Friday, April 22, 2011

Mexico Beach!

And so we arrived.  Very late last night.  Neither of us could sleep yet we were so happy to be up here again.  Finally I went to bed at 2:30 AM CT and woke at 6:46 AM CT.  around 9:30 we went out to the pier to do some fishing.  The tv cable was not coming in clearly at all and Neal had phoned the management company and they in turn had phoned the cable company. 

Neal got all set up to fish and caught two of these spade/angel (fish tank looking) fish before I even had my rig on my 1st pole!
and here he is posing with the fish because I made him.  If you've ever been fishing and caught a fish and not taken its picture only to never get another fish all day, well then you know why I made him pose with this fish.  However.............

 Then the cable company called and the rep said he was going to be to the condo in 10 mins and Neal started walking back.  And so..... I caught this! on the lovely pink pole you see in the upper right.
 A Pompano!  Garry had told me the pompano had been running there a couple of weeks ago and gave me very detailed instructions of what rigging to use, where to buy the rigs, which shrimp from which place etc etc.  and well, here is what happens when you listen to someone who fishes all the areas around Mexico Beach on a very frequent basis..... you catch your husband's dream fish catch!


and a nice gentleman who admired my catch agreed to take my picture with the fish so I could be oh so happy in the photo with the pompano!  and I kept it too!  Neal wanted to taste a pompano as we've heard they are very good eating.  and it was teehee  So I called Neal (who was still at the condo) to tell him ummmm "honey when you bring me my chapstick bring a lot of ice!"  and then after a few more angel/spade fish my other nearly-local fishing buddy Brent had caught a flounder and I wanted to see what it looked like "I haven't seen one in so long" even though it was very small.  As I'm down looking at this flounder I turn around to see one of the light weight rods bent over the dock with the  bottom of the rod about 6" off of the ground and it was NEAL's pole as after I caught that pompano I put a third baited rig into the water to up my odds of catching another one.

Needless to say, I raced back to my/Neal's pole and grabbed it and man was that thing bent nicely!  It was moving around and I thought I had another Pompano but then it started heading to shore and I started following my line down the pier over a pole under a pole over a pole over a pole over a sign post all along Brent is following me down the pier telling me up   under   up  etc so I did not lose the fish.  and he is telling me its a ray it swims like a ray.  I said its big whatever it is and kept walking up and down the pier as it swam back and forth below me still too deep to see what it is/was.  I trying to reel and dig into my shorts pocket (the kind with velcor to keep them closed ) battling to get my camera out as I was so sure I was going to lose it but I hoped to at least get it to the surface to take the mystery out of what type of fish it was.  well dear readers, below you will see the bringing the fish up to the pier and photos of my HUGE black Drum!







and I caught more spade/angel fish and some "bait fish" as we call them and I caught another pompano just before Neal came back from the Cable tv fixing appointment and look something tried to take my catch away from me as i was reeling it in!  I gave this one away.  A really nice young man filleted my original pompano for me and taught me how to fillet it and then Neal and i ate it as a snack after we were done fishing for the day.  We were out about 4 hours (well i was there all that time) and that includes clean up time of all the gear so the condo does not smell of fishing shack!
 You can see my second pompano was much smaller than the first one even if he had retained all of his belly!


May each of you have a day filled with as much joy and relaxation as I had today.
Shrimp smelling finger hugs from
denise/deBRAT

3 comments:

  1. Gosh, it looks like you had a lot of fun. I imagine that pompano was mighty tasty!

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  2. How was the black drum? That's a big fish! So glad to hear you are having a good time. The sunshine looks positively wonderful as does your smile!
    Enjoy.

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  3. Leigh the pompano WAS tasty! will keep another one in the future but not today as we leave tomorrow morning.

    Theresa hmmm how to say this without appearing cruel. While I love TO fish I do not enjoy cleaning it or even eating it very much. So we seldom keep anything we catch. So as I"d already caught the pompano and kept it and it had stopped flopping in the cooler, I offered it up to the gentleman who had helped me land each of those fish onto the dock. Brent did not want it as he is leaving next month for his up north home and already has a freezer full to take back with him. And surprisingly enough there was not another person on the pier who wanted the drum. So it was a VERY happy me who put him back over the side to live another day to make another fisherman very happy some future day.

    And now, I'm nearly done my second cup of coffee and the fish are calling me to get my behind out there and try my luck at getting another one of them! Enjoy your day all
    Denise/deBRAT happy fisherfemale!

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