Off the Charts!

Hi Everyone!

Since returning back from Pittsburgh, we've slowly been trying to adjust back to the Florida life.

Last weekend, we had a fun night out with Chad and Lisha, and tried out a new Mexican place in Tampa.

Glenn continues to stalk butterflies in his spare time.

But our latest adventure yesterday brought us some real excitement.

For our anniversary, I decided to surprise Glenn and book us a half-day inshore fishing charter with Captain Stewart Ames. Captain Stewart called me on Friday night to warn me that the weather had been so unpredictable that he'd had to cancel several other charters during the week, and we'd just have to see how things were on Saturday.

In fact, it has been raining a LOT over the past couple weeks. There was a 60% chance of storms yesterday morning, but we got super lucky. The charter left out of a marina in nearby Ozona, where Chad and Lisha have their little cottage down the road. I was happy to see that it was just the captain and us going out on our own private trip.

 

We headed out to an area off the shore of Caladesi Island, and storms were building on all sides of us.

Capt. Stewart surveying the scene.

By some miracle, we made it through the entire 4 hours without getting rained on at all. It was a weirdly beautiful day.

This osprey was eating a fish, and the birds below were feasting on his leftovers.

So now, I am going to tell our story a bit backwards so I can save the best for last. Towards the end of the day, we went over to some mangroves and fished for redfish. Captain Stewart suggested he cast for us, and we let him, because we would have just thrown our bait directly into the branches of the mangrove trees. He actually had perfected an amazing cast that went underneath the trees and back into the little hidden pools...it was something to see.

Anyway, at this spot, Glenn caught two redfish and I caught one. Sadly, mine threw himself overboard before we could take his picture, but we got this one of Glenn and one of his fish. These were relatively small for redfish (probably around 16 inches) and our Capt. was somewhat disappointed with them.

We told him that we were used to catching fish that were usually around 4 inches long. :-)

At the very end of our day, Glenn caught a big sting ray. Good grief. The thing took off and eventually suction cupped himself to the bottom and Glenn couldn't budge him. Quite a workout.

Stewart said he wouldn't bring it into the boat anyway for safety reasons, so it was a relief when the line finally snapped, although I would have liked to have gotten a picture of it.

But anyway, back to the beach by Caladesi. We were anchored right off shore, where we had seen a few swimmers earlier. Fortunately, the threatening weather had scared off most other fishermen for the day.

We were fishing with live bait that Stewart caught that morning. Whitefish and grunts (pigfish) mostly. He taught us how to cast for salt water fishing (two handed, over the head, since the bait is heavier than fresh water), and all sorts of fishing techniques. But we went for probably a half hour or so with no success.

Suddenly, BOOM! Something hit my line and took off - the line just zipping out. The nice thing is there is really no need to set the hook with bigger fish - they seem to set it themselves. The captain was yelling at me to "reel, reel, reel" which was easier said than done, as I could hardly turn the reel at all. (He later taught me how to make this easier.)

Anyway, somehow I managed to bring in the first fish of the day, a 29-inch snook.

Ta-da!

You are actually not allowed to keep snook right now - they are out of season. So this one went back to sea after her selfie. (FYI, I say "her" because Stewart told us that once snook grow to be over 27 inches long, they all turn female. I looked this up, and as unlikely as it sounds, it appears to be true.)

Not too long after this, Glenn got a hit near the same spot. Stewart was saying it must be another snook, although smaller, but whatever it was still was putting up a hell of a fight.

When Glenn landed the fish, we discovered it was a beautiful sea trout. Stewart said that they are hardly catching any of those at all right now, especially such a big one, and he was very excited. He told me he might put this picture in this month's newsletter.

What a beauty! 23 inches!

The trout was actually the only fish we were allowed to keep, and so, I shall be cooking that for dinner tonight.

Not long after this picture was taken, I once again got another hit. The line went screaming out and suddenly we could all see this huge fish just racing along the shoreline. Glenn and I both said it was the fastest we've ever seen a fish take off. It was both exciting and terrifying.

This ended up being a much harder fight. While the first snook was somewhat cooperative and swam towards me, this time, the fish raced off and then started circling the boat. The captain wasn't sure what I had...thought it might be an amberjack. Anyway, he's all excited and yelling at me to reel, reel, reel, and follow the fish so the line wouldn't get wrapped around anything.

At one point the thing went under the boat and I thought I was going to lose him, but Stewart took the rod from me, persuaded him to move somehow, and then gave me back the rod. I was not sure I wanted the rod back at this point. (Glenn said he was glad he wasn't fighting the thing; we could tell it was huge.) Anyway, I have no idea how, but I managed to bring it in.)

So yay! The biggest fish I've ever caught in my life, another snook, just shy of 35 inches.

While this pics were being taken, my arms and legs were totally shaking. I was saying, "Take the damn picture!!!"

After that, I was kind of hoping not to catch anything else for a while. That was exhausting!

So anyway, that was our anniversary on the water. We both had so much fun; such a great day.

Afterwards, Stewart filleted Glenn's trout for us, much to the delight of the onlookers.

We caught a total of 6 fish - 2 snook, 1 sea trout, and 3 redfish. (Not counting the sting-ray.) Not a ton, but the best day of fishing we've had.

Last night, we went to Ocean Prime for a lovely anniversary dinner. It was nice to get all cleaned up as we were pretty disgusting after a day on the boat.

So that's it for this week's adventure. Hope you all are having a great week!