I wasn’t sure what to write about this week since not too much has been going on lately. As a band, we decided to take the past few weeks off as far as touring goes. So I figure I’ll just let you know a little about my weekend.

It was Memorial Day weekend and a few of my friends, my brother, and I decided to make a trip down to the Florida Keys like we used to do all the time back in high school. It’s usually about a two or three hour drive depending on which mood I’m in behind the wheel. We drove down there Friday evening and made it just in time to catch the glimpse of sunlight that was left. It wasn’t enough time to drop the jet skis in the water, so for that, we had to wait until the morning. We did however get to do some night-fishing off the dock. We caught the usual snapper along with some other random fish- nothing special. We put a small snapper out for bait on the “shark pole”, but nothing hit. The rest of the night was spent relaxing in the hammocks and reminiscing about good times.

The next day I hitched the jet skis up to my truck and dropped them at the local resort’s marina. I like it when there are monstrous swells, but it was pretty flat out. There have been a couple occasions where I’ve been riding completely under water because of the insane waves. Anyway, we ended up doing some tubing and some wake-boarding. The wake-boarding sucked balls! I guess my feet grew since the last time I was down there. I had to lube up my feet in order to fit them in the bindings, and even then it was a struggle. After that bullshit we met some chicks at the resort and invited them back to chill for the night.

So it’s Saturday and the sun had been down for a while now. Throughout the day we were all fishing and caught a good amount right off the dock. We filleted and grilled the fairly large grouper that my brother caught. It was delicious! And instead of just throwing the carcass away, I had the ingenious idea to put it out on the “shark pole”. We set the line out and didn’t think much of it. A few hours went by, it was about midnight and it was pitch black out. In an instant something grabbed the bait and took off! It was definitely something powerful. I fought for about thirty minutes with whatever was on the other end of the line. We all traded off fighting what, we would later learn, was a four foot bull shark. We finally got it close enough for us to net and hoist up on the dock. There’s no doubt that it was the wildest shark we’ve ever caught. Slapping its tail around and chomping aimlessly, we were all careful to not get hurt.

We wanted to kill it because small children and other people are constantly swimming in the area and bull sharks are extremely hostile. Earlier in the year my neighbor told us how he caught and killed a nine foot bull. My brother Sean was the brave one who opted to remove the 4-inch hook from the shark’s mouth. He was being extremely cautious but somehow the shark managed to free itself and sink its razor-sharp teeth into Sean’s leg, almost severing the meat from his calf. His leg was like a fountain of blood and we couldn’t stop the bleeding.  Later on, the girls that we were with started yelling at us to put the shark back in the water. We ignored them but one of the chicks had the nerve to go up and kick it back in the water! Fucking Bitch! When my brother saw this, it infuriated him to the extent of madness. He immediately jumped in the dark water after the shark, keep in mind it’s dark as fuck out and his leg is still gushing blood. I grabbed a flashlight and searched around for the shark in order to guide my brother. The shark was a little dazed but still swimming around. I found the bastard and shined the light directly at it. It was lurking with its dorsal fin above the surface of the water near the center of the canal. Sean bolted towards it, grabbed a hold of its tail, and fought it swimming against it back towards the dock. He then dragged it up on the boat and threw it back on the dock. The girls shut their faces as Sean severed the beast’s head.

We ended up having to cut the Keys trip early because his leg wouldn’t stop bleeding. After an eight-hour wait at the hospital near our house, all the doctor could tell us was to keep bandaging it like he was doing. He really needed stitches but they never suture animal bites due to an increased risk of infection. Fuck that! Upsettingly, due to all the commotion of the situation, we totally forgot to keep the jaw of the shark. After all of these years scuba diving and getting into close encounters with sharks, I never thought that when one of us got bit, it would be on land! Sean’s leg finally stopped bleeding two days later. His life was definitely threatened that night but it was completely worth it because I’m sure he’s going to be left with one fucking bad ass SCARRRR!

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