06 May 2007

After a long flight from Los Angeles, our friends Kristen and Trafton arrived with their two boys, Mason and Landon late yesterday afternoon. They're in town for the week, and Traf' s been dying to do some fishing. So I take him, a mere 12 hours after a 7 hour flight across two time zones, and at 0515 CDT he is ready to go. Obiously a man that can do without much sleep and fight off jet lag, just to go fishing. My kinda guy!!

We meet at my parents house, just a few doors down from where Trafton's staying. My dad, Donnie, son Cam, Trafton, his son Mason and I are in the truck, at the ramp and off within a half hour. Early morning Pompano are our target once again, followed by who-knows-what with this crew.

The boat is in position and the fishing begins, but the catching takes a little while. Soon enough the sun is up high enough that we can see better and we start seeing schools of Spanish Mackeral and Blue Runners swimming deep off the beach. We fire home-made jigs at them and they respond with bite after bite, screaming drag and laughing kids!!!! Mason elects to keep one fish to show his mommy when we get back.

A dark shadow appears in the darker water near the outer bar, Trafton's hoping it's the cobia he's looking for. Dad grabs the 20# outfit and throws a live Threadfin Herring at the marauding fish. Nearly as soon as the bait hits the water the fish erupts on it and Traft's on with a monster. The huge fish makes a spectacular leap, Traft and Dad only see the splash, and I don't have the heart to tell him yet that it's a Shark. He handles a fishing rod very well, but against a fish well over 125lbs, on tackle 1/5 the fishes size, it's going to take some time.


About an hour and fifteen minutes pass and the fish is finally boat-side. In the time we spent debating a photo op with this big Black Tip Shark, the fish managed to make one last ditch effort to get away, and succeeded. One quick lunge under the boat and the 20# finally gave out, and so did my angler.

The fight over we make our way back to pull our anchor and reposition. Along the way we find "Flipper", and usually, if you make enough commotion in the water, he'll come over to the boat to investigate. the boy's really enjoyed this encounter, with Mason asking if he could swim with them!! It took a few tries to talk him out of it and we continued to our destination.

We scanned the beach for fish, only finding more sharks and stingrays we decide to wrap up around 1100. Dad had a hot date with the FISHIN' CHIX at 1400 for a surf-fishing outing on Pensacola Beach, and needed to go prepare. We all had a blast spending time fishing with the kids. The first trip of many for Trafton and his boys the week.