We (Rhonda, Beth, Beth’s boyfriend Skipper, Brad, and my friend Justin) went fishing on Livewire out of Zeke’s Marina in Orange Beach on Wednesday. We reeled in a lot of small snappers, but only eight were keepers. They gave a big fight when first hooked, then it’s not hard to get them aboard. The captain tried a bunch of different places, but we caught nothing but small snappers (which was okay with me…snapper is one of my favorites for eating). One good thing about this trip was that we frequently had two or even three fish on at the same time.
While bottom fishing, Skipper hooked up something really big. At first we thought he had the props on the boat and we didn’t clear the cockpit soon enough. It turned out to be a big cobia, completely unexpected at this time of the year. The mate tried to gaff him and got the gaff in his head, but couldn’t get him aboard. That one fish would have doubled our catch in pounds.
The captain gave up on bottom fishing a little too early and we trolled in, catching mackerel along the way. Those were not nearly as fun to catch and it was strictly one at a time.
It doesn’t look like much in the cooler, but we had 14 snapper filets and a good bit of mackerel after Justin took his portion.
Skipper and I followed Justin home to Gulf Breeze as he was kind enough to allow us to borrow his boat, a 19 foot Cape Horn with a 150 Yamaha.
To top it off, he loaned us all the rods we needed to fish in the bay the next day. Skipper and Beth really like to fish, as they immediately went to Wal-mart for fishing licenses and sand fleas. They cast on the beach that afternoon after being out fishing all day.
On Thursday, we launched the boat at the crack of noon from the launch on Galvez Road. It was no trouble, even though none of us had experience with that size and type of boat. We followed the intracoastal waterway to marker 65. Pirate’s Cove Marina is a sailboat hangout where Johnny used to take Rhonda and me back in the 80′s and 90′s. In its 50th year, it looks very much the same as it did back then.
We brought Roscoe (Skipper’s Lab) with us and he was in dawg heaven! There was a huge dawg there that played tug of war with Beth over a 2×4.
He didn’t want to go fetch it himself…he just didn’t want the other dawgs (a mixed Lab and a beagle) to have it. A mixed Lab Rhonda and Skipper threw that 2×4 a hundred times for the mixed Lab to fetch, but Roscoe didn’t seem interested in fetching. It turns out there were at least 4 more dawgs on the property. Roscoe had a blast and all the dawgs seem to get along.
I went inside past the “NO DOGS IN RESTAURANT” sign, stepped over the huge dawg laying in the floor, and checked out the inside. It’s 90% the same as before, except for the addition of an awning to expand the deck.
We ordered cheeseburgers (Pirate’s Cove’s claim to fame) for everyone, which took forever to get. We probably hung around 2 or 3 hours, then motored over to some islands near the Perdido Pass that Skipper knew about. The water coming in from the Gulf was perfectly clear and there were tons of small fish in the water. Of course, there were dawgs on the beach. I’m glad we brought Roscoe as we probably would have had to rent a dawg to fit in. Beth said it was the best day of Roscoe’s life, second only to the day he met Skipper. Roscoe did a little bit of fetching in the water at this beach and we all had a blast.
Aunt Carolyn, Uncle Chris, and Micki brought Liz up from Destin where she had been staying while Chris began getting some medical problems addressed. While the day’s catch was being cooked, we sat on the balcony and watched a storm move in from the east.
It was still raining when we headed to Cherl’s (Skipper’s mom) condo in the next tower over. She has a beautiful place. There were 14 of us between Rhonda’s relatives and Cherl’s relatives, but still plenty of fish (kinda Biblical). Rhonda saved the leftover snapper to make gumbo. Roscoe was dawg-tired and could not even hold his head up. He slept like a baby, as we all did.
I probably won’t get around to posting about Friday today. Pictures are on Flickr….if you’re not a family or friend with a Flickr account, you won’t see most of the pics. Sorry…it’s just so much easier than maintaining my own gallery. You can get a free Flickr account, then contact me to let me know your Flickr user name. I can then add you as a friend or contact and you can see all the pics.