenges, being able to serve more to the ones you already have is invaluable.
This post also shows you the kind of teaching/writing style Geordie uses. He is more personal inside the forums, but it is the same direct, no BS approach with suggestions you can really use. PPC is one online marketing oasis many webmasters are seeking as organic becomes even less predictable, so get on their membership waiting list. The community doesn’t appear to be accepting new members right now, but things always change. They maintain a limit, so it doesn’t get weak. I would put in your interest if this is something that appeals to you. I can talk from personal experience about how valuable I think this community is – in fact I have. Twice. 🙂
image borrowed from http://www.purposeinc.com/pwp/geordie-carswell
