Robin's Reports

DECEMBER FISHING
by Robin

Where do I even begin after being off of here for so long???

We had a very, very rough month. Everything from grieving two lost ones, to ER visits to preparing for a vacation which changed on a daily basis, seemed to consume our entire month. It seems to me like on the 18th, we were invited out on Mike & Helen's boat. We were just coming off a full moon, current was nil for the longest time and storms were predicted, but Mike had radar to help us avoid the worst of them.

So, we headed offshore with a cooler full of bait. Passed by many other sea regulars like this shrimp boat.


We found our ledge quite easily and as Helen and I began tossing squid over the side, we were bringing up fish after fish.

As it turned out, Helen brought in the most and I caught the biggest trigger. A whopping 7 lbs!



(Ladies, don't be jealous of my seafarer's vogue look.)


We split the catch up and went home for the day. Cleaned a lot of fish the next day though.




Then, we went on vacation for a while and came back home in time to fish again on the 29th. Many folks were out trying to get their limit of grouper before the season closed Jan - April.

Not us, we headed back to the ledge. Only small black sea bass were biting. Oh, I should also state that we were on our own boat this time, but Mike & Helen were out there on their boat as well. I did not bring my camera with me this trip. What a shame since on the way to our 2nd spot, we saw beautiful manta rays gone airborne. We tried to track a couple down and did happen to see some cobia on their backs but they sounded down to the bottom as soon as we caught up to them.

So, off to the 2nd spot and that's when we heard ker-plunk. Our engine was dead. So, we did the appropriate calls for friends to come join us in our misery, then a call to be towed and then a long anchor wait while waiting for the rescue tow boat. That was 1.5 hrs alone; however, we were good with food, fair weather and entertainment. A big thanks to Mike & Helen who never left our sight while we were "dead" in the water.

We pulled in croaker after croaker. It was fun and something to do. They were fat and we figured they ate about as good as whiting from the beach.





We celebrated the New Year by doing our best to stay awake 'til midnight. That Sunday, we celebrated our 18th anniversary. Enjoyed a nice date eating seafood at Rusty's, then danced a little to some live music.

BUT, the next week would end up creating lots of work for Jack each evening as he did his best to diagnose what was wrong with our engine.



We are amazingly blessed that Jack is a brilliant mechanic on top of his other job. Yesterday, the powerhead of the engine was on a table in the garage and the crank-shaft & pistons were exposed. Amazing and scary all at the same time.



I suppose the saga will continue as we pull it all apart and start replacing what broke. I know many people's faith is tested through health and finance issues. For me, it is when I see hundreds of pieces of engine parts in my garage and keep believing that God has given Jack the ability to fix and put it all back together.

I'm sure there will be more pictures and stories in the future. Unfortunately, there will be less fishing through the winter months; but that is ok. There is very little in the way of fishing that is still open season and biting. Now is as good as any time to overhaul our engine.

Blessings & Happy Fishing,
Robin