Fishing re-visited

Fishing re-visited   ...   Thursday 6^th December 2012

After a morning of boat jobs—knot meter paddle-wheel replacement and water tank flushing, we took the ‘dumb dog’ to town.  We met up with Alex and Dave for lunch in the Riverside Café. (see 3^rd December blog). They are in Vero Beach for a few days, doing boat repairs/upgrades and provisioning before heading to Miami for a crossing to Bimini.  It was great to hear their stories as well as their views on provisioning, weather forecasting, Single Sideband Radio and other topics. 

The afternoon was devoted to fishing.  After purchasing a fishing license yesterday, Mike had chatted to a very happy looking fisherman about surfcasting. Following the advice he’d got, Mike purchased frozen shrimp and something that might have been called a Pompano rig. We walked to the beach armed with our new purchases and the rod (A gift to Mike from Jeff Brown, a friend at AZ). Sadly we had left behind the “fishes of Florida” guide and the pliers (for hook removal). The surf was substantial enough to make it tough to cast the bait out beyond the breaking waves.  Having said all that, we shattered our previous records for fish caught.  [I was tempted to say that we tripled the number of fish we had caught previously but then three times zero is still zero…] Mike caught two jacks and what we think was a catfish. We hope this is the start of something big.  

Gloria surf fishing off Vero Beach

The following photos are of three young guys "skim" boarding off Vero Beach. I'm dedicating them to my climbing / surfing buddies Grant, Stew and Gunther. Hopefully some day I'll get some photos of them surfing - but as with these boarders it really helps when the action is close to shore.

Boarder no.1

... and tightly cropped

Boarder no.2

Boarder no.2

Boarder no.3