I was fortunate enough to be asked by two fellow visitors to join them for a day of fishing this week. Now you have to understand that not by any standards would I be termed a fisherman. However as I learned, there may be something to the saying of “A bad day fishing is better than a good day…”.
Karen and I woke that morning to the wind whipping through the mangroves all around us and the sky heavily overcast. We conferred with one of the owners of our resort and he assured us it would be ok out on the water. With great trepidation we headed south to the dock we were to meet everyone at. The plan was for Karen to go diving with the wife of one of the fellows I was fishing with. They are a fantastic couple from Indiana whom we had the pleasure of meeting on previous trips here and had been lucky enough to meet up with again.
They apparently had a great day diving and saw tonnes of fish, dozens of nurse sharks and more eels than they counted on.
Our fishing party headed out into choppy waters with the wind blowing hard. I must confess to a bit of a weak stomach when it comes to rough waters and was quite concerned with embarrassing myself by spending the day hurling over the side of the boat. I believe it is politely called chumming the water to attract the fish. I can happily report I survived the entire day without even the inclination to be sick, and trust me there was no lack of sitting wallowing in the waves throughout the day. No small victory for me. Robert took us down the coast a ways and cast his net to collect our bait for the day. We then spent a very pleasant morning catching a dozen or so snapper and grunt fish. I even caught a baby barracuda, about 10 inches long that we threw back in.
Just after noon we went ashore and Robert prepared a delicious lunch of some of our fresh caught fish, potato, and some ceviche. It was a taste treat that is very hard to beat.
The afternoon session got very exciting for me when Robert spotted a barracuda swimming near our boat. He hooked up some bait and handed me the rod. Let me tell you there is no question when a barracuda takes the bait, WOW! It took around 8 – 10 minutes to bring the fish on board and it was very impressive. I couldn’t get the smile off my face.
We got some more fishing in after that but the wind started picking up even more and we wrapped it up a couple of hours before it got dark.
Robert cleaned and filleted all the fish for us and sent us home with several meals. I must say the barracuda was very tasty that night and I am looking forward to trying many different recipes with it.
Nice work Pete! Glad the trout out here don’t have teeth like that! Could make for some interesting wading!!