Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 1014 with Jameson Reeder Jr. and Jameson Reeder Sr.

Catching Up: Baseball, Easter, and the Culture Cast

Jameson Reeder Jr.: I'm Jameson Jr.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: And I'm Jameson Sr., and this is the Tom Rowland Podcast.

Tom Rowland: Perfect, just like that, I like it. Jameson Senior and Jameson Junior, you're back, good to have you guys. How are you doing? You've grown significantly since last time -- I think we talked in July, and here it is April. You had a big year, your dad sent me a video of you playing baseball, hit one all the way and got a triple on that. That's pretty awesome. How's the baseball season -- how many games so far?

Jameson Reeder Jr.: Thank you. It's going great. We've, I think, we're one and three.

Tom Rowland: One and three -- well, hey, if it's going great, I guess I should ask how it was last year.

Jameson Reeder Jr.: Well, we won the championship game last year.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: It's going great this year too, I'll tell you why -- he just got that new running blade, and you saw him just cruising around the bases on it. Even though our record is one and three right now, he's been playing great, feeling great, up until he just had a baseball injury and he's been off that running blade -- even his regular walking leg -- for about a week now, so he's recovering. Thankfully there's no baseball until next week, we're off for Easter, so he's got a little reprieve to let that thing heal, but hopefully he'll be ready to roll next week.

Tom Rowland: All right, what were your Easter plans? What did you do for Easter?

Jameson Reeder Jr.: It was yesterday -- we had a great church service.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: And then we were with family the rest of the day -- my brother and his kids, and my parents, up here in Charlotte, North Carolina. But right before that we were in South Florida speaking at several schools, and we were just with Andy Mill -- we walked through and recorded at Andy Mill's house for our podcast, which is called the Jameson Reeder Culture Cast. We're talking to people about faith, people who are questioning faith and don't quite know where they are or what they believe, and kind of casting that out into the culture -- and of course, this being you, a world-renowned fishing guide with your fishing show, you'll appreciate this: the phrase we use is, you're never fishing until you're catching, but you're never catching until you're casting. Casting precedes catching. Jesus says in the Gospels, follow me and you'll become fishers of men -- the disciples are out there fishing for fish in the Sea of Galilee, and he says, leave fishing for fish behind, let's go fishing for men. So in our ministry, as we go around speaking and encouraging people, we say, you've got a story to share, and that's your way of casting a wide net into the culture that touches somebody's life. We've all been told, my story doesn't matter, keep it private -- and we encourage people to use their story as a platform to cast a wide net into the culture. We're speaking to a bunch of students -- JJ's always a hit, he eats lunch with them, goes to recess with them, and we tell our story usually in a chapel or inspirational setting. We were at two schools, with Andy Mill as I said, and recording video for some stuff we're doing later this year for a national launch of another book I'm writing right now. So yeah, we're just back off that trip, had a great Easter, and it's been a good beginning of the year.

Recapping the Shark Attack

Tom Rowland: That's fantastic. Just for some people -- we have new listeners all the time who might not have heard the first episode -- I think we should recap what gave you this platform, which was a shark attack. You've had plenty of practice telling your story now, but if you wouldn't mind giving us a recap of what happened.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: You kick it off, man -- tell them, give them the setup, I'll hold the book up so people can see it too, but go ahead.

Jameson Reeder Jr.: So we were nine miles offshore at a reef called Lukey Reef, and we got on the boat to eat some lunch, and I saw a turtle surface right next to the boat. I asked my dad if I could jump in and follow it. After a couple of minutes of following the turtle, that's when the shark came and attacked me right below the knee.

Tom Rowland: And that was a bull shark, right?

Jameson Reeder Jr.: Yes sir, a nine-foot bull shark. Big boy.

Tom Rowland: Nine-foot bull shark, and the result was you lost your leg below the knee.

Jameson Reeder Jr.: Yes sir. They had to amputate it -- it took the bone from knee to ankle, all the tissue, the bone, and the veins. There was no way to save the leg. The fibula, the outer bone, was still intact.

The Attack at Lukey Reef

Jameson Reeder Sr.: I was in the water with him. At the time our youngest was three -- we've since had another child, my wife and I have five now, and we were out there with our four that day. As a father, and I know many of your listeners are parents too, we couldn't have had a more beautiful day -- iconic Florida Keys weather, calm Caribbean water, crystal clear, six to eight feet deep on the interior part of Lukey Reef. As he said, we were following a turtle -- he and our youngest son, who was three; JJ was ten at the time, he's fourteen now. We were looking for sharks, since they're an important part of the marine ecosystem, but we didn't see any -- we were seeing hundreds of species of marine life and having the time of our lives. As he's following this turtle I'm so proud of him because he's filming with a GoPro, getting epic footage because the turtle is letting him get close. As I'm swimming with him, I realize my three-year-old is splashing on the surface in a flotation device, and now there are two of us near the turtle, so I peel back with my three-year-old, start pointing things out to him on the ocean floor, diving down, coming up, talking about it. Obviously no fishing -- it's a no-fish, no-touch, no-take zone -- but the reef was full of boats that day, even though it's nine miles offshore and took us thirty-five minutes to get out there. That doesn't mean people weren't nearby, maybe chumming the water loosely -- with chum chips, trying to fire up the yellowtail for photos -- or maybe somebody was illegally fishing. We weren't, but there were some peculiarities to the situation. It's the first documented shark attack at Lukey Reef -- it had never happened before. We've since met Manny Puig, who's become a wonderful friend, and he told me he was actually bitten at Lukey too, though he never reported it. Same place, lower leg, but that day he was wearing a dive knife on his leg, and as the shark attacked he says it bit right into the stainless steel dive knife, which saved his leg -- he had some other minor injuries. But the peculiarity is there's no documented shark attack in the International Shark Attack File for that reef until ours. Something was happening that day -- it could have been that the bull shark saw JJ, who was very small, seventy pounds, next to a big turtle, and bull sharks are notorious for having bad eyesight, so maybe it was mistaken identity, two similar-sized images. I say 'she' because at that size, they're definitely female. We've had this all checked out because the GoPro footage actually shows a portion of the attack, which is really crazy.

Recovering the GoPro Footage

Tom Rowland: That's one of the most incredible parts of the story -- the recovery of the GoPro. You drop the GoPro, and then what happens after that? How does it return?

Jameson Reeder Sr.: So a day or two after the shark attack, I mentioned to a friend named Zach that JJ had a GoPro and dropped it -- retrieving it wasn't the first thing on our minds. But later on, one of our dive friends went out to the reef to try to find it. We had two dive friends looking, Zach and another friend named Shane, who's actually a dive master with one of the main outfits that takes tourists out there -- he's dove that reef hundreds of times and still couldn't find it. I thought, well, if Shane can't find it, it's not going to be found. Then through one of my best friends, Grant, I learned that Zach happened to be on Lukey a couple of days after the attack, so I sent him the coordinates to see if he could find it. He and his friend made multiple passes through the area, thinking maybe another tourist had picked it up -- there are multiple boats a day dropping fifty or more snorkelers out there. We put a message out through local channels to see if it would turn up, and Zach kept looking. Zach is a prolific spearfisherman, an incredible waterman -- you've seen the Instagram reel he put together that's gone up to around forty-one million views. He said he'd never seen the sharks more fired up that day, and on his last pass, about to give up, he found the GoPro. He FaceTimed me from his boat on the way in to plug it into his computer, and the footage was there. It took a while, zooming in and enhancing, but we found eighteen different frames of the actual shark approaching -- she's way out on the edge of visibility, which is why we never saw her coming. So she wasn't just curious, she was hunting -- this wasn't a mistaken bite and let go, it was two bites and a big head shake that cleaned all the tissue off his leg, down to bone. The fibula was gone, and the tibia had teeth marks all over it. We sent the footage to shark experts, including Dr. Neil Hammerschlag, who was head of the shark research program at the University of Miami at the time, and others -- they all confirmed, based on the radius of the bite, an eight-to-ten-foot bull shark. We even have three frames of a tooth popping out of the shark's mouth in the footage and falling to the ocean floor. Between the teeth, the bite radius, the approach, the tail, and the girth of the shark, that's the evidence used to piece together the size.

The Moment of Impact -- Faith in the Boat

Jameson Reeder Sr.: It's a miracle he's alive. The first words out of his mouth, once I got him under the boat -- I was in the water with him, and I just screamed in horror and denial that my son was bleeding out, that he was inevitably going to die, that I was holding him in my arms as he breathed his last breath. That's what I was thinking, so I just screamed no, in horror and denial of what was happening -- greatest day to worst day, the nightmare becoming reality. And the first words out of his mouth when he heard me scream were --

Jameson Reeder Jr.: Daddy, it's okay, Jesus is going to save me.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: That incredible childlike faith in a great and powerful God is what brought everything together -- it snapped me out of my shock. He's the one in shock, losing blood, with no leg, and he's the one demonstrating this faith, comforting me. That's what he does all through the story -- as you read the book, he's the one praying with nurses and doctors as he's going into emergency surgery. It's crazy how at ten years old, his faith changes the dynamic of everything around him. So I laid him on the back of the boat, went to the captain's chair, and began racing toward other boats -- I just thought, people equal help, we can't run thirty-five minutes in, he's not going to last. We happened to be, I believe divinely, directed to the fastest boat on the reef that day, a thirty-six-foot Invincible with triple 350-horsepower engines. I transferred him, my wife, and JJ to that boat, and it took them ten minutes to run him in, which gave him every chance to survive. As I let him go, believing it was for the last time, I kissed him on the forehead and felt the weight of saying goodbye to my oldest son. I felt the Lord say, not audibly but in my spirit, I will hold him until you get there. I thought that meant eternally in heaven -- Jameson had prayed to receive Christ at six years old, on our bed in Fort Lauderdale, so I knew his soul was secure and he'd be with the Lord in heaven. But I hoped it meant something else too, and that's exactly what happened -- the Lord held him as they ran in.

Tom Rowland: What happened, son -- what did you begin to see and feel once you started heading back to shore?

Jameson Reeder Jr.: I was so tired from all the blood I'd lost that my mom kept tapping me on the head because I kept closing my eyes, and I had to keep myself awake and entertained. After a while, the first thing I saw was a man on fire floating above me. Then the fire turned into light, and the man turned out to be Jesus. He didn't say anything, and I didn't either, but he gave me comfort and peace, and the courage to sing 'Here I Am' on our way back to shore. That's what kept me awake the rest of the time -- seeing the Lord changed my whole perspective.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: I'm on our boat with the other three kids, thinking I might get a call any second that he's gone. My wife feels like he's going to make it, he's going to be okay -- he thinks he's going to be fine because he's seeing the Lord, and after that there was no reason to worry.

Jameson Reeder Jr.: Knowing I was going to be okay was a big deal. So I started to pray for some people in the ambulance, because I saw them crying, and I figured I might as well pray for them since I knew I was going to be okay.

The Rescue and the Hospital

Jameson Reeder Sr.: These were parents -- a lieutenant with the Monroe County Fire Department administering an IV, a dad himself with several boys, and a mom on there too with a son, and they're looking at him thinking, that could be my son. They've all dove that reef, they know those waters, and they're thinking, how is this kid who might die, who's certainly going to lose his leg, talking to us the way he is? A chain popped out of the lieutenant's shirt as he leaned over -- it was a cross. Jameson asked him, are you a Christian, and the lieutenant said, no, I'm not, but I'll be whatever you want me to be in this moment. Pretty powerful. He got airlifted from St. Peter's Catholic Church on Big Pine Key -- we rushed into Dolphin Marina, where the ambulance was waiting, since 911 dispatch said go there if you can make it in. From there they took him to St. Peter's, where the airlift met them. This was the tail end of the COVID-era medical protocols, so airlifts had stopped carrying blood -- and that week, for the first time in two years, they started carrying blood again. He needed all the blood he could get, because his eyes were rolling back and he was basically dying. The combination of that fast boat, the sheriff's department, FWC, and even a nurse on another boat named Jennifer who heard us yelling and jumped onto our boat to help -- she couldn't do anything medically, but it was the Lord saying, I'm here with you, have strength. They got him and my wife onto the airlift to Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami, since there's no level-one trauma center in the Florida Keys -- and they made it within the golden hour. From the attack nine miles offshore to Miami is about an hour with all the transfers in between -- it's miraculous. As you read in the book, 'Rescue at the Reef: The Miraculous True Story of a Little Boy with Big Faith,' this guy's not so little anymore, but as a ten-year-old he demonstrated the childlike faith Jesus talks about -- believing everything in the Word of God is true and real. Four days after the attack, after life-saving surgery, and what would end up being three weeks in the hospital and four surgeries, he wasn't thinking, how am I going to walk, poor me, why did this happen -- he was thinking something very different that ended up changing and defining our lives forever.

Facing the Fear: Returning to the Reef

Tom Rowland: So what was that?

Jameson Reeder Jr.: Four days after the attack, I was sitting in the hospital thinking about how I was going to get back to the reef. I asked my grandpa, my dad's dad, if I could borrow his phone to call my dad and ask if he'd take me back to the reef.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: I'd just left the hospital -- we hadn't even thought about toothbrushes, I don't think I'd brushed my teeth in three days, I was running to CVS to get one -- and I got a call. He was whispering, saying, Dad, it's me, I'm hiding under the sheets in the hospital bed, I don't want anybody to hear me, and I want to ask you, will you take me back to the reef? I asked him why, and he said he wanted to face his fear -- he didn't want the shark attack or the hospital to be his greatest fear. He won me over, man, I was so proud. I said we'd do whatever we could, and then I realized, uh oh, the reason he's whispering is that if he can convince me, I'm the one on the hook to convince his mom. So we told her together, and she said, well, I'll be on the boat with a shotgun. We returned to the reef after his leg healed and the doctors gave clearance -- he ended up having three more surgeries after that.

Jameson Reeder Jr.: We went back exactly ten weeks to the day of the shark attack, to the same waters. Before we jumped in, my dad asked how I was feeling, and I said I was scared after all that waiting. He said we didn't have to jump in, I'd come this close already -- but I said no, I wanted to go all the way and face my fear. Right when I jumped in, that one second under water was a flashback of the whole attack, from jumping in to follow the turtle to being in the shark's mouth to being in my dad's arms. But then I popped up and just had an amazing time swimming with my family and friends -- I didn't worry about the shark attack thoughts at all.

Tom Rowland: Looking back now from that moment you faced your fear and jumped in the water, what has that done for your life today?

Jameson Reeder Jr.: I'd loved the ocean before the shark attack, and I knew that if I didn't face my fear soon, it would get harder and harder for years to come -- and if I didn't face it, I wouldn't have the ocean to go into, I might not even want to get in a pool. I've met some people who don't even want to go into their own pool.

Talking to People About Facing Fear

Tom Rowland: You're doing talks now about facing fear -- have you met people whose fears are, in a way, different scale than yours, since you actually lost your leg? Like someone afraid of an elevator -- to that person, that fear can feel just as big as being attacked by a shark again.

Jameson Reeder Jr.: Most people I've met with fears developed them after watching the movie Jaws -- they just don't want to go in the water. I haven't met that many people who share a specific fear when we ask audiences to be brave and share theirs. One lady said she was scared of spiders, and I didn't really know how to respond to that.

Tom Rowland: That's the interesting thing -- not all fears are the same. Somebody's afraid of a spider, but you actually had your leg bitten off by a shark, and yet that person's fear of the spider could feel just as powerful to them, even though nothing has ever actually happened to them with a spider. Snakes are another good example -- people freeze in fear of something that's never bitten them, a completely irrational fear, while yours is a rational one, it actually happened. But the feeling of fear between two people is basically the same. So I think you have an important voice here, coming from an actual rational fear that you faced anyway.

Faith as the Answer to Fear

Jameson Reeder Jr.: I have a better answer -- if I didn't have the Lord, that wouldn't have happened. Before I jumped in the water, I told myself in my mind that I had the Lord and I was going to be okay, and after that thought, that's when I jumped in. Having the Lord next to my side was a game changer.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: One of the things we tell people explicitly, whether it's a Christian or secular audience, is that we're not ashamed of our faith. Before he jumped in, he told me he was scared, and I said, I am too, you're not alone in that fear -- we had family and some of our closest friends with us that day. As we returned to the reef, we were all in the water first, checking things out, and as you know, there are no fences in the ocean -- sharks go where they want, when they want. There was a very real presence of fear. People often think he was able to face his fear because there weren't sharks that day -- well, it just so happened we didn't see any, but they're there. So facing your fear isn't the absence of that fear, or even a diminishment of it -- it's looking at the reality of that fear, and then looking at what's next to it, which is a love and desire for freedom over that fear. I want to continue to love the ocean, I don't want to lose that. People often think those two things are on opposite ends of the spectrum -- turn away from fear, run toward freedom -- but it doesn't work like that. Freedom is on the other side of your greatest fear, so you have to face your fear to find freedom. The question is, what's greater than your fear that allows you to walk through it to find freedom -- and the answer for us is faith, in a God who is greater than any fear. It's the story of David and Goliath -- David is out there as basically the first pizza delivery boy, tending his father's sheep, and Jesse sends him to bring bread and cheese to his brothers on the front lines fighting the Philistines. When he gets there he sees his brothers cowering in fear at Goliath, and he asks, what's going on, do you not see Goliath? He goes back and forth looking at Goliath and says, I see him, but I see the greatness of our God standing next to Goliath -- he's so much bigger, and I won't stand by and let this uncircumcised Philistine taunt our God's army. So we say, don't ignore your fear -- look at it, but look at it in the context of the greatness of our God. That's what JJ did -- he said, Dad, I see this real, present danger of sharks, they're going to be there, but I don't want to let them steal the joy we have as a family, and I have to go back in the ocean. It's not the size of the shark that's worth measuring -- and by the way, we've got some eight-foot bull shark jaws, which are actually some of the smallest of what we believe the size of our shark that day would have been, courtesy of our friend Mark the Shark. I'd tell people, believe in God, believe he can do anything, and that no matter what happens, everything will turn out for good -- face your fear, and everything is so much better when you believe God is right by your side.

Crossing from Fear to Freedom

Tom Rowland: Have you truly crossed over from fear to freedom the way your dad describes it? How many times have you been in the ocean since the shark attack -- snorkeling on Lukey Reef, any reef, swimming at any depth?

Jameson Reeder Jr.: A lot -- too many to count, honestly. The last shark I encountered was a seven-foot nurse shark I caught fishing with Captain Jake. Going back every year, from diving to fishing gulf-side with Captain Timmy Carlyle catching tarpon -- it's too many times to remember. But my last clear memory, the one I wanted to tell you about, is that the last time we were at the reef we saw three or four different Caribbean reef sharks, right after the book came out, when we ended the book tour down in the lower Keys. We saw those same few sharks maybe ten to twelve times that day -- my brother and his kids, my parents, and several friends were there, Zach was with us again, and they're cruising all around, but ninety-nine point nine percent of the time they want nothing to do with us. The bull sharks are the ones that sneak up behind you, so we're always doing three-sixties. Except for that last one -- I wasn't using the best language, backing up as the shark kept coming closer and faster. Zach and my grandma were right there watching. I was scared that time.

Tom Rowland: So you have faced your fear, and you have found freedom. And as you continue to see sharks, there's a good, natural fear -- like being careful around a hot stove. Sharks are powerful apex predators, and if they want you, there's not much you can do about it out there at Lukey Reef. You've done an incredible job, and you obviously still have very important safety talks, just like the day of the attack.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: Yeah, Tom, I'd say he's fourteen now, and he hasn't just found freedom -- he continues to have this tenacity where, even when he sees them, he recognizes their power and beauty but isn't going to let them keep him out of the water. That's given his younger cousins who were with us that day, and so many people who've heard the story and emailed or messaged us, the courage to face their own fear. As I was saying, it's not the size of the shark that's worth measuring -- it's the strength of your Savior. Do you have a Savior mighty to save when the sharks of your story and your world start circling? There's a passage early in Genesis that says people are made in God's image, the crown jewel of creation, and we're called to be stewards of the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. Well, how can you steward something you're afraid of? You've got to get out on the water, and even into the water, to ultimately steward it -- like James Cameron or Jacques Cousteau, who discovered more the deeper they went. So at some level, maybe a farmer in the heartland hears this story and thinks, that's where sharks live, why would you ever get in the ocean? Well, that's why -- because how do you steward what God's called you to steward if you're afraid of it?

The Shark Population Debate

Jameson Reeder Sr.: Now this gets into another part of the story you talk about a lot, which is the population of sharks today. When I was surfing New Smyrna Beach in high school -- the Shark Bite Capital of the World -- I kicked a shark once and looked back and saw its tail flapping on the surface, and the surfers were as thick as the sharks out there. One of the older surfers laughed and said, if he wanted you, he would have gotten you, that was just a mistake. This was mid-to-late nineties, before everyone had a phone in their pocket -- we'd stop at the local surf shop for wax, and they'd have an aerial shot from a helicopter of the best break showing how many sharks there were in one snapshot -- an area the size of your living room might have four to six sharks in it. They were there, you knew it, and you still went out. Today, I hear from fishermen all the time that they can hardly get a fish to the boat without a shark getting some competitive angle on it, or just taking it outright. I think the amount of sharks in the water has risen greatly -- maybe too many -- and our ability to steward the fishery is affected because the fish population has decreased from overfishing at some level. That's a question for you, you're the pro, but that's what Mark the Shark thinks -- he cuts sharks open and does necropsies, and he's finding fewer fish in their stomachs. Naturally, like any animal, there's a learned behavior where they hear an engine and that's the dinner bell -- either fishing or chumming, and they'll get some food eventually. Mark told us once he opened up a shark's stomach and found an arm, all the way up to the shoulder -- he's seen some crazy things, including human remains. What do you think, Captain Tom?

Tom Rowland: I think there's an overwhelming amount of evidence that there are more sharks than there used to be, and more shark interactions than there used to be. I've been doing this for a while, longer than some, not as long as others -- but in the scheme of things that's still a small amount of time, so I don't know what it was like a hundred and fifty years ago, I wasn't there, and we didn't fish the same areas back then anyway. But I do know that thirty years ago, the things we're seeing today didn't happen. That's my realm of understanding -- I'm not saying it's good or bad, but I find it interesting that some people won't even acknowledge there are more sharks than ever, in their own experience. You can have that reference point in your own life -- this is more sharks than I've ever seen, more shark attacks on fish and people than I've ever seen -- and I believe the evidence leans heavily in that direction for the state of Florida. I also believe there could be places worldwide with almost no sharks, and other areas with giant explosions of sharks, and I find it interesting some people won't acknowledge that could be the case either.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: We did an episode for National Geographic's Shark Attack 360, and one of the segments -- all real science, PhDs testing this themselves -- found that when sharks hear the twang of a spear gun, it creates a vibration and noise pattern in the water they're specifically wired to key in on, this is exciting, let's go -- and there's a similar pattern with a boat engine. My wife is a behavior analyst, and she says whether it's people or animals, there are behavior patterns you can study and analyze -- that's what these PhDs from FAU, University of Miami, and around the coastal regions are doing. From what I've heard, it's really the American coastal waters where there's been a boom in shark populations. And let's be clear, sharks are an important part of the marine ecosystem, they're not the bad guy.

Tom Rowland: Nobody's doubting that, especially fishermen -- the question is, what do you do if there are more sharks and they're more aggressive? There are bills being proposed, like the Shark Act, but what I don't want to see is someone telling divers and fishermen they can't go to an area at all -- access is the key issue. And there has to be some consideration that if every fish you catch is getting eaten by a shark, isn't that functionally the same as keeping all those fish? We have bag limits for a reason -- you can't keep four hundred mutton snapper, there's a sustainable number everyone plays by, or you get in trouble. So if you catch fifty fish and they all get eaten, isn't that the same as catching fifty fish? Good guides know that if you catch fifty and they all get eaten, that's fifty that won't be there next time, making their job even harder, so you catch a couple, they get eaten, and you move on. But a guy with only two or three spots who doesn't get out much doesn't have the option to just go somewhere else -- he finally finds the fish biting like he's always dreamed, and they're all getting eaten, and he doesn't know he should just stop and move on, even though it's the best fishing he's ever found. There needs to be some education for well-meaning people working hard to find fish who then lose them all to sharks.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: When you were guiding in the Keys, did you find it was just a few certain spots where that was happening, or was it starting to happen more everywhere?

Tom Rowland: For a long time it was a rarity -- you might have a tarpon get eaten once a season. I remember a hammerhead chasing a tarpon in a basin once, and that was a story you told for years because it happened so rarely. There are other places, at bridges and other collection spots, with a lot of fish, a lot of sharks, and a lot of people fishing, where shark attacks on hooked fish were more common, and guides kept fishing there because it didn't happen every day. Now it's happening every day, and I don't know the full answer -- some people say shut it down, some say don't fish there, but I think it's a combination of educating guides and recreational anglers that sometimes you have to move on. You can absolutely shut down fishing in an area entirely, and in my experience, once they shut it down, you don't get it back. There's a place on Key West, just north of it, called Boca Chica Beach, where you used to be able to launch on the ocean side on a north wind, get out of the wind, and pole the beach for bonefish or barracuda. There aren't many spots like that in Key West, and they shut it down thirty years ago, supposedly to count fish and reopen it later -- it's still closed today, though you can run jet skis all over it. That's a bellwether to me -- once you give up access, there's very little likelihood it reopens. A lot of fishermen's concern about sharks really comes down to, does this mean one day we won't be allowed in there at all? That's a real possibility, which is why people have such strong opinions. My strong opinion is don't limit access -- you can say don't fish here, don't keep fish here, whatever, but saying you cannot go in here anymore is tough, because that just pushes more pressure onto the places you can still go.

Preserving Access to the Water

Tom Rowland: To me, access is the most important thing, and you can layer rules and regulations on top of that. I've seen access taken away before, places that were just closed by decision, whether federal or state waters -- sometimes for good reason, like manatees or bird nesting, sometimes you just have to idle through a channel for five miles and it's not worth going anymore. But the ability to never go back is hard to swallow. I think you can maintain access and still limit behavior or limit what you keep. Because if we lose access -- similar to your story, if JJ were afraid of the ocean and never went back in his whole life, would he really care what's going on out there? Would he be a steward of it? If you're never going to go where grizzly bears live because you're afraid of them, do you really care if they build condos there? It takes people who use a place to protect a place. The most staunch conservationists I know are hunters, fishermen, spearfishermen, and divers -- people who actually use the area, not someone who just looks at a picture of it. Use is the most important thing.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: We've wanted our story to be not a scare tactic keeping people out of the water, but an elevation of this beautiful place we still love and go back to multiple times a year -- the reef diving, the fishing, the flats, the Gulf side, the Atlantic side. There's something about that whole region, the Gulf Stream, the Atlantic, the Gulf all converging, that's hard to put into words. In some ways I don't want too many people to know about it, if they're just going in for a quick taste rather than really wanting to enjoy and preserve it for generations -- my kids, your kids, our grandkids one day. I think about the old tarpon crowd, Jimmy Buffett, Tom McGuane, and you're the only one still alive from that legendary group -- I'd love to sit with you and ask how different the flats were in the early seventies compared to today. I suspect the answer would be, very different.

Tom Rowland: I'm sure it is different, but the only way you'd know that is by having used it, experienced it, and understood how fragile it is, and that you need to protect it. If you never went out there, or weren't allowed to, you wouldn't have any real baseline to know it used to be better, because you don't even know. That's my soapbox -- access. I want people to use it, and from that use comes the protection of it, because otherwise you don't even know what's out there.

Meeting Manny Puig

Tom Rowland: One thing I want to get to -- what does Manny think of your shark attack story? I've been doing this a while, mostly above the water, but Manny's been doing it longer, and a lot underwater -- that guy's a waterman, above, below, every way there is water, fresh and salt. When you told him your story, what was his reaction?

Jameson Reeder Sr.: He reached out to me on Instagram after hearing about it. I'd grown up watching him as a kid, around the Jackass era with Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O, but he was doing something called Wild Boyz, and even earlier stuff with National Geographic and Discovery Channel. I'd always respected and followed him, so when he reached out I thought, this is amazing. We started talking, and at this point he probably calls me every other week or so over the last year plus. He's become a strong follower of Jesus and a great student of the Bible, so we talk a lot about how this connects biblically, and about our experiences -- as a young boy I was catching fish in the Ten Thousand Islands and would see, every once in a while, a big bull shark take a sizable snapper. We compare stories, fishing, diving, surfing, and of course he has hundreds more experiences than I do -- it's all salt water for him, he's got fresh and salt. But what's amazing is that after everything he's done, he told me he believes there's a shark problem. I said, tell me more, and he said that in any East Coast or West Coast American coastal region, he won't get in the water unless he has some form of shark deterrent, like a shark bully stick or a spear gun. I asked him to confirm -- you won't get in the ocean unless you have some form of protection to keep a shark at a distance -- and he said, that's correct. I find that very telling, coming from him. And again, he's not demonizing sharks, they've got to eat, they're an important and beautiful part of the ecosystem -- JJ has a great white shark on his prosthetic leg, though he's not wearing it right now because of the baseball injury. We're also friends with Mike Coots, a surfer in Hawaii who had a shark attack four years before Bethany Hamilton and is now an underwater shark photographer -- also a right-leg amputee below the knee. He and JJ have become great friends and have surfed together. His book of shark photography is beautiful, they really are amazing animals. But when there's too many of them in the same area, there's bound to be a problem, and Manny's story kind of epitomizes that -- he's not afraid to get in the water, but he wants a shark bully to keep them at a distance because they're too curious these days and there are too many of them.

Tom Rowland: One thing we talked about earlier was the idea that there are more sharks and fewer fish -- but I don't know that I believe that, because the fishing is really good right now, at least in the Keys and the Everglades where I fish mostly. I feel like there won't be more sharks unless they have something to eat, and for a lot of species we fish for -- snook, redfish, bonefish in some areas -- there are as many as I've ever seen, thriving even in areas with a lot of sharks. So the sharks are eating them, and there's still a lot of them, which I think is a positive way to look at it. That's what Chris Fisher from OCEARCH said when he was on the show -- more sharks can mean a healthy ocean, because those sharks have to have something to eat. I tend to agree -- I think the overall health of a lot of areas is better than it was a while back, thanks to a lot of different people and organizations. If there's nothing to eat, sharks die of starvation, but they're not dying, they're getting bigger, more numerous, and more aggressive, so they have to be eating something.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: So there's a question here -- I see your point, and Mark the Shark's point, and everyone else's, and I think you're all right, but you can't all be right about the same area. Mark fishes mostly around Miami and says he sees no fish in the sharks' bellies there -- you're talking mostly about the Keys.

Tom Rowland: Good point, good distinction. I don't fish the northernmost Keys much -- from Key West to Islamorada and the Everglades is mostly where I fish, and not as much as I used to. Mark has tremendous experience, he's tagged and released more sharks than anyone, and also killed and cut open more sharks than anyone -- he's an interesting, almost dichotomous person, can be very brash and very kind. Whatever he's seeing is true in his own experience, no question. But the sharks he's cutting open are gigantic, and they didn't get that way without eating a lot of things, so I don't know what an empty stomach really indicates -- if anyone would know, it's Mark, since he actually cuts them open rather than just looking. It's an interesting observation, not an argument -- his observation is within his realm of experience, Chris Fisher's is within his, Manny's is within his, divers have theirs, and there's truth to all of it. How it all fits together is a bit of a mystery, and people also have preferences -- some divers love seeing sharks and Goliath grouper because it makes for an exciting dive, while a fisherman who hooks a fish and loses it to a shark doesn't feel the same way. The underlying truth might be the same -- a lot of predators and a lot of fish -- but one group likes it and the other doesn't, which makes for a lot of debate.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: Do we have a shark biologist's opinion in this? We talked to Dr. Hammerschlag, who at the time, three and a half years ago, headed the shark research program, and he's the one who invited us to go cage diving with hammerheads in the Bahamas.

Tom Rowland: He'll have an opinion based on his own experience too, which won't take into account everything Manny, Chris, a diver, a commercial fisherman, or a guide has seen. I don't think we're ever going to reach a full conclusion, because there's too much infighting between groups to admit something that might not benefit their own interests. We're all a little opinionated, because we're trying to protect the ocean, but also trying to protect our own way of life. It's complicated -- but I wanted both of your opinions because you're coming from a place where maybe one or two people in the audience have been bitten by a shark, but very few have had a leg bitten off. You have a very unique perspective.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: I've heard from friends that sharks help clean up trash we throw in the ocean, and that they thin out diseased or dying fish. Mark will even tell us he's found part of a tire in a bull shark's stomach.

Tom Rowland: Maybe, but when you actually fish for sharks, it's not like the movies where the grosser the bait, the better -- sharks like fresh, healthy bait. Old bait that's been sitting in the sun, they'll come up and reject it. Different species are particular in different ways -- a tiger shark, from my experience, seems like it'll eat almost anything it comes across, though they're also a lot slower than people think, more like a nurse shark with a lot of teeth than a fast sight-feeder like a blacktip. Since they're not fast, if they bump into something, they'll just bite it, which is probably why you find strange things in a tiger shark's stomach.

Shark Deterrent Technology

Jameson Reeder Sr.: We've had a pretty interesting experience with shark bands, have you heard of those? They reached out after hearing our story and sent us a bunch, and we've used them pretty much all the time since, though there's been plenty of times we've forgotten. In their videos, you see sharks -- big bull sharks in the Bahamas -- come up to investigate a mannequin on a surfboard with a shark band on its ankle, and then veer away. There's also a version now for a fishing line, so when you've got a fish on, it won't impede the fish coming to the lure, but it messes with the electroreceptors in the shark's nose in about a six-foot radius and hurts, so they peel away. Our shark attack probably wouldn't have been prevented by it, though, since our shark came from sixty to eighty yards away and closed the distance in a split second -- she'd have been attacking before she ever sensed it. Maybe after the first bite she'd have backed off, but for a fast-approaching shark like ours, or like a great white, it probably wouldn't help as much as it would with a slower-approaching tiger shark.

Tom Rowland: I haven't tried anything like that on my fishing gear -- I'd think it would be hard to have anything on the line that wouldn't also affect the fish, since they're already hard enough to catch. Maybe something that could shoot an electric pulse down the line toward the hooked fish without knocking it off the hook -- I don't know, I don't have a strong opinion on the technology itself. My strong opinion is just, let us keep going to the places.

Jameson Reeder Jr.: I was interested in the shark bands when I first saw them, and in most of the videos I watched, it seemed to only really work on one type of shark -- I don't think it was a tiger shark, and I never saw a different species react the same way. I haven't had many chances to test it myself, since thankfully I haven't had many shark encounters that close.

Closing

Tom Rowland: I hope so. Guys, I hate to cut it off here, but we had a nice long conversation, it was great catching up with you. Congratulations on all your success and what you're doing -- you're out there spreading the word and helping a lot of people. Good for you.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: Thank you so much, man. Love being with you, love hearing everything you shared too, that's been fun.

Tom Rowland: Thanks, it was great. All right guys, we'll do this again, catch up in another eight months or so and find out how everything's going. Thank you guys, see ya.

Jameson Reeder Sr.: All right, let's do it.