Fishing the Deep



Sun has set as we motor away from the land toward the fishing reef.

It seemed like such a good idea: Let’s all of us, the volunteers at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, take a trip on Sailor’s Choice, a 65-foot power boat. We’d fish for the next night’s dinner.
 

We loaded up our cars and headed south in Key Largo at 7 p.m. Jamie, our first mate, explained the rules of the ship: 1. He lives by tips alone. So if you don’t tip him, he goes home hungry. 2. No booze aboard. 3. If you lose a fishing rod overboard, that’s a $100 fine. “So, if you fall overboard,” Jamie warned us, “be sure to throw the road back onboard to avoid that $100 fine!”
 

It was a buttery, warm night. A slight breeze came out of the east. A half-moon lay bright in the sky, while Venus, Mars and Jupiter added to the beauty. We scooted eastward toward French Reef. You motor through shallow water out to the reef. The captain dropped the anchor in 85 feet of water. Jamie provided us with containers of bait (mostly octopus) and the fishing commenced.
 

I pulled in a chunky triggerfish. Good eating, I was told, and Jamie put it in bucket with my number on it. Yellowtail came aboard, grunts, more triggerfish, a red fish with disproportionately large eyes, and then nothing for a long time.
 

The times hung heavy on us as we waited for the next strike. My watch said 10:30 p.m. before the captain weighed anchor and moved the boat three miles south to outside Molasses Reef. Jamie set the anchor again and we dipped our bait into the ocean for another try. Ron, our friend from Minnesota, hauled in a small shark which we released. Mike brought aboard a bunch of grunts which he threw back because they were too small to bother fileting.
 

By 11:30 p.m., we were sagging. It was long past our bedtimes and the lack of big catches hung heavy on the group.
 

The captain weighed anchor and headed home. We dutifully tipped Jamie and he unloaded our catch. Before much filleting was done, a Florida wildlife scientist joined us on the dock at 1 a.m. He measured our various fish, even opening up their brains so he could remove a small bone that would be analyzed to provide information about the age of each of the fish. “This bone acts like the rings on a tree. It provides u with information about the fish,” he told me. He would mail off each bone from each species, long with data about the length and weight of each fish. The bone will be sliced and then analyzed under microscopes to study individual fish.
 

James, meanwhile, was slicing and dicing our catch. Our group took home a back of about 10 pounds of fileted fish which we’ll cook for a group supper tonight.

If one looks at this adventure in purely practical terms, 10 people catching 10 pounds of fish makes for pretty expensive fish. But, when you factor in the camaraderie and the pure joy of having the ocean under your feet that, as they say, is priceless.