Went down ta do some hard core spear fishing, but a back door front screwed that all up....
Visibility went to hell, we still shot a few fish, but at 5-6 foot vis, the fish see you waaay before you see them!!
Fell back on the kiddo's ability to hook and line the little stripe-y bay-stards we call "Sheepheads"
My Fin actually managed to hook a good sheephead, which promptly got swallowed by a 400 pound plus Jewfish that about jerked her right out' the boat!!!
After grabbin' the rod out of Fin's hands(to protect her of course...
) I fought the fish towards the surface on 20# line for a good bit... as soon as he realized I was about to whip him he puked his guts up(and thereby Fin's Sheephead).... but at least we got the chewed up Sheephead!!!!
Me and my Fin, no matter how many fish she reels in by herself.... she still looks scared like her momma when she see's them!!!
Beautiful weather, un-shoot-able vis, we decided to ride out to a remote island to let the kids see what "real" Florida is all about... THIS is how you create "sea-sickness-resistant-children"..... kids around me don't have a choice!!!!
My bro Jeff and his son Cole enjoyin' the ride out to Egmont
Egmont key, an island the Spanish found in the early 1500's... Native Floridians, thousands of years prior.... Pirates utilized in the 1700's, Americans used in the Spanish/American war by building forts and cannons to protect the "port of Tampa" from foreign ships....
A few miles off the mainland, Egmont is as remote as what's possible in modern day Florida... native palms grow right down to the shore line, knocked back only by the occasional fire, or hurricane... a lighthouse was built in the 1700's... soon after, a "severe gale" (hurricane) wiped the island clean... the lighthouse tender survived only by tying off his row-boat to a tall palm and riding out the storm.... after which, he promptly rowed to shore and offered his resignation....
When the Spanish explorers first stepped onto the mainland, they made sure their painters were on the beach first... so as to "capture the moment" to later be transferred onto the canvas... Being the "historical nerd" I am, I can't help but notice the similarity of my daughter's prideful pose after finding a "Pirate stick" (abandoned fuel gauging stick from a ship
)upon landfall....
..... the similarity is in the pose... of which I can remember identical paintings of "Hernando DeSoto" upon his "triumphent" arrival upon the Florida shore... "staking claim in the sand with the flag of Spain" to what we now call "Florida"....
OHHHH!!!! WAIT!!!! I found a historical picture of DeSoto's triumphente arrival upon these Florida shores!!!!!
.... maybe smaller than I remember... and a little less armor/feathers... but just as MEAN!!!!
HAHA!!!
This is my best friend Frank Vogel... mean as mean gets, but as good a friend as anyone will ever have...
Me, Frank's daughter Ryanne, and him gettin' ready for a good ol' fashioned match race on our own private beach....
Nothin' better than seein' a bunch of kids racing on your own desert island.....
