Acushnet Scalloper Shocked to Pull ‘Foxy’ New Bedford Nostalgia From the Atlantic

The life of a fisherman never ceases to amaze me. The ocean is a goldmine. You never know what you're going to catch until you pull up the lines and nets.

Just ask Acushnet resident Joe Santos, whose catch of the day wasn't exactly edible. It was, however, nostalgic:

A hat from the old New Bedford Foxy Lady gentlemen's club that once thrived on Pope's Island.

Santos was on his buddy's boat the FV Diligence, a scallop dredger, docked out of Fairhaven, but get this: He was scalloping in an area that's an 18- to 24-hour boat ride away and roughly 140 to 160 miles east of Nantucket.

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How the heck did this hat end up this far from shore?

"It's possible that it was on someone's head out there fishing and it blew off," Santos said. "I've lost countless hats to the wind."

While sorting through a pile freshly brought up from the ocean floor, Santos saw what he refers to as a "nasty hat" and wiped it clean to reveal the name.

"Once I realized it was an old Foxy Lady hat, I power-washed it and saved it," Santos said. "That thing was dark brown before I cleaned it up."

The strip club is gone but the nostalgia lives on.

This hat is quite a catch, and I'm sure some fisherman or scalloper out there will be relieved that their hat was found -- well, dredged -- and has found new life.

Nothing fishy about this catch.