All Hail the Puffer King

The saloon style doors clacked loudly against the walls as she slung them open. "Gimme 8 dozen" she says, threading a $20 bill through her fingers. The shifty eyes behind the counter dart quickly from the money in her hand to the dusty tumbleweed rolling by, just outside the window. "I said, gimme 8 dozen," she says again, this time with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

Quietly whistling the theme song from Bonanza, he gets busy loading the bucket. He turns on his spurs, sets the bucket of shrimp on the counter and says in a low, raspy voice, "Yer fishin' for em, ain't ya?"

Yup!! We were fishing for em alright. Fishing for the always elusive and highly coveted SNOOK!! The season opened at 12am on Friday morning. Fishing for snook is like mining for gold in these parts. So much so that the legal limit is a mere one fish per person on any given fishing trip. They're big, they're bad and they are the masters at bait stealing, line slicing, and general hocus pocus. So, as you might guess, to catch one, is the ULTIMATE fisherman's prize.

There were no prizes for us this weekend but we sure did have fun trying. Andrea caught her first "keeper," it was a mangrove snapper. She was so excited, reeling like a bat out of hell. I yelled, hurry up and get it in the.......Boat. No sooner did the word boat leave my lips and that fish wiggled right off her hook and belly flopped right back into the water. The face, spoke novels. There were no words, no pleasantries to fill the God forsaken silence. Only mourning, for the one that got away.

A few other quick notes about our trip. My dad, God bless him, went out last week and caught a boat load of bait fish and froze them to try to save us some money. We had a few issues. One, the bait would disappear and you never even felt a bite or anything. I think it just floated off actually. Two, they seemed to attract a lot of puffer fish. I used to catch those like crazy.........When I was five. My dad caught 3 or 4 puffer fish on Sunday, so we crowned him the Puffer King. A title I'm sure he'd rather trade in for the Snook King. I'm after that title though. It will be a fight to the finish to see who catches the first Snook of the season!!! Stay tuned.