We left Karen (in peace and quiet) while heading east to fish the bay.

We’re motoring to known fishing spots that we’ve all been in the past, usually on kayaks, then beyond those areas.  I’ve heard about Pelican Reef, Marsh Island,  pilot harbor,  East End, Goose Island, Youth Camp oyster bars and the ‘highway of life’ for many years.  Dennis fished them while he lived in Tallahassee.  Eric fished them when visiting Dennis.  Myself and Rich fished some of these points when we joined the ‘kayak fishing  club’.  But it starts with getting onto the island.  This bridge brings us to SGI.

We’re fishing with (1) live bait and (2) soft plastic artificial lures – more on that in a future post.  We have 11 rods between the five of us (trust me, that’s not hardly enough).  Eighty pounds of ice between the drink cooler and the fish cooler.

As in life, nothing is guaranteed and that’s more with fishing that one would hope.  However………………….this first trip we were successful!  Others had put fish in the cooler before me, but this is my first keeper seatrout.

Eric caught this shark………..and released him.

Eventually we were chased off the water by this.

And this, which kind of surprised us as it came from the coastline.  Let me tell you, rain hurts on the boat!  Not the boat – but when those rain drops hit you and you’re going 42 mph, droplets pack quite a punch.

This was a nice Father’s day photo with Rich and Connor.

But overall, this excursion netted us 10 fish and we all put keeper fish in the cooler.  Fish count was 5 seatrout and 5 mackerel.

There’s another key step involved with catching fish……….cleaning and filleting the fish.  Eric is the master (sorry guys, I’m married to him).  His filet competition is Audrey, but she’s not here.  😦  Nor is her brother, Warner.  Not sure if Connor was aware he photo-bombed this shot.

Eric drew a crowd – of the feathered kind.  As he was cleaning the fish, these pelicans (and some seagulls) waited for the fish guts.

Later that day, three of us went back out on the water.  The weather looked dicey later in the week and we want to rack up as many hours fishing while the weather was good. We had another good trip.  That flat fish seen at the bottom of the photo……..It’s a flounder.  We could thank Connor for that one!  It’s my favorite and an elusive fish since we don’t specifically target them.

Swimming in the morning, dinner that night.  That’s the goal for any fish we catch.  The mackerel turned into sushi.

The seatrout turned into Trout Almondine.  Since Eric couldn’t find the slivered almonds he packed, we used  marcona almonds.  OMG!  Those were Italian almonds and I don’t think we can go back to using anything else.

While we didn’t catch these shrimp ourselves, they were locally caught – and very delicious I might add.  Having homemade remoualade and cocktail enhanced their flavor – thanks hon. Love the platter and bowl!

While I can’t take credit for this sunset photo (thanks Karen!) it’s a fitting way to end this post.

Ginny