Rain, fishing, and shark

October 22, 2019, Little Talbot Island—Rain, rain, go away.

Actually, we are happy to have rain; we have been in a flash draught. However…does it have to rain when we are on vacation?

(Yes, retirees—at least Jim and I—go on vacation. We need to do so; too many things needing attention at home never seem to leave us time to go fishing!)

We went down to Simpson’s Creek (a couple miles from this state park) yesterday. Not even a nibble. We came home and tried the fishing pier. Again, nothing. About 4 p.m., when the tide was receding, I decided to go back to the pier again. Tide change is the time to fish.

As I was standing on the fishing pier, I could see feeding activity in the far-off weeds, a sure sign of big fish, probably reds or trout. Given some time and a bit of luck, I was hoping to catch at least one of them. It was not meant to be. Just as Jim was to join me, he looked to the west and saw the encroaching rain clouds. About 10 minutes later, it started to rain. That put an end to my fishing; I am a fair-weather angler.

The fish are out there. Our camping neighbors went out in their kayaks and pulled in 21 trout. Having a water vehicle, of course, helps in fishing: You go where the fish are. As landlubbers, we have to wait for them to come to us.

Today, we decided to go surf fishing or fish near the inlet (where the neighbors caught the trout). We discovered that we forgot to bring our pole holders (pvc pipe with a contoured lip, which are stuck in the sand). Surf fishing is a lot easier when you have those holders, otherwise, you have to sit and hold the pole. (You are also obviously limited on how many poles you can fish at a time.)

I caught two ladyfish and a catfish. Jim finally caught a catfish and…(ta-ta!) a bonnethead shark, about two feet long. We decided to toss the ladyfish and catfish back, although they (like any other fish) are edible. The bonnethead is a different story.

We did not take a photo of the bonnethead shark Jim caught during this vacation. However, he caught one last year at New Smyrna Beach in Central Florida could be a twin to the one he caught today. Had we known how tasty shark is we would have kept this one! 

Bonnetheads are legal to keep. A new regulation in Florida requires anglers who intend to fish for shark to take an online course. Although we don’t intend to fish for shark, we took the course and learned which sharks are legal to keep and which are protected. We also learned through videos that shark is good to eat, provided it is cleaned correctly. That starts with dispatching it and bleeding it out immediately. Sharks urinate through their skin; bleeding them out helps avoid tainting the meat with uric acid from the urine.

Jim filleted the bonnet head, and I have it soaking in milk (also recommended). I don’t have all the ingredients I would like to use to cook it tonight, so the shark will be our dinner tomorrow evening, when we are at home. I’ll post if it was good eating—or not.

Until later,

Your Reluctant RoVer,

Linda

P.S. The reason why you are seeing these posts after the dateline is because we have only sporadic LTE. When I say sporadic, I mean 10 seconds or so at a time, a few times a week. State parks should put up wifi towers. Today’s campers need them. At least we have good TV coverage, all Jacksonville channels. Yes, although we are about 30 miles from our home, we are still in the city, which reportedly is the largest (geographically speaking) city in the continental in the United States.