Deep Sea Fishing

My first ever experience with deep sea fishing came this weekend. Everyone else were veterans, but I was the newbie. I was a little nervous about it all, knowing how intense Richard's family can be (not really) :). But I was still a little nervous about being in the middle of the ocean and the possibility of throwing up (never pleasant). Not to mention the last time I really went fishing was when I was like 11. We drove down to Myrtle Beach with Richard's mom and grandma and grandpa on Thursday.

We got up early Friday morning to make it to the boat by 6:30. Grandma and Grandpa stayed and played golf at a course there. We went with Richard's cousins and uncles, for a total of 16 people on our boat, all in our family. It was fun to hang out with everyone, all of the guys talking about the embarrassment that others would feel when they pulled out the biggest fish or the most fish, etc. Nothing wrong with a little (or a lot in this case) smack talk. I was one of 5 women on board and let's just say that the smack talk wasn't coming from us; well Lindel did some smack talking for all of us. We drove out about 3 hours on the boat before we stopped to fish. By that time, 2 people were feeling seasick and they stayed that way up until right before we were getting ready for our 3 hour ride back. I felt so bad for them because of how miserable they looked and I know they felt! I was so grateful for my iron clad immune system and stomach. With half my nervousness gone, I was ready to start fishing!

The smack talk continued from all of the boys, yet they were not catching hardly anything. They had a few good fish here and there, but nothing astounding. After about 20 or 30 minutes, I had only caught maybe 2 fish. Then all of a sudden, I had one on the line and it was pulling! I was reeling as fast as I could and trying to hang on to the pole and let me tell you I was getting worn out quick! I had Richard and Lindel on both sides, telling me to hang on. I had a 7lb. Grouper and the mate had to get his hook to pull it out of the water! I caught the biggest fish first, the newbie! It might not look that big, but it felt huge! Needless to say the guys quieted down for at least a few minutes after that. The girls continued to pull out fish and sharks, while the guys were struggling.

By the middle of the day, things were about even between the guys and girls. Everyone was pulling out some good fish, some little fish, etc. But no one had matched my big fish. Then Brianna was reeling up to rebait and she ended up catching a Mahi-Mahi! It was a really pretty and colorful fish. And it was very long and weighed probably 4 or 5 lbs. Now the guys were getting a little down! All of the guys wanted to catch a Mahi so bad! Uncle Mark was the only one to get another Mahi, towards the end.

I was still in the lead for biggest fish, but on our last hole I got beat! Jared had a huge fish on the line! He pulled out another Grouper, but this thing weighed probably 12-15lbs! It was ginormous! So Jared went away with the biggest fish and I had to settle for second! But I was okay with that.

By the end of fishing, everyone was worn out, especially me and Lindel. Because we had been reeling in so long all day, by the late afternoon, even the baby fish seemed huge when we were reeling them in. My arm was dead! Anyway, we made it back with a ton of fish and we payed the ship mate to clean and fillet them all. It would have taken us forever, but he did all of the fish in less than 2 hours! Once we had nothing but meat, we probably had 50lbs. of fish!

It was a very fun trip and my muscles and bruises are finally starting to recover! I would have taken more pictures but my hands were a little covered in Squid and fish guts, so these were the only pictures I got at the end, after my hands were somewhat cleaner!