Captain Dukes

When I was 16 I was a deck hand for Capt. Dukes Boat Service in Destin, Fla. How I wound up here at 16 is a whole other story, but nonetheless here I was. I grew up on Watts Bar Lake in Spring City, Tn. so I was familiar with boats, but much smaller, and with water. Same thing, much smaller. I had never seen the ocean in my life and here I stand looking for a job. The owner, Earl Robinson, was there and I asked about working for him. He asked me one question. "Do you get seasick?" I replied that I had no idea. I had never been on an ocean. He looked at me a second, and I've never known what he was thinking. But, he told me to get a rod and go out with next group and go fishing. He said " if you don't get sick while your fishing, you can help the boys clean the boat on the way back. Absolutely frightened. Running from the law in TN. Before the whole NCIC thing. And Absolutely excited! I ran 2 trips a day. Ushered people on the boat. Passed out rods and stringers. I was monickered the " Master Baiter" lol, of the Kelly Docks because I was so efficient with a knife, I could prepare 50 pounds of squid as bait in 30 minutes. So I am familiar with most things in fresh water, and now I've seen the "regular" party boat catches. But here is a lady with an Octopus on her line. I have NEVER seen one in real life, let alone had to deal with one. But I'm 16. Not only did I know everything there was to know, but I had the confidence to back it up. I was working the stern ( back ) of the boat. There's 25 ppl there and every one of the remaing 50 from the port and starboard that can get there are as well. So... I GOT AN AUDIENCE! mix that with a know it all with no common sense and you got a "viral video" in the making. I'm an Athiest but I thank God there was no cell phones with camera's or social media then. So I seized my opportunity to shine. I grabbed the Octopus around the smallest part of its body where it's legs come out but I have it upside down. So tentacles up. It's legs are squirming around my hands and wrists but it's soft. Slimey and soft. I have no idea what an Octopus does or doesn't do and these places are all eyes on us, being me and this lady's Octopus. It's about 14 or 16 inches across with arms out. So little bigger than a plate. It's red also. Kind of a yellow red that isn't orange. So I proceed to tell everyone about this thing and I'm sure what follows is a reason why I can't remember what I said about it except one part. Which coincidentally is the last thing I said about the damn Octopus. But holding it like a dead mushroom I said "they can't bite". If memory serves me correctly, as I was in the middle of speaking I was also moving my eyes toward the Octopus. While my eyes were in motion so was this fucking little alien. A small, jet black, jack-o-lantern tooth looking bird beak, came out of the hole in the center of its body, layer the fuck straight down flat and bit the side of my index fingers 1st knuckle.i scream, throw this sumbitch down on the deck, adrenaline has my ears humming like a street light. And now it's slowly crawling toward the edge of the boat where he can slip under the railing and bye bye. But these ppl keep what they catch and I can have her say she caught an Octopus and I let it go. I'm so embarrassed at this point I can't even think straight. If we weren't 12 miles off shore I'd have jumped ship n swam for the bank. I'm 16. Fully adrenaline, and I'm a big guy. I reach to grab this thing and even though I broke the high school deadline record with a 660 deadline I can't pull him up. I can't grab him either because he is like a snot covered stress ball and he is still moving toward the edge. I grab a rag and my "dehooker". It's a 6 inch piece of a broom handle with a 2 aught shark hook on end of it used to take fish you don't want to touch off of hooks. I grab half of him with the rag and hook him with the dehooker o other side and I go for the record again. I fight with this thing what was only a clue minutes but damn it felt like forever. Finally I get it up, run to the ice chest and relish watching it squirm on the ice. When I turn around there are 75 tourists. 2 mates and a captain in full tears laughing so hard I hear people fart. I know I finished the trip. There was no way not to. But I don't remember any of it except from "they can't bite" until someone farts. This was the most embarrassing thing ever happened in my life. Fuck an Octopus