BIG PINE KEY, FLORIDA – Florida Keys homeowners’ association president was arrested this week after a viral confrontation with three teenage anglers ended with her being slapped across the face by a 40-pound tarpon.
It happened at the world-famous Conched Up Keys Resort, where a trio of pond-hopping, dock-hopping teenagers — unidentified, as they are juveniles — were fighting the tarpon on an NLBN 8-inch swimbait picked up at a recent Bass Pro Shops pop-up.
They said, in the lingo of their people, that they were just trying to get their lines tight “for the gram,” because “the tug is the drug.” The three are self-described “clean teens,” who insist fishing is the only drug they need and urge peers to “just say no,” DARE-style, circa 1987.
They had help. Rusty Pilings, a local fishing legend dating to the 1950s, had watched the kids catch exactly one pinfish off a bridge in two hours and taken pity — leading them to his secret honey hole, a Gulf-facing sea wall inside the very resort where he once lived. He claims he named the place himself, after his first child was conceived there.
Unlike the teens, Rusty lit up his fish whistle. Within 15 minutes, the tarpon arrived. Maybe it was the whistle. Maybe it was the tide.
The moment the first teen hooked up, she arrived: Gertrude Vanderhoa — president of the Conched Up homeowners’ association and a Karen in the most technical sense of the term — came screaming up in a tricked-out golf cart with a battery-powered siren, her small yapping dog leaping into action beside her. Rusty recognized her instantly. “She’s been a Karen since she was three,” he said. “Gertrude even had the haircut.”
What happened next is now a famous video. Gertrude dodged Rusty and stormed onto the dock — at which point the tarpon, seemingly aware of exactly who she was, launched from the water and smacked her clean across the face. Dazed, she toppled into the canal, then resumed her rampage the instant she climbed out.
*We’ve reached out to our lawyer, Saul Goodfish about the video.
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