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Marco Island-Three |
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Deep sea fishing was certainly one of the highlights of our trip — maybe the highlight since I couldn’t stop taking pictures of all the fish everybody was catching. As it turns out, we drove 10 minutes to Wild Thing Charters, only to have them find a fishing spot just off the coast in front of Robin’s condo. |
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Zooming in to the condo. |
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First Mate Jim showed everyone how to hold the rod, how to cast, and how to reel in. |
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Addie and Gunnar were fast learners. We used shrimp for bait, about the size you dip in cocktail sauce. |
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Gunnar caught six fish in a row, one after the other. This mackerel is definitely a keeper. |
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Allan probably caught the biggest mackerel. We enjoyed saying “Holy Mackerel” all afternoon. |
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This is called a Jack Crevalle and it not a fish you keep. |
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Notice the pelican waiting to retrieve the nonkeepers. |
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We didn’t like it when the guy kept throwing our fish back into the water. |
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You should have seen how hard this ocean catch fought me all the way to the boat. |
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That ol’ Jack Crevalle was a pest to everybody once in a while. |
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Maybe Jenny’s mackerel was bigger than Allan’s. |
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Chris was sitting there biding his time … and then he had the biggest strike of all. |
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Yes, he caught this shark. The bait was, in fact a mackerel that Jenny had previously caught that had been bloodied and tasted by, apparently, a shark — maybe this very shark. |
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It weighed anywhere from 50 to100 pounds, depending on the size of the fish story. |
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Shark skin is smooth when rubbed one way, and like short sharp Velcro when rubbed against the grain. |
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Gunnar shows us the mackerel that had been caught and chewed on by a passing shark as it was reeled in. The bloodied fish was then used as bait and the shark was impressed. |
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The shark was thrown back into the ocean, of course, but we made a good haul of mackerel and kept enough to bring back to the condo for two hearty meals. They were delicious. |
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That restaurant in back of Addie is Snook’s Inn, where we ate alligator yesterday. |
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First Mate Jim retrieved some of our keepers to be cleaned for us. |
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Pelicans gathered at the dock to watch Captain Randy clean our mackerel. They remained poised and in position when Gunnar reached out to touch them. |
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As we were fishing out in the deep, dolphins played alongside our boat as though they knew us. It was exciting and exhilarating each time they flipped within sight, which was often. |
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Email: Sue@PrintsPublishing.com HomePage: www.PrintsPublishing.com |
