AFW

By Jason
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Saturday, November 26, 2005
Thanksgiving Weekend

We got started today late morning by getting 2 dozen shrimp, and most of them were jumbo sized.  Prepped the boat, and Karla, Amber & I left land at about 1:00pm.  It looked to be a beautiful day; an although the wind was up from the east, the temperature was in the low 70s and it felt good for a change.

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1:14pm

We headed down to Fort Myers Beach just south of the pier where we rendezvoused with our guests, Emma (Karla's mother), Frank (Karla's brother), his girlfriend, and Pipi & Carlos.  Just after 2pm we beached the boat and got everyone on.

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2:13pm

We then headed out from Fort Myers Beach to a few hundred yards west of the the SC Tripod and drifted.  We didn't get a single bite.  

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3:46pm

The water temperature was a cool 72 degrees.

After a while we headed about 3.5 miles over to the May reef area.  We saw a boat fishing right at the buoy.  We tried fishing again but received nothing, not even a single bite.

So we headed toward the bridge,  we anchored near the middle of the bridge and fished.  I threw out my line and put the rod in the holder.  After a while I looked back and my rod was bent so far over it almost snapped.  Than as quick as I noticed that, the line went limp; I pulled in the line and found my circle hook bent.  That must have been a huge fish.  Maybe a tarpon?  Who knows.

Sometime around 4:00pm I feel a sharp pain on the left side of my neck.  It turns out that Karla has hooked my neck!  After careful examination, it was determined that just the point was embedded into my neck.  So I pulled it out.  I regret not having a picture taken of the incident!  Everyone was laughing and chuckling about how dangerous Karla can be.  It was a hoot.

We fished the bridge for a while but received not a single bite.  

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5:10pm

The clan decided they wanted to go to the other side of the bridge, so I powered up and as I was pulling the anchor, the motor dies.  So with the anchor up, I am trying to get the engine started while we drift right towards the bridge piling.  Out come the paddles and we push off while my frustration continues to build because I cannot get her started.  We anchor for a while and eventually after about 20 minutes I got her started.

We got some awesome sunset shots.  I couldn't stop taking pictures.  Here are the best ones.

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6:24pm & 6:30pm

A couple of times Karla was bringing in her line and there was a crab going after the bait.

Frank caught something.  With fishing being utterly terrible all day, at last we weren't going to be skunked!  

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6:38pm 

It looked like Cock Roaches Of The Sea would be our only fish-on entertainment. 

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6:48pm

After it was dark (and cold) we headed back towards the Lani Kai to drop off the bunch so they could catch the trolly home.  As we approached the beach near the Lani Kai, Frank say, "hey man, isn't it getting shallow Jason?".  Just then I see 2 feet on my depth finder and crunch, then the engine stops.  Darn!  it started right up and just some slight chips on the prop - no big deal.  As we dropped of the boatload of them, Frank yells "America, we made it, America, yeah!"  What a clown.

So we left the beach and I am truly getting sick now.  With a bad sore throat, and soaking wet all day from constant beaching of the boat, I felt absolutely miserable.  But, the evening was young.  Read on.

By the time we got to the Sanibel Causeway Span A, Karla wanted to fish again.  She did but was not able to catch anything.  

So then we motored back to the mouth of the Caloosahatchee where I caught the tail end of a conversation between a boater to repeat the report and it turned out that there was a disabled boat with four kids and two adults on board.  Oh, and a dog.  The boat ran out of gas and they were pretty helpless.  So, I had them throw me the line and I towed them all the way back to the Cape Coral Yacht Club ramp.  It turned out that Amber knew one of the kids on board from her school. 

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8:57pm

We got home at about 9:00pm, I cleaned up the boat sicker than a dog, and called it a night.

• Wind: minimal

• Precipitation: none

• Water Temperature: 72F-73F

• Distance Traveled (mi): 46

• Hours out: 8

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