Fishing

A Day of Fishing – A Father’s View

As we met the captain, on the dock, the anticipation was high, especially for my son. It was obvious that the captain had started extremely early, because all gear and bait were on board and he was on our dock by 7:30 AM. The boat, the captain, and the three of us were ready for the ‘hunt’.

The Morning sea air had a salty freshness to it with the backdrop of the rising sun, blue skies, and even bluer water. The waters were smooth with a wind from the south.

A large sea turtle was on a collision course with our boat and we rounded the entrance to Red Fish Pass. The pelicans were putting on a show from the air as they dove for fish. Their accuracy is unbelievable – a fish with every dive. We had seen three dolphin with two being very close to the boat.

The ride to the first fishing spot was smooth. As the shore line became more distant, the real feeling of leaving all behind settled in.

Reaching our first fishing location, the anchor was dropped and the lines were baited. For me, it was difficult to understand why this location was so different than all of the rest of the area until I looked at the depth sounder and noted that there was structure-the bottom was different, and that difference would hold fish-one of the captain’s spots.

Within a matter of minutes, we had grouper hooked-running on the smaller size. After about a half hour, we changed locations. The next two locations proved to have a lot of fish, but on the smaller size.

The fourth spot proved to be the best and the last for the day. As soon as the first bait hit the bottom, a big fish was on. The fight took several minutes and resulted in a 16 pound red grouper. The smile on my sun’s face, after landing the fish, was the biggest I had ever seen.

For the 2 hours, we had a catching experience that I have never seen before. Many different types of fish with the red grouper in the 10 plus pound class were caught. There were two times when all four of us had fish on at the same time – the catching was fast and furious with large red and black grouper being caught.

The action was keeping the captain very busy and the below deck boxes were being filled. It was hard to believe that having started with over 100 shrimp, three dozen pin fish and 5 pounds of frozen squid; we were running out of bait. But, we limited out with fish before the bait was gone. All fishermen had their limits.

The ride home gave all a chance to rest our sore arms and backs. It also gave my son his chance to talk about his big fish for the day and the bigger one that ‘got away’.

As we approached the dock, my wife could see the smiles on our faces and she started to hear the stories from my son before we were docked.

The captain started to fillet the fish and we took time to reflect on the day. Preparation for the fish fry was started by my wife. The pile of fillets was an amount for several fish fries by our large group of three families.

The high point and the most memorable adventure during our family holiday was the fishing/catching trip. Every father should see the excitement on his son’s face that I saw that day.