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Published: February 11th 2011
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Last year in Cabo, we tried a little fishing for Marlin and Sailfish, which was a total bust, but that's to be expected in big game fishing. So, this time we booked a 1/2 day fishing charter with the goal of "action" fishing. We didn't care about really big fish, we just wanted to catch something since neither of us had done much fishing in our lives. We were hoping to catch something we could have cooked for our dinner at a restaurant. So we booked a relatively small boat, the Eagle Eye, a 26 foot boat, manned by Capt. Jim Perry. He was a real nice guy, except for the fact that he was a Cub fan. Growing up in Marathon, he watched the Cubs on WGN since he was a kid. He has my sympathy in his poor choice of baseball teams to support.
We were going to go out with him the previous afternoon, but he called and said it was too rough and rescheduled us for Thursday morning. We headed out to the reef which is about 4-5 miles out and we were real glad we didn't go the day before because the waves and ride
were big enough for us today. Capt. Jim told us we would fish for Yellowtail and some other fish I can't remember so we would catch our dinner. We would be fishing with spinning reels and 12 lb. test line, which I guess is considered light tackle.
Jim had Jan fishing a bait a few feet below the surface and I had a weight and bait on the bottom. We were in 4-5 foot rolling waves and it was a workout kneeling against the back of the boat and rolling with the waves. The fishing was a bit slower than he liked, but after 20 minutes, Jan had a fish on and brought it in. It was a good size Yellowtail, which is a type of Snapper. Jim said these are delicious fish. I had no luck at all on the bottom. Jan had a couple more fish on but lost them. After about an hour, Jim suggested we go to another spot closer to shore, about 2 miles out. Jan had a Mackerel on and was bringing him in when a big fish jumped out of the water and started going after the Mackerel. It was a 4
Jan's Bonita
Capt. Jim holding her catch foot Kingfish. The Kingfish got away and Jan's Mackerel was so cut up from the Kingfish's teeth that all it was good for was bait. She had an exciting time with it, though. Jan also caught a nice size Bonita which gave her a good fight, which is the fish in the video.
I had a pretty big fish on the line, which turned out to be another Kingfish. He was a blast to bring in and he was close to 4' long and Jim guessed about 20 lbs. This, by far, was the biggest fish I ever caught. The only Kingfish I ever heard of was on Amos n' Andy! He had a lot of real sharp teeth, too. Jan also caught a Kingfish a bit later.
We both lost about 3 fish we probably should have caught if were weren't neophytes. We ended up catching the 2 Yellowtails, the Bonita and the 2 Kingfish. Not a big haul, but we had a lot of fun and Capt. Jim was an entertaining guy to spend the time with. He told us about a restaurant in Marathon that would cook our Yellowtail fillets for us called Lazydays. It's
located on the west end of Marathon with a nice view of the sunset and the 7 Mile Bridge. Jim said that it was the best restaurant in the Keys in his opinion. He wasn't kidding about the Yellowtails, They were absolutely delicious with a nice delicate flavor. We had a wonderful dinner with a beautiful view of the sunset, providing a nice last night in the Keys. Heading for home tomorrow night.
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sprague mullikin
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Fishing
Good job on the fishing!