Take Anybody Fishing

WHAT WOULD YOU DO if you made a basic inquiry about an item for sale on Facebook marketplace, and the seller, a random stranger on the internet, asked you to go fishing with them? Mike Clifford didn't flinch when presented with this scenario last Friday… He took home dinner AND a new beach fishing cart!

It’s me — the random internet stranger that did the awkward thing. I had just moved to Melbourne Beach a few months back and I’ve been living the dream with such convenient access to the beach, but the private access is very narrow and with a low hanging canopy — it is not at all accommodating for a full-size angler mate fishing cart loaded with surf rods, so I made the difficult decision to list the cart for sale on Facebook Marketplace. I quickly got an inquiry from a guy who said he was going to be fishing in the area and might come by after to take a look.

“Hey, come take a look at it and I’ll go fishing with you,” just naturally printed itself onto the screen for me.

It took all of zero seconds for the fear to set in that I scared off a potential buyer by being such an outwardly forward creep, but before my girlfriend could give me an official point of reference as to where I landed on the scale of weird, my phone dinged.

Holy sh*t, he said yes!

A total Zales moment.

Mike showed up just before 8 in the morning on Friday, just as promised. We learned that we both tried unsuccessfully to acquire clams that from various nearby bait shops. ARE YOU ANYWHERE OUT THERE, CLAM GUY? Any way, Mike liked the cart enough to close the deal, and then we were off to the beach.

The water temp was 71F and we got out there just before peak high tide around 8:30am. It was a beautiful day and the new moon was at perigee, so we had big time volume of water movement, cleanish not too cold water, and a light SW/E wind. I had high expectations for production and was pretty content with the result. The fish were there and biting. I immediately caught a tiny whiting — so small I’d of thrown back 99/100 times — but between the timing and the fact that I was dead set on fish for dinner, he went to the ice. My woman and I ended up bringing home 8 or 9 fish, all croaker and whiting, most of them underwhelming in size. We also threw back several undersized black drum. But it was my new fishy friend Mike’s big day to be had. Once he got settled with lines in the water and stogey under fire, he got to business, which included landing the catch of the day — the elusive Florida pompano. Not a monster but a beautiful specimen at a little over 12″ and a perfect meal for two. He also generously donated us a few whiting, too. We were mostly fishing a combo of blanched and live fleas and Fishbites — but the pompano was hooked on good old tried and true frozen peeled shrimp.

Mike — it was great fishing with you, buddy. Let’s definitely do it again sometime!