Riding Out The Storm

Paul Piscopo of Homosassa recently turned 51, and he’s been fishing as long as he can remember. As a kid growing up in New York, it wasn’t unusual for him to play hooky from school, but he’d always get caught when his mother went into the garage and saw his fishing poles were missing.

Since moving to Florida in late 1999, Paul has been fishing Citrus County and Gulf waters. He particularly enjoys inshore saltwater fishing, often using a Gheenoe, which is a long, flat- bottomed motorized canoe, a little over 15 feet long and about 36 inches wide.

“I have a boat, too, but for the last four years, I’ve found myself in the Gheenoe more than anything,” says Paul. “I can go where kayakers go but get there quicker because I’m under power.”

Although he’ll occasionally keep a fish to eat, Paul says the vast majority of the time he does “CPR,” which stands for “catch, photograph, release.”

When asked to relate a fishing story, Paul laughs. “Every time we go out fishing, there’s always a story,” he smiles.

Sometimes those stories involve a storm.

One Sunday in August, Paul, along with two friends, Pamela Wirth and Ruben Salazar, who’d come up from Tampa, left North Pirate’s Point in Ozello at daybreak. The friends were both in kayaks, while Paul was in his Gheenoe. He scouted out a good spot where he’d seen some tarpon rolling.

“One of my friends caught a Jack Crevalle, which is a pretty underrated sport fish because they fight really well,” recalls Paul, who had anchored on an oyster bar and was having good luck catching snook. Overall the fishing was decent—not stellar but still a good day on the water.

When heading out that morning, the three friends knew there was only a 30 percent chance of rain, so they were a bit surprised when the storm blew in the way it did.

“We had radar to stay abreast of what was coming, and when you’re on the water, you have a good line of sight,” says Paul.

They were too far out to beat the storm back to their launching point, so they decided to take cover on the north side of a mangrove island and hunker down. Fishing rods act as lightning conductors, so the trio laid their rods down in their crafts and held onto the closest tall branches at the water’s edge.

“It got pretty gnarly; you always know weather on the water can change in a minute, but that qualifies as the worst storm I’ve been caught in to date in my Gheenoe,” says Paul. “The wind reversed and started coming in from the northeast, so we definitely picked the wrong side of the island. There were gusts of 35mph and higher; the winds actually stood up the mangroves and bent them over. There was nothing we could do but hold on and ride it out.”

It took about 30 minutes for the howling winds and driving rains to move through the area, but Paul admits it felt a lot longer than half an hour.

That particular outing might have ended with three very soggy, weather-battered anglers, but it did nothing to dampen their passion for fishing.

“It’s hard to explain if you’re not into fishing, but it’s a form of solace, somewhere both my mind and body can go,” says Paul. “I take it seriously and like the challenge; I also like learning about the species I’m trying to catch.”

A mutual love of fishing was one of the interests Teri Hines shared with TJ Adams when the couple met in the spring of 2016, and it continues to be a favorite way to spend time together.

They’d already been dating for awhile when TJ bought a new boat, a 16-foot Sea Ark flats boat, in August 2016. Teri, who prefers saltwater fishing, and TJ, who likes both salt and fresh, appreciate that the boat allows them to go into very shallow water. On this particular day, they were launching from Crystal River and heading into Gulf waters.

“TJ knows I like to pick the spot to fish, and he likes to give me the bragging rights,” says Teri, who happened to be red hot on picking the spot that day.

“We were in the Gulf, not far out from Sandy Hook in the mangroves, and from the first cast, we were catching redfish one right after the other,” recalls Teri, adding that they were using Cajun Thunder popping corks and live shrimp. “We just happened to come on a school of them.”

As members of the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) they were also fishing for the CCA Star Tournament. The CCA releases tagged redfish all across Atlantic and Gulf waters, so participating anglers must photograph a tagged fish if they catch one in order to enter the tournament contest to win prizes.

“It’s really rare to get one that’s tagged, and we didn’t, but that’s always the hope when we go fishing during Star Tournament time,” says Teri. “But we were still taking pictures of each fish, and that can be quite the task when you are catching fish back to back. TJ was reeling in another one, and I was stuck taking another picture. Now our joke is that I pick where they are in order for us to catch any,” she laughs.

As their fishing bonanza continued, the couple realized black storm clouds were rolling their way.

“We weren’t far from the ramp, and we were having such a great time, we didn’t want to give up our day,” says Teri. “Luckily, the storm moved away from us, and we continued to catch fish.” Learn

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