Catch of the Day

Catch of the Day   …   Friday 11th January 2013

It was an early start to catch the last hour of the rising tide. We got up at 6am and were on our way at 6.45am as soon as we could see well enough. I don't think either of us slept that well with the wind blowing really hard all night - so I didn't feel as sharp as I would like to as we dropped the mooring and headed out of Hope Town Harbor. We retraced our route in - the beauty of tracks on a GPS - then skirted Parrot Cay before heading south towards our destination just north of Tilloo Cut. It was a very short journey and we were anchored shortly after 8am,  just in time for second breakfast, after which we readied the dinghy for a morning of exploits. We wanted to fish the Tilloo Cut - a dog legged channel that passes between the barrier islands and a secondary set of islands as it makes it's way from the Sea of Abaco to the Atlantic. We could see huge plumes of spray from waves breaking behind  the barrier islands and despite being protected the waters in the cut were very bouncy, so we decided to land on a beach on the protected side of the inner cays and walk across and fish from land. We caught our first fish of the day, a small yellow tailed snapper, on the first cast, but it was so rocky that we kept losing tackle and bait. It seemed to us that the wind had eased a little so we decided to have another look at the cut from the dinghy. This time it seemed less intimidating and we started to fish with real purpose. Apparently, as with real estate there are only three key factors to fishing - location, location, location. In fairness I should mention that we were using frozen shrimp for bait rather than artificial lures and I'm sure this also helped. Over the next couple of hours we caught three "keepers" - yellow tailed, mahogany and mutton snappers - beautiful fish. We also landed another two smaller ones that we let go. Then there was the one that got away. This was a big fish that fought hard. I had him well hooked and got a glimpse as he neared the boat, but then the line snapped - almost certainly bitten through as I don't believe there was enough strain to snap it outright.  Once back on Cotinga We cleaned and filleted the fish and threw the remains overboard. About an hour later Gloria saw a huge shark glide past the boat. We spent the afternoon on shore walking the Atlantic beach near the Abaco Inn. Then it was back to the boat for a fine dinner - "catch of the day" of course - pan fried in butter / garlic / white wine reduction and coated with toasted almonds, served with linguine and sautéed zucchini. All of this raises some serious questions about tomorrow - fishing or football?

Mike

26 30 30.9 N, 76 58 56.7 W

Mutton Snapper

Mutton Snapper - close up

Catch of the Day