The one that got away

I know, I know, of course it got away. Well, it did. But I was not alone, so someone else can confirm the story. LOL There we were my boyfriend Jeff and I, fishing in about 5 foot of water in the bay in Islamorada. I was trying to catch some bait fish on the small rod when all of a sudden something HUGE hits the chum bag right next to where I was standing. Low and behold it was a 4' barracuda. Holy crap, I freaked out! I was not expecting such a large fish in the depth that we were fishing. I immediately dropped my rod and tried to remove the chum bag from the cuda's mouth. Yeah right! He twisted and twirled into the bag, but finally released it. Jeff was now dead set on catching him. Haha! Yeah right, not with me on the boat. At first we were looking around to see where he had gone. Well, he was directly under the boat, waiting. I had a good eye on him, but Jeff decided he was going to take a chance at catching him. Unfortunately for Jeff, he had a noise making bobber on and it scared the cuda everytime he dropped his line in. So after a few tries, it was my turn. I put on a piece of cut bally and dropped in my line, straight down. Now I could see every inch of this fish, the water was crystal clear. He was slowly approaching my bait and BAM! He hit it. I was still in shock from the earlier event that I just let him run. Then all of a sudden, nothing! He was gone. So I start to reel in my line, no, wait, he is still on!!!! Again, he started to run. He almost completely stripped my spool clean. Then a jump out of the water. He was amazingly huge. What a rush! Now he was heading back to the boat, oh crap! I tried to reel in and wait, reel and wait. I couldn't do too much with the line that I had, but I couldn't let me spool me either. "That's it", I said. I had to get serious if I was going to bring him in. So I stared reeling and reeling and then SNAP!! Now he was gone. But I was so thrilled just to have had the fight, it made the whole day worth it.

PEACE RIVER

Fishing at our campsite along the Peace River in Arcadia, Florida I put this crazy spinner lure on the end of my line. Just casting back and forth, not really expecting to get anything. Just my way to relax away the hours. Since being on the river does offer time away from the hustle and bustle of life's everyday events.

Felt a little tug and then saw a this guy jump. A pretty good battle, but short lived, not having a net or anything else to get this fish landed, I decided to simply walk it on to the banks. Conveniently, it had one last jump in it, which landed it on the shore line.

I looked at it with confusion, since I am not really a fresh water fisher person, but I knew it wasn't something native to the area. My son spotted the commotion and immediately shouted out that its a "Snakehead", what the hell is that. All I know is that it was a big fish, I cleaned it with a small knife, because my son made me leave my knife kit in the car. He said that we wouldn't be needing it, well, surprise!

Dinner time was right around the corner and we cooked the fish on an open fire, giving it an extra smoky flavor. After getting home and saving the remainder of the fish, my daughter, Monica made a fantastic fish salad. I always make fun of the fresh water fisherman because they can't possibly have as much fun as the deep sea enthusiast, like myself, I guess I am going to have to eat those words.