One of the fun things that I was able to do in Rockport was do some night fishing. Since the kids were all in bed, each night I went out to the end of the pier and set out a few rods with various baits and waited. Well, not just waiting, one night I enjoyed talking to Mandy who was out there with me and the other nights I spent talking with God about life and family. Actually I usually wasn’t alone because a Blue Heron would land on our pier and sneak up behind me to see if he could get a bit of my bait or waiting for a catch.
It was a wonderful time, but I didn’t catch anything worth keeping UNTIL the last night. I didn’t ever take a watch out with me and time was not a concern, so I didn’t know how late it had gotten, but…later I figured out that it was at about 1:45a.m. that one of my rods started twitching, so I picked it up and let the line out a bit…waited…and then set the hook for the catch! This was extra fun because this reel was an old little zebco closed faced reel on a smaller pole…no matter what the drag was set at the fish kept pulling it out while I was trying to real it in. It ended up being a gafftop catfish, 22 in, 3lbs. SO everybody was asleep and it had been YEARS since I had cleaned a catfish. But I got my knife and went at it…took me awhile, but got some good fillets! Then I checked on what time it was and saw that it was 2:20 a.m. so I went to pull in the other rods, got to the end of the pier and saw another one of my lines going off in to the darkness. So I picked up the rod and began to reel in what was another gafftop catfish, slightly smaller that the one before, but a keeper with some good meat. (the second catch is the one pictured above, for a picture of the first one, click here) I decided that it was too late for me to try cleaning another fish, put it in a floating buoy thing and went to bed, leaving another baited line still out in the bay.
In the morning I checked the other line and it was wrapped around a post on the pier and snapped off, so I guess if I would have just stayed out all night I could have caught another! But then what good would I had been to drive to Dallas the next day?? Grandad and James helped me clean the fish that next morning and I got to tell everyone my fish stories from the night before! I don’t get to fish very often, so it was great fun for me!!
Great Brian! Now you just need to add the audio track of the fun song your sister-in-law Eski Rachelle had me purchase from iTunes: “Fish Heads Fish Heads” Rolly Polly Fish Heads. Eat them Up – YUM!
Keep the reports and photos coming! – Dean