Fishing Islamorada!!!

Day one in the books. Was gratifying as well as difficult. Definitely a lot of hard work, which was to be expected, and I know I have a lot to learn. It's discouraging sometimes when I feel like I don't know things, but I also have to remember that I'm comparing myself to someone who has been on the water almost daily for 20 years, so I should probably cut myself some slack as well. A lot will be repetition, and I'm confident that I'll pick it up as time goes.

It was pretty windy when we hit the dock this morning, so the run to the Gulf Stream for Swordfish was scrapped. We started out Sailfishing, which was slow to begin with, so at about midday we hit the reef to fish for dinner. We hit the Yellowtail Snappers pretty hard, and ended up with 30 or so in the boat, as well as a Mangrove Snapper. Fresh fish for dinner!!!

While we were anchored on the reef, a Sailfish crashed some baits behind us, and the first mate, Mikey, tossed back a bait and in short order we were hooked to a decent sized sail. One of the anglers fought it for a while from a dead drift, and was playing it well, but it threw the hook about 5 minutes in. It got some good jumps in, though, which was exciting.

The day ended with a double header. Two small sails hit the baits, and both were brought to the side of the boat.

All in all, a nice first day.