My Dad decided to come and visit me from Arkansas last week, he is retired and with nothing better to do loaded up and made the long drive down. He wanted to do a little fishing, I took him back in March when they came down and put him on a couple of bull reds in the pass here in Panama City. I had been telling him about the Kingfish and he decided he wanted to give that a try.

Heres a red from March.

Last Friday the 20th was our first chance to go. First my team played in and won a golf tournament at Tyndall Airforce Base, and after that it was out on the gulf with my Dad and another friend of mine. Friday afternoon probably wasn't the best day to be out on the water, south wind blowing about 15 and choppy 3 footers were making for a pretty rough ride. We rode it out of the jetties and put the lines in the water. Took a while but we hooked up our first kingfish. After the high fives and pictures and blood in the boat I noticed the old man wasn't looking too hot. I started heading back into the pass but not before he decided to chum the water. I felt bad for him, he took some dramamine but I don't think it had time to kick in before we left. Needless to say we got him home and cleaned up to rest on the couch while my buddy and I cleaned the boat.

Dad's first KingFish.

I was really worried that Dad wouldn't want to go on Saturday after being sick the day before, but he took his medicine the night before and when he woke up so it was in his system. We rolled out of the jetties a little after 0630 to 2-3 foot seas but they were a little more managable, not near as much chop. We trolled for 4 hours without getting a knockdown. I was begginingto wonder if we would even catch a fish when the first real starts screaming. This turns out to be a smoker king, I have since become a big fan of the big yozuri trolling lures. After about a 25 minute fight he finally relented to the gaff. You gotta love a fish that hangs out the sides of the 150 quart cooler!!!  After this we start getting into them a little more regular. We are all rotating through driving the boat and catching fish. All in all we wound up with a limit of 6 kings, 3 bonita and a remora. Dad really got a kick out of the remora. We caught more but lost some at the boat, we had a double while my Dad was driving the boat and so I told him to put it in neutral and grab the gaff, he got mine in and was going for Kevin's, when he stuck it in the fish and pulled up, the cheap little bicycle grip pulled off the handle and so there goes the gaff. Luckily I had a another one in the cabin. We finally decided to call it a day and head in. I have another friend here in town that loves to smoke fish so we cleaned everything and headed to his house. Smoked kingfish is excellant if you've never tried it.

So this brings us to Thursday now, I got off work a few hours early and after watching the weather we decided to give it a try. Now Dad has become an expert, we cleared the jetties and he told me to get the lines out and set and that he would drive the boat. Aye aye, Captain.. I no sooner got the lines set when we hooked into a bonita, aka future bottom bait. A few minutes later we get another hit and I put a king in the cooler. This goes on for a while and right about the time we rounded the whistle buoy Dad caught the 4th king to limit us out. Less than an hour fishing and we were done. We practiced some catch and release and boated a real nice spanish on the way back in, all in all it was some great father son time together. . I am going to miss him when he heads back home tomorrow.