Fishing Team: Dave Miller, Eugene Miller
Date: June 1977
We stayed at a fishing lodge camping in a small cabin on the shore of the backwaters around the Withlachoochee River in west central Florida. We rented a fishing boat three days and caught about ten total fish. We would anchor and drop our bait among floating hyacinth plants. One time as my father reeled in his minnow a pelican swooped down and picked it out of the water and flew off. The minnow’s hook got caught in the pelicans mouth and my dad had to reel in the large bird. Dad had to cut the fishing line to let the bird go. The next day a bite and could tell it weighed a lot. After twenty minutes I finally got my catch close enough to see it – it was a two foot long alligator. We just cut the line to let it go. That night the fishing camp owner caught a six foot water moccasin snake near our cabin. On the third day I got a bite and reeled in a 5.5 pound bass.
