After months of hot, hot weather, 20 knot winds, and oil-spill-sickened fish, we finally go out on the water again. It's been 6 months since we fished. Long enough for us to find a new hobby and work on the house. But, here we are, fishing again. We got to the dock at the crack of noon and started loading the boat. As we were loading, a very elderly half deaf, walking-with-a-cane man and his enormous wife motored up to the dock next to us. The poor old guy was crying and holding up his bleeding arm asking for help. We couldn't understand him at first because he was, shall we say, tooth challenged. Turns out, he was saying "I got bit by an alligator." Okay. That got our attention. With help from the folks at Shell Island we got him out of the boat without anyone falling off the dock and Nurse Becky saved the day with a beautiful bandaging job. We finally understood him to say he got "hit" by an alligator while "messing with a manatee buoy." We didn't even try to understand that one. His ginormous wife stayed in the boat the whole time talking (mostly to herself) about how she just had two teeth removed this week and she was fine "but here he went and got messed up with an alligator and he's all tore up." I found myself fascinated by the thought that she had two teeth to give when the two of them appeared to be in a tooth deficit situation. Well, we got him bandaged up, back in the boat, and on their way. The rest of the day wasn't as exciting. We got to our first usual fishing spot and started fishing and catching Redfish pups - a good start, when I happened to think about our fishing licenses. Hmmm. When exactly did they expire? Turns out, they expired last month. Up with the anchor and back to the dock to get new fishing licenses. All the while, the tide, which had started out super low, was ripping in with a southeast wind behind it. We got licenses, got back to our spot, re-anchored and, the bite was off. We fished our way through 75 of a 100 shrimp losing them every time we cast out but no fish. Well, two small pinfish.
Bec holding the Catch-Of-The-Day. No, you're not seeing things, her hand is empty.
After 6 months of sitting up the boat was horribly filthy so we ditched fishing and went back to the dock to clean the boat. Poor boat. What a mess. We got her mostly cleaned up, I didn't clean fish at the dock and,
we didn't have to clean the cooler. Bummer.
So, we washed the boat, broke down the equipment we so hopefully strung up at the start of the day
and went to Lighthouse Seafood to score some Stone Crab claws and a couple of pounds of jumbo shrimp. Catch of the day:
nothing.
But, the boat is clean.
