As the saying goes, give a man a fish, you can feed him for a day. Teaching a man to fish will feed him for a lifetime. But another benefit of teaching a man to fish is that he won’t be tempted to stroll into a Bass Pro Shop and steal a giant fish for kicks, like what happened in Lee County, Florida.
The fishy caper occurred on Wednesday evening, when a younger-looking gentleman decided he would pilfer a 50-pound tarpon fish from the aquarium at the local Bass Pro Shop in Gulf Coast Town Center. The theft wasn’t exactly an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist as he was caught on camera walking out of the building with a self-satisfied grin on his face.
Deputies with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office are on the hunt for a male suspect who’s accused of grabbing a fishing net from a shelf at the hunting and fishing store and removing a 50-pound live tarpon from the store’s fish pond Wednesday.
The man then fled the store with the tarpon in an unknown direction, officials said.
One of the shop’s employees told a local news outlet about the theft.
“Somebody came up to me holding a scale of a tarpon and said, ‘Look, somebody just stole a tarpon’,” Chance Floyd, a Bass Pro employee, said.
According to Florida Wildlife Conservation, tarpons are protected in the State of Florida.
“I couldn’t believe it, honestly, like I don’t understand why they’d do that, and it was just so shocking to me that somebody would stoop low enough to do that,” Floyd said.
Local law enforcement is collaborating with its Animal Cruelty Task Force, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers to apprehend the piscatorial pilferer, which seems to indicate that the suspect’s days of swiping sea life might soon be coming to an end.
SWFL Crime Stopper plastered a picture of the individual on their social media pages, requesting help from the community. The post read:
He and a friend went to the Bass Pro Shops, located on Gulf Center Drive, last night, grabbed a fishing net from the shelf and removed a 50 pound Tarpon from their fish tank. He then carried the silver king, still inside the net, and left the store in an unknown direction. If you can ID this guy, we’d love to hear from you so that detectives can have a chat with him.
Tarpons are large fish known for their size and fighting ability. They are considered a coveted prize among fishers. They can grow up to eight feet long and weigh over 280 pounds. Unlike most other types of fish, they possess the ability to gulp air directly, which allows them to survive in oxygen-poor environments. However, their bony structure doesn’t exactly make for good eating, which makes the theft even stranger. What exactly does this guy plan to do with the fish? I suppose we will find out if the authorities manage to catch up with the thief.
