Backcasts archive: Through Nov. 16, 2007
By Brett PaulyBlog calendar: Nov. 16 | Nov. 15 | Nov. 13 | Nov. 12
It's raining pigs and cows … sort of
Pigs in a blanket in Iowa. Beef on the hoof at a McDonald's in Utah. Cows on the interstate in Shreveport.
If ever there was a week for escaped swine and bovine, this would be it.
At least three incidents grabbed headlines, and you know Backcasts is going to catch wind of it … and, boy, did we ever catch wind of it, P.U.
Motorists in Louisiana's Caddo Parish were warned yesterday by police to keep their eyes peeled for loose cows along I-220 after more than 100 head of cattle escaped when the tractor-trailer transporting them flipped, the Associated Press reports from Shreveport.
Some cows died in the wreck late Wednesday, some fell off the I-220 bridge and at least one was hit by a car. Most of the rest were rounded up by police and sheriff's deputies.
The accident occurred after a number of cows shifted their weight inside the trailer, police said. A stretch of the interstate was shut down following the crash.
A porcine predicament eventually required police intervention, and an assist from two utility company workers, when a couple of pot-bellied pigs went on the lam Wednesday in Davenport, Iowa, according to the AP.
The swine, presumed to be escaped pets, were chased for some 35 minutes after eluding two animal control officers.
"They're tough," said control officer Leah Messmer. "They have no necks, so you really can't get a collar on them."
Messmer apparently knew from a previous pig encounter to fetch a blanket to expedite retrieval efforts.
After a few unsuccessful dives, the pigs were caught as workers at various businesses, some armed with cameras, peered in disbelief, the AP reports.
"They dart in and out of cars, and somebody could get hit," said Messmer, who planned to have the pigs sent to an animal shelter. "That's why you have to catch 'em. Poor little buggers."
The week started off with a stampede in, of all places, a McDonald's restaurant in West Haven, Utah, where eight cows escaped Monday from a trailer after the rear gate opened as the driver pulled into the burger joint. It took about two hours to corral the bovine bolters, according to the AP.
The roundup was called "Operation Hamburger Helper." A nearby resident even hopped on his horse.
There were varying theories for the trailer break.
"Maybe they were going to … hop in the freezer, save the middleman," Weber County sheriff's Sgt. Dave Creager said.
Lt. Kevin Burns presumed instead, "They didn't like their future."
Whatever the reason, it certainly was a very foreign scene to observers.
"I thought my eyes were lying," said Wayne Sanders, who was at a truck stop next door. "I don't know where they came from, but I'd say they'd have to weigh 800 pounds apiece and they were on a pretty good trot."
MESSAGE BOARD | MAILBAG | SUBMIT A PHOTO | BACK TO TOP
Escaping criminal killed by alligator, or Gator gives life in pursuit of bad guy
It's certainly no laughing, but the irony can't be denied, or ignored: A suspected car thief who evaded police by jumping into a Florida lake was killed by an alligator, according to the Miami Herald.
One way of looking at this is that an alleged criminal was punished – although cruel and unusual certainly come into play. But the bigger cause for alarm – understated or lacking from early coverage of the tragedy – is that gators keep killing people in Florida.
You'll remember the news out of the Sunshine State last year, when in less than a week three women were mauled and killed by the giant, green, prehistoric reptiles. Prior to that terrible week in May 2006, Florida had seen just 17 confirmed fatal alligator attacks in the previous 58 years.
Justo Padron, 36, the most-recent victim, was classified as a ''habitual felony offender'' after more than a dozen arrests since 1989, the Herald reports. But it was his latest run-in with the law that was his ultimate undoing.
Padron, of West Miami-Dade, Fla., died last Thursday in a lake on the Miccosukee Tribe Indian Reservation that, according to the Associated Press, had signs warning, "Danger Live Alligators."
His attempted escape took place after he and another man, Heriberto Rubio, were spotted near the Miccosukee Resort and Convention Center by a police officer while trying to steal a car in the casino parking lot, according to a tribe spokesman and court records. Rubio was captured after a short chase; he now faces charges of grand theft, resisting arrest and battery on a police officer.
Police divers found Padron's body in the lake on Friday afternoon, but the tribe – which, the Herald reports, is not bound by public-records law – did not disclose his death until Tuesday.
A trapper later captured and killed two alligators found in the lake. One was about 7½ feet, the other 9¼ feet, according to the trapper.
If you read the discussion items on MiamiHerald.com, you'll be in for some touching and exceedingly harsh entries, from condolences to the attack victim's family to one titled, "Good job, gator."
MESSAGE BOARD | MAILBAG | SUBMIT A PHOTO | BACK TO TOP
Editor's note: This is the 12th installment of My Back Pages, which recalls previous columns penned by the author. And the following is a companion piece to a previous feature on fishing Mexico's East Cape
My Back Pages: Tall tales of fishing the East Cape
Only in Baja could such a collection of yarns be spun
LOS BARRILES, Mexico — When anglers return stateside from trips to Baja California Sur, the tales they bring home often take on — well, a certain mythical quality.
Perhaps it's the tendency of fishermen to embellish the truth, or the romantic flair of having just come from such a foreign domain. Or a combination of both.
Or perhaps it's just the honest-to-goodness truth; after all, this region of Mexico is a saltwater-fishing mecca.
Their authenticity is often in the ear of the beholder.
A sampling:
"Greyhounding"
Having fished the tip of Baja for half his 60 years, Mike Flick of Oceanside, Calif., had just about seen it all … until one trip to the East Cape.
That's when he witnessed a 500-plus-pound black marlin — a rarity in this region — do something even more rarely seen.
After the skipper of the boat Flick was aboard hooked the black on a bonito with a 6-ounce sinker, "that marlin took that bonito and flew across the water in at least eight to 10 leaps of a minimum of 60 feet at a time before it spooled his 50-pound line on a 4/0 reel," he said.
Locals say most blacks jump straight up and down, or quickly dive — sound — and aren't seen again until reeled back to the boat. It's the blue marlin that is better known for those classic series of leaps — maneuvers dubbed "greyhounding" or "porpoising."
"That was brute force," Flick said. "If there would have been a panga or even a cruiser (crafts employed in the area's sport-fishing fleet) in front of him, I think he would have gone through it.
"It was one humongous black that's still heading east."
Bumper spool
Later that day, Flick got another shock.
He pointed it out to the unwitting fisherman, who promptly gave one tug. With that a sailfish breached in the midst of the faraway fleet. A double hookup, with a twist.
The skipper wanted the marlin, badly.
So he took the rod that was bent with the sailfish and tied on a boat fender — one of those white bumpers used to prevent vessel hulls from hitting docks — by way of a clove hitch in front of and behind the reel. The captain then tossed the entire assembly overboard.
Flick was aghast — partly because he'd never observed such a trick, partly because it was his outfit that was now in the brine.
After the striper was successfully boated and released, the skipper sped off to locate the overboard rod.
"We found the fender, the deckhand went down with the gaff, got the line, got the reel, gave it to angler, and he landed his first ever sailfish."
"How embarrassing!"
Most anglers go a lifetime without seeing a blue marlin on the end of their line. Woodland Hills, Calif., bass fisherman John Ed Wilder III had two blues bite 30 minutes apart.
The tragedy is, both times he set the hook forgetting the reel was in free-spool. Each time he finally got the reel in gear for a proper set, the marlin was long gone.
"I did it with women on board who I was trying to impress, too," Wilder said. "How embarrassing!"
Intercepted
Yet the anglers never had a chance, said Michael Fowlkes of Laguna Beach, executive producer of the television show.
"Just as the swordie turned on the bait, a striped marlin jetted up from the depths to swipe it."
We'd like to have that kind of bad luck.
When one's better than two
Fishing a two-day team tournament solo seems like a handicap, but not for Tom Ball of Santa Barbara, Calif. He reeled in five yellowfin tuna, from 40 to 88 pounds, in just 90 minutes on the first day of a 1997 tourney.
All the other "teams" had two anglers; Ball's partner failed to make the trip.
As often is the case when game is found, the skipper of the panga he was on called in the fleet to share the wealth. A half-hour after Ball's fifth yellowfin was aboard, 27boats were on the school of tuna.
"Nobody got any," Ball said with a grin.
The next day he landed two dorado and released a sailfish to win the contest.
Just lending a hand
Speaking of dorado, three anglers from British Columbia fishing single-action reels got into a school of the mahi mahi. One fisherman got impossibly backlashed after hooking one; he was resigned to handlining the fish in using gloves.
Turns out all he was doing was helping his buddy, who had hooked the same fish.
A voracious feeder, the dorado often isn't content until swallowing all available bait, so double hookups on one specimen are not all that uncommon.
A rare double
Testifying to the dearth of swordfish is Mario Lucero Verduzco, who had caught just five of the denizens in the 15 years he had skippered out of his hometown of Los Barriles. However, he caught two of them on the same day.
"The old fishermen have never heard of that," Verduzco stated. "It happened to be a young couple from Florida who had never caught a billfish. It was a very good day for them — for me, too."
This article originally appeared Nov. 6, 1997, in the Los Angeles Daily News.
MESSAGE BOARD | MAILBAG | SUBMIT A PHOTO | BACK TO TOP
The wheel on the Lincoln gets shot, shot, shot … shot, shot, shot …
OK, so what would you do if you had been working on a car for a couple of weeks and the only thing that was holding you up on the job was one stubborn lug nut on a rear wheel?
To loosen the offending nut, would you:
A.) Find a bigger lug wrench?
B.) Get help from a bigger dude?
C.) Shoot the wheel with a 12-gauge shotgun?
D.) Give up?
A 66-year-old man who had been repairing a Lincoln Continental for two weeks at his home selected answer C. True story, the Associated Press reports from Southworth, Wash.
In the process, the mechanic, unnamed by the AP, injured himself badly in both legs Saturday afternoon at his house, some 10 miles southwest of Seattle, sheriff's deputies said.
"He's bound and determined to get that lug nut off," Kitsap County Deputy Scott Wilson said.
From about arm's length, the man fired the shotgun at the wheel and was "peppered" in both legs with buckshot and debris, with some injuries as high as his chin, according to a sheriff's office report. The man had gotten all but one of the lug nuts off the right rear wheel when he made the decision to use firepower.
"Nobody else was there and he wasn't intoxicated," Wilson said.
The man was taken to Tacoma General Hospital with injuries Wilson described as severe but not life-threatening.
All we can say is, what a nut.
About the author: Brett Pauly spent nearly six years editing and publishing ESPNOutdoors.com before moving on to produce the ESPN.com Sports Travel site. He is a national award-winning writer and editor with 14 years of experience in the newspaper trade, including stints at the Los Angeles Daily News and Seattle Times. The Evergreen State is where he now makes his home. Click here to email him.
