There’s weird … then there’s just plain freakified, the latter being the case with a mind-bending fish tale related to nighttime anglers taking on a terror of a fish. The hookup took place on the South Jetty at Barnegat Lighthouse State Park.

Above: Pompano a plenty. I got this email from Rob G.: “Thought you might like to see the mess of pompano my brother Ken and I caught on sand fleas …  All the fish were caught between noon and 4 p.m. and had fork lengths between 12 and 13.5”.  … We have been coming to the island for many years, and these were the first pompano we have caught. How many reports of pomps do you receive? They are much more fun to catch than fluke!

By the time it reached me, the tale had intensified to where it sounded like a buncha bull … which was exactly the case, technically.

Using heavy fishing gear, an extreme angler and his buddies had hooked, battled, conquered and painstakingly released what I…