Deep Blue Sea

Wednesday was deep sea fishing day. Now, I haven't been fishing since 1966 at summer camp in a place called Orr, Minnesota where I fished for Northern Pike most of that summer. It's not that I don't like to fish, I just like more physical activity than sitting in a boat for hours waiting for the "strike". No doubt there is a lot of excitement for a few minutes reeling the fish in, but there is just too much sitting around. Nevertheless, my friend Ernie offered to take Elaine and I out in his power boat for the morning to watch him fish. The last time I went deep sea fishing was on a day boat out of Oxnard, CA when I was in the 10th grade, and I got sea sick, so that was in the back of my mind. Now, Ernie did all the fishing, as he has a license....I think he had 5 poles, plus a down rigger out at one time while we trolled north and south along a bed of seaweed about 10 miles out from from the coast for Dolphin Fish (Mahi Mahi).....not the Flipper kind of Dolphin, mind you. Elaine and I helped by steering the boat, and helping him keep the "weed" off the lures.

The plan was to be out for about 3-4 hours.....we left the house around 8am, and I think we left the dock for the open sea around 8:30am.......as I said, this was to be a "3 hour tour"......thinking Gilligan's Island here. As I said, we were about 10 miles out and trolled north and south for hours. Thankfully the ocean was very flat, and there was very little wind, so there was no chop, or really any swells......that's what got to me on my last Oxnard excursion....big swells, and we were sitting still, not trolling. Before we knew it 1pm had come and gone with no fish in the boat. We had a couple of strikes....one on the outrigger poll, and one on the down rigger, which resulted in the loss of the down rigger tackle....whatever hit it cut the steel cable!

Finally around 1:30pm we began to head in still trolling, but pretty much resigned to a "shut out". Ernie and I were talking when suddenly one of the out rigger poles doubled up....we had a strike! While Elaine began reeling in the other poles, I took the wheel from Ernie so he could land the fish, which turned out to be a Dolphin, or Mahi Mahi. It was 30 inches long, and about 15 pounds.....what a beautiful fish. Ernie let me hold the fish up on the gaff hook while he took a picture.

Needless to say, we had Mahi Mahi for dinner! Carol also grilled some lobster tail, and fried up some scallops along with rice, spinach and baby carrots....what an amazing dinner!

All tolled we were out over 8 hours, and by the time I finished dinner that evening I was toast.....that's what a lot of sun and salt air will do to you! It was a good thing we were out to sea all day as it got up to 91 locally.....a very warm day to be out on the water!

Thanks for stopping by!