Andrea's Big Day!!

This was one of the greatest fishing days ever!!! Andrea and I started researching and planning the trip, the day before, so that it would be a perfect day and our pre-planning paid off!! We went and checked out the boat ramp and talked with a local bait shop owner to find out where to find the Mangrove Snapper. Now I've never really been the pre-planning type, but I do believe that my dear, organized friend Andrea is starting to rub off on me. We marked the map, made our plan, and we were ready to go.

I was so excited to show my dad all the fishing tricks that I had learned. We have been going fishing for as long as I can remember and he is REALLY good. When we got our boat, and starting fishing I realized just how much I had learned from watching him. So, it was very important to me that the trip turned out to be a good one, and it did.

We headed out with our map upside down, despite multiple warnings from Andrea that, "you never turn a map upside down." We turned it around and we were at our first fishing spot in no time. It was a little bridge on a residential canal. He'll probably kill me for saying this but my dad cast his line up onto some guys boat and it got stuck. I was just so glad to know that even the most seasoned of fishermen still do that on occasion. Sorry dad.

My dad and I caught the teeniest tiny Grouper and Mangrove Snapper, that we had ever seen. We started to feel like we were in a twilight zone version of "honey I shrunk the fish." But still no fish for Andrea. Jovial as ever, she was just happy to be there!!

Searching for some bait, we headed for the flats. My dad threw the cast net and Andrea manned the pole that kept us out of the bushes. My dad, Mr. Thrifty, made her fish a life jacket out of the mangroves. All the while she was yelling, "there better not be a body in it!!!" Thank God there wasn't. It would take years of counseling to get me over something like that!!! Well, we got a nice life jacket but no bait at all, so we decided to head over to the bridge in search of some bigger Mangrove Snapper!!

WE FOUND THEM!!! Oh boy, we were pulling up Mangrove Snapper as fast as we could get our bait down, it was awesome. My dad was having a blast. I was so proud that the day we had planned was turning out so great. Andrea kept getting bites and having her bait stolen (Mangrove Snapper are the master at bait stealing) but no luck. My dad had caught a couple of keepers (over 10 inches) and I had caught a few that were just under size and then it happened. Andrea hooked a fish. From the time that fish hit her line she was yelling, "it's a keeper, it's a keeper!!!" Always the optimist, that Andrea. It could have been a Sting Ray for God's sake and she was going to keep it!! While she was yelling, she quit reeling it in and we were yelling at her to keep reeling or she was going to lose it. It was quite a scene, I'm sure that every boater within a 2 mile radius was aware that Andrea had caught her first fish!!! It was a little Mangrove Snapper, probably about 6 inches or so. Her face lit up like a jack-o-lantern. My dad took it off of her hook, we took a picture and my dad proceeded to flip the fish back in the water. Well........Andrea's face looked like someone had just punched her in the stomach. My father made the grave mistake of only estimating the size of her fish and didn't go through the ritual of measuring it. Doh!!!

She rebounded quickly and hauled in a record 5 fish for the day. None were keepers but the excitement eased the sting. All together we must have caught 25 or 30 fish and 5 of them were keepers. We almost have enough for a fish fry, so we're heading back out this Sunday. Hopefully we'll have another great day!! Honestly though, any day that I can spend out on the water, with two of my favorite people in the whole world, is a great day. Fish or no fish!!