Nearshore Surprise

Bluebird skies...and a blue-hair riding shotgun. Grandma thought she wanted a quick joyride in my friend's "old-reliable."

What started off as a joyride from a local boat ramp to the dock behind my house turned into bait-crashing, bird-diving chaos.

I don't know too many grandmothers up for backwater Everglades adventures, and my grandma proved to be no different.  Here we were, with perfect weather to see if any of our favorite game fish, so illusive in late fall, were pushed back deep in some creeks just south of town.  We had the boat, we had the weather, but we also had Grandma.

Pulling away from the ramp, she groaned that the skies looked bleak.  We laughed and continued carrying on about the fish we'd catch and the perfect tide we had for Grandma to go shelling, but she insisted we ought to hurry home before the rains came. 

We explained that the forecast called for sunny skies and light winds out of the south west, but we succumbed rather quickly knowing she was in charge of the thanksgiving carving and we all wanted our fair share.

We turned the corner out of Gordon pass headed north toward Doctors pass.  As soon as we reached the Naples pier the wind shifted from the northeast and our sunny skies looked rather ominous.

Grandma was right about the weather, but we were right about the fish. Not the redfish we heard were schooled up in some of the bays, but the nearshore bite was on for real.  Spanish mackerel and lady fish were crushing large schools of small bait fish about a mile off the beach.  The crocodile spoons we had ready to prospect for redfish teased up some nice mackerel.

It had seemed all parties were satisfied, Grandma stayed dry and we caught our fish.  But as we hit the home stretch into the pass, not a half mile from my house, the skies opened and grandma let out a yelp that had us laughing through dessert.  We were served last, dark meat, I hate dark meat.

(Check out the photo of my last Spanish mackerel before the skies opened on us.)