One hundred miles out, after a fast, less than three hour run, over a glassy Gulf of Mexico, we, Bob Baugh and his ex-wife and Layla and I, pulled up to acres of floating Sargassum sea weed and my first cast produced a strike by a chicken dolphin (small dolphin weighing less than five pounds) and the fun started. We boated over a hundred that morning, despite losing many to the numerous sharks.

Around noon, I had a big hit and immediately knew it wasn’t another small dolphin. The fish was a great match for my medium weight tackle and after it made a long run with no jumps, we couldn’t even guess what kind of fish it was. It was too far offshore for a kingfish, maybe it was a wahoo, maybe a “bull” dolphin, but they will usually jump like crazy?

After a real ‘rasslin match I got the fish closer to the boat we saw that it was a good size, albacore tuna, twelve to fifteen pounds, but it was being closely followed by a large, at least, six, foot, bull shark. As the shark clipped off the tuna’s body right behind the head, Bob grabbed for his .357 magnum pistol. The shark happily lolled on the surface just long enough for Bob to shoot it right in the middle of its head. And, the last we saw of it, it was slowly sinking.

The next morning, after a stop at some close in oil rigs and several spirited bouts with some bruiser, forty to fifty pound red fish, we headed back over a glassy Gulf, out to our weed island, a hundred miles out. Fishing around the weed patch, we caught more chicken dolphin and lost more to the sharks. Layla had a nice dolphin on and, right beside the boat, up came a big bull shark and ate the dolphin. The shark lolled on the surface and Bob grabbed his .357 and reboomed it. As it slowly sank, we noticed a second hole in its head where Bob had shot it yesterday.

I guess both shots missed any vitals, if any happened to be up there?