Creature skewered by Cajun anchor in West Bay
When you consider the incredibly vast amount of water around Venice, what happened on Cory Mack’s fishing trip in West Bay last month really does defy the odds.
The Destrehan angler and three of his friends were working the rocks for redfish on the morning of Saturday, March 26, and decided to deploy a Cajun anchor from his 25-foot Shearwater in windy conditions.
“It was difficult with my one Power-Pole to keep us facing in the correct position,” said Mack, 37. “So that’s when I decided it was time to drag out the old Cajun anchor that I keep stored because we couldn’t get situated right with four people on the boat and everybody casting in the same direction.”
When the 3-foot-long, 1-inch-wide anchor was eventually retrieved to move to another spot, the crew realized they had skewered a stingray.
“Somebody said, ‘Hey, you got a stingray here,’ and I thought somebody still had a line out that caught a stingray,” Mack said. “I couldn’t believe it. It was just sticking on the end of the pole. I had never seen that happen before.
“We took one or two more pictures and just slid it off — it was crab food.”
Mack said conditions that day made the lethal toss even more unlikely.
“It was windy, and really muddy. I couldn’t see 6 inches in the water,” he said. “We had no idea it was down there.
“I don’t kill stuff just to kill it. I like to eat it, too, but I guess it happens.”
Mack posted the picture in the Reports section on LouisianaSportsman.com, and found out the same thing had happened to another angler a few years ago — with a tastier ending.
“Somebody in one of the comments said they had gotten a flounder like that,” he said. “At least you could eat that one.”
