Friday, June 20, 2008

Fishing on another Ocean
I finally added the Atlantic to my ocean fishing experiences. The dock for a half-day boat was next to the hotel, so I went down and met the skipper one evening. "I've never been fishing on the Atlantic, though I've been up and down the west coast", I said. "Have you been on the Red Rooster?", he asked. "I sure have", I said. The skipper said "I have a three-hundred pound jacket from the Red Rooster." That means that he went on one of the really long trips beyond the tip of Baja and caught a 300+ pound tuna, and they gave him a jacket for that accomplishment. "Come down in the morning and I'll take care of you" said the skipper, so I did go out on the morning trip on Wednesday in my Red Rooster t-shirt. The trip was drift fishing over a reef about 2 miles offshore in beautiful blue water, and the skipper placed me next to the corner of the driftfishing side and the stern; the best place there is for this sort of thing. Thirty-five other fishermen showed up, so I was glad for what he did for me.

Unfortunately there were hardly any fish; less than a dozen for everybody in the whole trip; hardly a bite for me. Red Snapper, baracuda-like Kingfish, remora (swim with sharks) with suckers on the top of their heads about the size of a sandal (the skipper brought all the kids over and said "Look, he's my pet" Stay!" and then planted the remora on the ceiling just above my head where it stuck), and a nice fat Bonito, the only fish I could identify from my experiences in the Pacific.

No fish but it was a lot of fun, just being out on the water and back on a fishing boat. When I got back to the dock I bought a t-shirt there which I'll wear on an upcoming trip out of Ketchikan.

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