Spear Fishing in the Hillsboro Inlet   We spear fished using what we called the "Hawaiian sling. This was a piece of hollow bamboo rod about 16 inches long with a short piece of surgical rubber attached to one end). A steel rod about 3/8 of an inch in diameter about four feet long sharpened and a notch cut in the end served as the spear. The steel rod was inserted into the bamboo tube, it was usually held in the left hand with the right hand gripping the metal rod. It was drawn back as if using a slingshot and was fairly accurate up 8 or ten feet. A facemask completed the essentials and then you are ready to go " spear fishing." This is what we did when I was growing-up in Pompano back in the late thirty's, forties and even into the fifties. Where did we go to spear fish? We went to the ocean, sometimes swimming out as far as the second reef, anything farther out than that was too deep for free diving, Remember, this was before scuba gear was invented, swim fins were almost impossible to come by. We had to make our own "spear gun and spears." Surgical rubber tubing was hard to get but it was nearly indestructible, a great improvement over automobile inner tubes that would snap at the most inopportune moments. One of the best places to fish using this method was, you guessed it, "The Hillsborough Inlet". The water direction changed one hundred eighty degrees every six hours, and that didn't leave a whole lot of time to do any serious diving which could only be successful on the incoming tide and then only after it had been coming in for at least 30/40 minutes. This was to clear up the discolored water that had lingered just outside the inlet when the outgoing current changed its direction. The incoming water would feed from the North and the discolored water going out would always turn south and the clean clear water would make for good visibility and this change of tide always resulted in fish riding in on the swift current. Robert Mitchel and I usually fished together and our procedure never varied very much. We would wade out the mouth of the inlet walking on the shallow rocks that most often were just below the surface and on an extremely low tide some parts of it would stickup out of the water for several inches. These rocks were really dead reefs that over the years had reached a hardness that made it almost impossible to breakup and they made a bridge from the North side of the Inlet curving out into the ocean and to the South for a distance of about one hundred to one hundred fifty feet into the lee of the Southside shore. They made a natural breakwater and the sand that flowed down from the North was either deposited in the Inlet with much of it being transferred to the South side and the rest moving slowly southward and building up the beaches as it went. None of the sand ever "stuck" to this dead reef the reason being the current was too swift to let it pile up. It was on these rocks we would start our trip, being propelled along by the current. We would drop down into the deeper water on the North side of the Rocks and slowly drift along keeping a wary eye out for small nurse and reef sharks and being especially watchful for barracudas. They were unpredictable, especially the mid size ones (3-4 feet) they would suddenly appear out of nowhere and would lie perfectly still with only their small fins slowly moving keeping them from being moved along by the current. The problem with barracuda mounted when and if a fish was speared. If there were fish on the end of a spear then you could count on at least one and sometimes more would suddenly show up and sometimes they would make a swift dash and very quickly snare the fish and turn and be gone before the fish could be removed. Moving along these rocks we encountered multiply holes and small caverns in the rocks. Many small fish used these places to seek safety and let me tell you, the predator fish knew this as well as we did. These holes made for good fishing, for us, for the snapper, grouper, the sand perch, lobsters and for the bad guys, the Barracudas and small sharks and Moray eels. The current became swifter as the minutes went by and when we reached the rocks that were out of the water on the point on the North side of the inlet then we swam deeper and approached these rocks. The current was not as strong here and we had found this out by fishing here in the past. The rocks that make up this cluster were really hard with many sharp points sticking up. They were about three to four feet above the water and then comes the good part, on the ocean side of these rocks at their base were huge holes in the bottom of the ocean, some were in the rocks themselves and some looked as if they were dug out of the sand. These holes extended downward for as much as twenty or so feet. If one saw a large fish over or in these holes, then the question was, shall I shoot at it, if I hit the fish, there will surely be a Barracuda close by and would probably get the fish. Another even more chilling thought would enter the equation, if I shoot and miss, then that spear would be down twenty or more feet and it would be up to me to go after it and there again, the Barracudas are still around and you just never know what they are up to. You cannot imagine what it feels like to go down into one of these holes, retrieve the spear, start up and see between you and the surface a huge Barracuda, just lying there. Getting back to the huge rocks making up this formation one only had to swim down and look under these rocks and there were huge caverns about three to four feet high, six to eight feet down and going who knows how far under these rocks is anybody's guess and just teeming with fish. The waves made a surging motion and if one were going to enter these "holes" then care would have to be taken to prevent being slammed up and into these razor sharp rocks. The time one would spend in there was determined by just how long one could hold their breath. A diver had to get out with enough lung capacity to back out and swim for the surface, needless to say, all who dove these holes has at one time or the other "cut it close". Fishing was generally good under the rocks, however there were other dangers other than Barracudas and razor sharp rocks. One such incident I will tell about happened to a good friend of mine while diving under these rocks. He encountered a small, 3-4 foot long nurse shark and the shark was busily hunting lunch and my friend probably without even thinking, grabbed the shark by its tail and started pulling it backwards. Suddenly the shark twisted around and took a bite out of the inside of my friend's leg high enough to cause him concerns. He turned loose of the shark and the shark did likewise. So, we all learned a lesson from this. Don't mess with nurse sharks even if they are small. We would then swim out into the current to the South side of the rocks and there were hardly ever any fish along the sandy channel leading to the Coast Guard dock that was even with the lighthouse. Swimming along the Southside of the North channel the water was quite deep 10-12 feet, the banks were made up of a semi -ridge like matter that resembled a huge sponge with large openings, these openings were about 6 inches in diameter and went back into the bank 16/18 inches and they were full of fish. Most were small but there were some rather large snapper, grouper, moray eels, lobster and hundreds of sand perch.  There again, we would encounter the Barracudas, they never seemed to change their tactics, wait and watch and then dart, scary. One of these trips usually lasted a couple of hours sometimes more, and by the time we reached the Inlet bridge, we were pretty tired and usually had all the fish we wanted. If we decided to make another run, the changing of the tide would probably overtake us and then the water immediately become murky so generally, we would wait for another time. I enjoyed the times we spent swimming and wading and diving off the inlet bridge, plus climbing up and down the steps of the lighthouse where we would go to watch for rays on the incoming tide. When spotting one, we would run down to the little row boat, go into the inlet, jump out of the boat on top of the ray and wrestle it into the boat. We never harmed the ray and would always turn it loose. And this is how we spent many summer days growing up in Pompano. We were not mindful of the perils of swimming in the Inlet. This was the very same place that Ed Hamilton, (the barefoot mailman) apparently lost his life while attempting to cross. The vegetative growth, I am sure wasn't the same then as it was when we swam there, however there were no homes or buildings on the South and East of the Inlet, there were large growths of Mangroves and other types of vegetation that could hide the many dangers. The Hillsborough club and the Coast guard/lighthouse keeper's houses were built on the North side and they were well hidden by shrubs, with the bridge tenders house on the Southwest side of the Inlet. Other dangers of the Inlet were the presence of alligators and occasionally crocodile, shark, rattlesnakes and water moccasins. Were we fortunate to have been able to do these things that are forbidden today, yes we were and more fortunate to have lived to tell about.