Great White Grunt

It has been a while since our last blog entry, for the most part due to the fairly significant impact of the severe red tide conditions that have continued in our area for months. The most recent month or so has taken a huge toll on the pinfish population and seems to have coated the sea grass with a brown slime that seems to be choking that key resource. The combination of the two seems to have caused the trout and most other species of fish to hit the road to fairer hunting grounds. For whatever reason, the remaining species that have hung around are Mangrove Snapper, Sheepshead, and Snook. The Snook however, have been very wary and difficult to catch. A few casts through a group of Snook might produce a couple of follows, and maybe one or two hits. Then they scatter, shut down, or otherwise ignore whatever else comes their way. It seems like what they are feeding on are very small bait fish, and are just about 100% focused on that bait only, to the exclusion of all else. The “all else” specifically includes all the different types of lures Jason or I might offer.

Teresa and I have been blessed in the last weeks to have visits from two of our daughters and their families. And of course, among the other adventures on the island, fishing had to be on the list of attractions. Last week, Michele, Dustin, and Gavin were here. Michele decided to go out fishing with us. While we did see several Snook, they were for the most part totally uninterested in what we had to offer. Every now and then there was a foolish young male that broke the protocol, but otherwise they just seemed to know we were there, and wanted no part of our games. This week, Lindsay, Brad, and Elijah have come to visit. Same story this week with the Snook and the unwillingness to be caught, so with young Eli here, and a seven year old attention span, I figured the best chance for fishing success was to employ the old “frozen shrimp to catch something” approach.

The first trick to using the natural bait approach is to get natural bait.  Fortunately, somewhere some time back, I snitched a few fresh frozen shrimp out of the bag that I used to make Shrimp and Grits (Yum) and put them back in the freezer for just such an emergency. For Jason and me, natural bait is not used very often, and when it is, it is me trying to catch Sheepshead.  I think I wrote about the adventure of successfully using barnacles scraped off a dock piling to catch Sheepshead previously. Getting that “live” bait was quite adventurous as it involved my lying down on the dock in dried pelican poop while trying to simultaneously scrape off some barnacles with a gardening trowel and catch the loosened barnacles before they fell into the ocean, all without falling off the dock. Shrimp from the freezer is not so difficult, and did not involve poop of any kind, so that got my vote.

Since the known species are few and far between these days, using shrimp is the best way to catch whatever might be around. So Lindsay, Brad, Eli, Jason and I headed to the exposed rocks at the end of the airstrip to see what might be lurking around. Maybe a snapper, maybe a catfish, maybe one of those weird long lipped silvery things, who knows? To be honest, with the effects of the red tide and the attention span of a seven year old, I suspected it might be a challenge to keep focus for very long. It is always fun to catch fish, but the just sitting and waiting, well, not so much fun.

Since the best location and even presentation of the shrimp on a hook outfit was not really known, I started while Eli watched. While a risk of losing his interest, I needed to figure out the best chances for catching something. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that the rocks were in fact exposed from the bottom where I had cast the bait, and I was snagged in the rocks. Lost hook and sinker number 1. After a retie and more shrimp, I probed around for a couple of minutes with not even a nibble. This was playing out like I figured it might. After a bit more not catching, I thought I would turn things over to Brad to work with Eli while I used my other pole to use some different lures in case there were some types of shrimp-averse fish around that could be caught a different way.

As I continued to not catch anything, I glanced up the beach where Eli was yelling out “I have something!” Sure enough, he was in fact fighting a fish while Brad held on to him to keeping him from being pulled into the surf by the monster on the other end of the line. It seemed like Brad would lose the battle and poor Eli would be pulled out to sea and eaten by sharks (or maybe crabs). There was one point where I think Brad was only holding on to Eli’s shoe laces, in a great tug-of-war for Eli’s survival. As the battle raged on, the water churned as Eli gained control and began to get him near the beach. Finally, in one last bust of energy, Eli dragged the giant onto the beach.  It was a great White Grunt, the first we have ever caught!  I had to lie (interesting choice of words) across the fish to keep it from flopping off the hook and back into the ocean before we were able to take a picture. Because, as we all know, “if there is no picture, it did not happen.” Even Jason had to come to help unhook the fish, as it took all of our effort to simply control the fish to be able to unhook it.

Once unhooked, I managed to drag the fish back into the water and revive it. It realized it was free and began to swim away slowly. Just as it seemed as if we all were safe, the fish turned its head and stared at Eli with his piercing fish eye, and nodded its head upward, as if to say “Nice job kid. The next time you may not be so lucky…” and then swam away. I have attempted to record this tale as accurately as possible given the great level of stress and chaos going on while this event was taking place. If I have made any factual errors, well, you all will just have to forgive me.

David