Fishen - Foolen - Fooden

My dog, Troubles, was my faithful companion for more than fifteen years. She was part hound and part terrier. Being part hound attributed to her ability to smell out fish, particularly dolphin or snapper, and the terrier in her allowed her to give out a loud bark to let you know where the fish were and yapping every minute that someone had a fish on the line. I am sure that many an angler, particularly on a Saturday and Sunday morning when they were headed out of the Middle Keys towards Alligator Light, would strain a little bit to try to hear the dog barking out there someplace due east of Alligator Light. Instead of dropping lines and trolling out towards the Hump they’d speed up and run out towards that barking dog because, invariably there would be Troubles with her party on that particular day, landing dolphin, wahoo, sail or later in the year, kingfish. Troubles had a sense of knowing when we were going fishing and she would be up before anyone else, go out through her little trap door, take care of her daily chores and be sitting on the dock waiting to go. If the tide was right she could jump aboard the boat. If it wasn’t then we had to kind of hoist her aboard. Her place on my Whaler was riding the bow facing due east if we were going to the Stream, due west if we were going back country. She’d stay up there on the bow and almost constantly bark, every once in awhile she’d come back to get a drink.

Of course, I kept a bowl of water under my seat for Troubles, however, whenever anybody would manage to land a sail or a tarpon or a dolphin, everybody would celebrate by cracking a beer. I would pour a little into her bowl and I don’t know how many of the other guys did the same, but there would always be one or two friends with me and they would pop a little of their ice cold beer into the bowl for Troubles. Some times when finishing off a beer we might put a little bit more in there. Depending upon how successful a day we had, sometimes I would have to physically pick Troubles up and place her on the dock. Finishing off maybe a dozen beers that day the three of us started kind of made her drowsy, snoozy and maybe a little potted. She’d amble up to the palm tree in the back yard and stretch out and she’d lay there while we proceeded to clean the fish and the boat, however, the next morning if we were going out she was up bright and early with no hangover, no problem and ready to go.

To digress from fishing for a minute, Troubles was also a good hunting dog. She could point out birds that no other dogs would be able to see. I recall one time I took my law associate, Curtis, out bird hunting. We used to hunt where the Doral Country Club is now located. As we departed the truck and walked over towards one of the open fields, Troubles started bow wow. She barked once and Curtis looked at me and I said just go ahead into that little clump there is a bird there and its yours. Sure enough the bird came out and Curtis picked it off. We walked along a little bit further and Troubles stopped, pointed and bow wow, bow wow. I said well there are two birds in there Curtis. You take the one on the right and I’ll take the one on the left. We proceeded a little bit and sure enough we each got a bird. Well, this proceeded until by noon we had reached our limit so we jumped in the car and ran back to the Elks Club in time to catch the start of the Miami Hurricane/Florida State football game. Curtis reckoned that he would like to borrow Troubles next week because he wanted to take one of the judges hunting and he figured with Troubles along they wouldn’t have any trouble limiting out. So, I said I’m sure the dog will be happy to go with you. Sure enough Curtis came by at 7 o’clock Saturday morning and loaded Troubles into his car and proceeded to go hunting. I was surprised when they came back rather early, I hadn’t even started my lunch yet. I asked Curtis how they did and he gave me such a disgusted look , I’ll tell you if looks could kill I’d be dead. "That dam dog of yours" he says.

"You know we got out of that truck into the field and she barked once". "I told the judge there was a bird ahead of us in the clump there and he proceeded to walk ahead and sure enough a bird flew up and the judge picked it off". Well, I never was able to teach Troubles to retrieve the birds after they had been shot down, however, it was no big problem. She’d run to it and bark and you’d just go and pick it up. "Well, when the judge picked up the bird there happened to be a stump there and he sat down for a minute to kind of rest and here comes Troubles running back at him barking like the devil. She stopped, picked up a piece of wood and then she kind of humped the judge’s knee and at the same time hitting him on the leg with that piece of wood. It got a little embarrassing when the dog wouldn’t stop humping him and I couldn’t imagine what she was doing. I finally grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and took her back and put her in the car . Well, this kind of disgusted the judge and it disgusted me that your dog would do such a damn awful thing and so we left kind of early. We got enough birds, but that dog was no damn help to us". Well, I looked at Curtis and I couldn’t believe the story he was telling me. I suggested he ought to get his nose out of those law books on the weekend and do a little more hunting with me. I said you know when Troubles picked up that stick, and came running back at you, and jumping on that judge’s leg, she was trying to tell you "that there were more frigging birds out there than you can shake a stick at and you guys should go into the guava grove and start firing". Believe that?