This past weekend marked the third annual Pirates on The Gulf tournament and I stayed the weekend with the Ultralite family to take part in the activities. Captain's Meeting was Friday night, and some of our scurrrrvy brethren get into the spirit...
Saturday the scales were open, and my job was to play "gopher".... get anglers' tickets, get the fish weights, get folks turned towards the photographers.... we had a good handful weighed Saturday, but the neatest thing I saw, hands-down, was this hypermelanistic redfish weighed in by a great fishing team:
This duo weighed in the inshore slam- and then we played "Chinese fire drill" as we bucketed their still-live fish back to the lagoon. These were the only anglers to release fish alive after weighin, and quite frankly I look forward to being the one to re-capture that awesome redfish.... here is another shot on the beach right before it regained its freedom:
After the first day's weighin, we celebrated our beloved Jamie's 40th birthday with an LSU game and some burgers & cake- can't beat that! The final stop was the Famous Dock, where, despite being incredibly tired from new medication/deadlines/stress, I HAD to soak a line, and Micha was my fishing buddy for the night. Jamie kept us company while she relaxed and wound down. Micha had bait in the water before I even tied on a hook, and he found a school of pretty little redfish:
It wasn't long before he had another one to the dock- I love the brassy colors on these.
We watched quite a few shrimp swim by, and netted a few, when Micha says to me- "What's that little fish over there?" Lo and behold, a tiny striped fish was undulating his way against the light current, just within netting distance. It turned out to be a tiny blue runner:
Though tiny, it clearly shows one of the defining, "no question" characters of the jack family- two anal fin spines.
The current slacked to a whopping NADA, and the bite became steady:
"This is what I will do to your larger cousins!!!"
Micha and I hooked many 8-10" baby grey snappers which we released. I discovered that the larger, just pan-sized fish were lurking just a piece beyond the reach of the lights....
My fishing buddy for the evening with our twin grey snappers:
This kind of relaxation was exactly what we all needed. I have to pay my respects to all fish I keep:
Between Micha and I we put 6 keeper greys on ice, just enough for the Ultralites to fry up the following evening for dinner.
Next set of fish prints I do, I will try to capture the incredible variation in colors that grey snappers show:
Micha and Jamie went off to bed, and I decided to stick around on the dock for a while- after all, there were still shrimp left in the bucket! I did catch a few more snapper which I released, but most of all I wanted to drink in the evening. It was the perfect kind of night- the kind of calm that makes you unwittingly hold your breath for fear that you'll break the continuum of perfect stillness...... The small herring showed up by the zillions under the lights as the water came to a dead calm and with it the tiny sounds of popping mouths as they fed from the surface. Occasionally a silver flash would throw chaos into the orderly fashion in which the herring were swirling under those lights. The balmy calm of that perfect salty night air was delicious under more stars than I'd seen in quite some time. I went to sleep more relaxed than I can remember in a while......
Sunday was Day Two of the weighin- here's Robert (Weighmaster) and me (Weighmistress for the day) getting ready for fish:
Fun with miscellaneous items:
We got more cool-looking redfish. The variation in spots captured my inner Nerd.... this one had a true ocellus, and it also shows one of the key characters of the drum family- a lateral line that extends all the way down the tail:
The "business end" of the redfish..... really paying attention to the details of a fish gives one much more appreciation for what makes that fish "tick" I suppose.... here's the head of a fish perfectly adapted for its life as a benthic feeding machine:
Forum members weigh in fish (we tried to convince the angler that the scamp was poisonous and needed to be "studied".....lol)
I wish I had the chance to get more photos at the weighin. I do want to say a special "thank you" to Capt Rog, Cliff, and Earl..... wait till y'all see the artwork.....
And a big THANK YOU to all of the anglers who fished the Pirates on the Gulf tournament, those who came and visited the weighin, and who stayed for the delicious fish fry Sunday evening. Had a great weekend, could not have wished for better weather- and especially could not have wished for better folks to spend it with.