Summer in the country is finally drawing to a close, dragging me kicking and screaming along towards autumn and the return to Real Life. One of the major highlights of the summer was last weekend's visit by my Sister and her The Child.
My sister and her The Child pretty much stand alone amongst my immediate family members when it comes to enjoyment of what might euphemistically be called "The Sporting Life." This is not to say that my other sister and her Children are not "sporty" types...much the opposite, in fact! When it comes to golf, tennis, soccer, baseball, etc. my other sister and her Children have me beat hands down, no question! But when it comes to "Sporting" pursuits, as opposed to "Sports," I know I can always count on my (recent visitor) sister to be as gung-ho adventurous as my DH and myself. Dogsledding overnights, ice-fishing, flight school and SCUBA tours are all future vacay prospects for my sister and her The Child. They ecotour Costa Rica and ski double black diamonds with joy and gusto, while back at home, some "family" activities include sword and axe combat classes and Medieval grappling school. Hence, it was no surprise that my sister and her The Child were more than happy for a weekend filled with such Sporting pursuits as Sporting Clays and fishing off my Father-in-law's boat...despite never having previously experienced either.
My sister, who claimed to have never "been on the good end of a firearm" in her life, performed MORE than adequately when breaking clay pigeons and long rabbits, and is already researching skeet and trap ranges closer to her home turf. Unfortunately, I was on The Child duty that day, and don't have much more to add as far as that subject goes; everything above is secondhand hearsay via my DH and/or sister. (Certainly two of my most trusted sources, however...lol)
My Father-in-law was gracious enough to take all of us out on his boat...we'd originally intended to go out for bluefish, but the word was that the recent tropical storm had driven them to cooler, deeper waters offshore. Fluke season had closed early (for a change) and the stripers are still too small this time of year, so we decided to go for porgy...a new experience for everybody.
We anchored near a small sandy island, and started chumming. We had clams and (terrifying!) sandworms for bait, and soon had our lines in the water. And out of the water! And back in the water! And repeat as needed: whether it was the chum, the location or a combination of the two, none of us had our lines in the water for a minute before things started jumping! Unfortunately, the legions of black bass that we were pulling out were a juuust little shy of the 14 in. limit...about 10 in. shy of the limit, that is. I personally managed to hook about 2 dozen of the tiniest, most adorable blowfish imaginable; some were- fully inflated- about the size of golf balls, and the biggest were about plum-size. I have a new and vast appreciation of blowfish defenses, if nothing else; it was truly amazing to see them suddenly puff up as they cleared the surface, which more often than not would simply (and audibly) POP the hook out of their surprisingly tough, plastic-feeling skin...and they'd be off! I only had to actually take 2 or so off the hook myself, and that was because they'd managed to get the hook wedged into their (very silly looking) little buckteeth. So, basically, if I'd been out there under contract to provide extremely tiny lamps for Trader Vic's, I'd have been sitting pretty. Unfortunately, I was out for porgy.
After several hours, we did manage to land a (surprise: tiny!) porgy...but at least then we knew what we were looking for. (Thanks, iphone google images!) Unsurprisingly, it was far to small to keep. We did, however, keep pulling in such a mass of tiny black bass that I'm still convinced that the 14 in. limit was set by some fish & game paper pusher who'd never seen a black bass in their life: I mean, srsly! We didn't catch one over 6 in! And I'm supposed to believe they get bigger? C'mon! This was clearly a species subset, of "toy" or "dwarf" black bass...or something.
The argument for "toy" fish would also appear to be borne out by the unimaginably teensy sea robin I caught...and yes, before you ask, those monkey fingers might even be creepier in miniature. Not that there really is any quantitative scale that I know of to measure levels of creepiness when it comes to fish with monkey hands; it is a rather subjective thing, in my experience.
Finally, my sister pulled in a keeper porgy! Rookie luck! We all cheered, (except for the unfortunate porgy, of course) and fished harder than ever...now we knew they were out there! Too bad for us, I guess the fish also knew we were up there...after about a brazillion more tiny bass and an ill-tempered spider crab or two, we headed in.
Not that I am, again, known to be the "goal-oriented" type or nuthin', but I was told later that the reason my father-in-law blew the horn, party boat style, to signal that we were heading in was because he didn't want to have to tell me personally that I had to stop fishing. (This might be a good time to insert the fact that, on a recent four-leaf clover hunting expedition in the yard, I refused to come back inside until I'd found eleven four-leafers. Ummm, nope. Not goal-oriented, I!)
The highlight of the day, aside from the obvious fishy prize, was the sighting of a sea turtle! Right off the boat! A juvenile sea turtle, just doin' its own thing, cruisin' on by us...score many, MANY points for conservationists! Neither my DH nor his father had EVER seen a sea turtle, in both their fishing lifetimes...a real treat for us all!
And yes, the porgy was delicious! All 3 bites of it...
In Summation:
