My Dad on Mike's boat, Game On".
We woke up to a brilliant sky (to brilliant for some) and headed out to get Florida fishing liscenses for us out of towners and some frozen bait. After we secured everything it was time to go catch some live bait. Mike had set up some live traps off his dock overnight, but we needed to catch some cigar minnows and herring to troll with. We used light weight rods and reels fitted with sibouki's (sp.). A length of line with six small, barbless hooks and a weight at the end. Each hook has colored line or what looks like small irridescent scales. The baitfish are attracted to these and bit quite eagerly. You find them using a fishfinder, drop it to the bottom (or whatever depth they are at) and bob it up and down. That's it. They bite and sometimes every hook will have a fish on it! Pressure from dragging them upwards keeps them on the barbless hooks.
Cathi trying to face the morning after a night of cards and libation!
Care must be taken when try to detach them. Those hooks are sharp as sin! the fine points can just as easily hook you. And on a bouncing boat or line full of squirmming herring, that's more of a likelihood. A full tub of bait, we now head out. As soon as we clear the other boats catching bait, we threw out some trolling lines. We had some success catching a few mackrel and bonita. After trolling to or spot Mike had picked, we began to fish in earnest. The day was beautiful, everyone caught fish. Nothing of any real size that we could enter in the contest, but plenty of fish none-the-less. We caught lots of red snapper, a few grouper and trigger fish. We got back to dock and cleaned up. Mike suggested we go to a place called,
Old Bay Steamers". That place was awesome! We had shrimp, king crab, lobster and all the fixin's. When we got home, we played some more cards (that's what we do) and called it a night.
