Gone Fishin'

We took a deep sea fishing trip and I came away battered, bruised and sore. I can barely move. 

We headed to Fort Myers Beach and boarded Capt. Tony's boat. This is your typical "cattle" boat. They line you up elbow to elbow and you generally spend most of your time trying to not get tangled with the person next to you. The boat ended up being about 3/4 full even though it's the off season.

There's a straight up stairway on the front of the boat to get to the top deck. We were just hanging out up there waiting for them to get started. Just as the captain fired up the engines we decided to go downstairs. I took one step down and my foot slipped out from underneath me. I landed on my ass and went whacka, whacka, whacka all the way down to the bottom. I came out with huge bruises on my wrist, my ankle and one hell of a sore butt. Great start!

Here's Mike doing some fishing. They use really heavy spinning bait caster type rods and reels. You don't do any real casting, you just drop it straight down to the bottom. The rods are heavy and have a very long butt at the end so I couldn't hold it in one hand while reeling with the other. I managed by shoving the end under my armpit and letting it stick out the other side so I could get some leverage.

Mike caught the first fish. We had no idea what they were, if they were good to eat or not, so we just started chucking them in our bucket, deal with it later. 

Here's one of them. It's called a grunt. We only kept two kinds of fish. They told me what kind they were but I can't remember. A porgy or something like that? The real fish everyone was gunning for was grouper. I managed to reel one in.

It was fun. He fought hard and it was difficult because I had that rod trapped under my left arm and I had to hold it above the rail. Too much upper body strength for me. Once he was about half way up he gave in and it was easy to reel him the rest of the way. They measured him at 18 inches. Grouper have to be at leasts 20 inches before we can keep them. Goodbye grouper.

Not to be outdone, Mike pulled one in, too. They measured him at 18 and half inches. I'm pretty sure they just added that half inch in so Mike would look good. Ha. Men and their inches! LOL.

On the way out we saw a small shark, and on the way back Mike saw a big old sea turtle. (I missed it...) But here's the best, the dolphins gave us a nice show.

It was quick but it was fantastic. They were riding the waves at the end of the boat. They would jump high and flip around in mid air. Awesome way to end the trip.

We caught about 28 keepers and they quick filleted them for us. There's about 2 pounds of fish there.

Mike won for first fish and biggest fish. (Although, I still think they fudged on the size of that grouper.) And I won for most fish and biggest keeper. I am the tight line fishing queen!!!

I am sooooooo sore! Having to hold that heavy rod so high has my upper arms and back aching. I found another huge bruise under my left arm from the rod. I am beaten and battered. But, we're having fresh fish for dinner tonight.