Several nights after I caught the lookdown at a Marathon, Florida boat slip, I looked down and glimpsed something much bigger. Someone had cleaned fish and dumped the remains in the ocean. That attracted a sizable shark. The operator of a small charter boat walked by, looked in the water and asked me if I “want to have some fun?” He was docked several slips down.  A few minutes later I was hooked up with a “belly button” that supported a good-sized Penn reel and short stiff rod. Impaled on a big hook, at the end of a wire leader, was half of a four-pound mackerel. He tossed it in and almost instantly the shark took the bait.

Capt. Bill loosened the drag (I had no idea how to work the reel) only a few feet before the beast would have dragged me into the water. I have no idea how long the fight went on but I was relieved when he ran to his boat and came back with a gaff. This all took place next to the highway. While I was having “fun” a small crowd assembled to see the shark played and then hung up by its tail.

When I returned the next morning, a photographer from the local paper was there. That photo and clipping have been lost, but a week ago, going through some old boxes of drawer junk, this snapshot turned up. That’s me at 23 on the left and on the right is Capt. Bill Cross of the charter boat, No Moleste.

I didn’t paint the biggest fish I ever caught.  During the day, someone unceremoniously dragged the fish down to the edge of the ocean. While I was trying to cut out his jaws, a young guy from Chicago and his wife strolled by. To the disapproval of his wife, he offered me $50 for the trophy, including the knife I was using. It was a cheap knife and not very sharp and I wasn’t making much progress, so I took his offer. I took the money and quickly departed. He took over the futile task.

Leland Payton, Lookdown on Ice, 1963 watercolor on paper, 18 x 24.

I did a series of watercolors in the Keys in 1963. A few years later, I studied briefly with my hero Edwin Dickinson at the Art Students League in New York. Before I left New York, I asked him to critique my watercolors. He had a problem with me using so much cross-hatching, but he did like the Lookdown painting. I offered it to him, but he said, “An artist never gives his work away.”  “How about a quarter,” I said.  He smiled, handed me a quarter and took the picture. See July 2019 post for the unlikely story of how I got the picture back after fifty years of wondering what happened to it.