Gut Rumbles
 

February 13, 2004

the biggest fish I ever caught

We were trolling on a pretty rough day when something big hit my line. I hooked him and realized that I had a handful. The drag was spinniing like crazy and making a noise like locusts at night. I kept trying to anchor the bastard and he kept running. That was a big fish and the captain let him drag the boat for a while just to make him tired. I had all I could handle just hanging on to the bastard.

I finally got the pole stuck in the Captain's Chair, and I commenced to play that rascal. All other poles came out of the water and it was then a battle between me and that fish. I saw him break the water once, and he was huge. I thought I had Moby Dick on the end of the line.

He kept up that fight for 45 minutes until I finally wore him out and hauled him, inch by inch, back to the boat. He was a 55-pound Amberjack and one pissed of fish. He was big enough that we wouldn't fit into the cooler on the boat. We gigged him, whipped his angry ass with a baseball bat, then hung him on the bow of the boat to show him off.

I have a picture of me with that fish and the damn thing is almost as big as I am. He was at least 4' long. I won $50 for catching the biggest fish that day, then gave the amberjack to a black guy on the dock when we got back home. He knows how to cook them and I don't. Cooking an amberjack is a lot like cooking a barracuda. Not all of that meat is good to eat.

But I put $50 in my pocket, sent an old man home with a big-ass fish in his hands and drank a few beers to celebrate. I still had to go home and clean about 40 black sea bass, two trigger fish and a Red Snapper the size of a front-porch doormat. That snapper was an awesome thing. He had a head the size of a football. I cut fillets the size of pants legs off of him. The snapper weighed 33 pounds, one of the top ten ever caught in the state.

I had a fish fry the next weekend. Eveyrbody enjoyed the story about the Amerbjack catch, but more people liked the black sea bass and the snapper. A 55-pound amberjack is a fun fish to catch, but give me black sea bass a or red snapper to feed my friends.

We didn't have many leftovers.

Comments

How lovely..I think I'm gonna have to go to the fish market today-make some hush puppies, cole slaw, have some beers...great fish story :)

Posted by: sandy on February 13, 2004 10:13 AM

Hey..don't forget today is Friday 13th!!! I don't know if it's because I'm southern but I am superstitious as HELL...be glad when today is over and if I see anyone sporting a hockey mask I think I'll just keel over on the spot..:)

Posted by: sandy on February 13, 2004 10:41 AM

Hmmm... sounds like a fish story to me. Looks like I'll have to petition the 9th Circus Court to overturn. I know they don't have jurisdiction in GA, but I'll bet they think they do.

Posted by: Harry P on February 13, 2004 02:09 PM

Well, at least you quit carping *ahem* about the one that got away...

:^)

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! on February 13, 2004 02:11 PM

Joan, that one smelt.

Jim
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX

Posted by: Jim on February 13, 2004 03:17 PM

Jim, nice to see you floundering about in this stormy sea with the rest of us!

:)

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! on February 13, 2004 04:14 PM

Perch yerself down into the drink and porpoisely get walleyed.

Posted by: Harry P on February 13, 2004 05:55 PM

Calling Charlie the Tuna . . .

Things are getting fishy here!

Posted by: jb on February 13, 2004 09:00 PM

And here I am, just floundering in my attempts to come up with more.

Guess my mind has snappered shut, eh?

Jim
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX

Posted by: Jim on February 13, 2004 09:59 PM

You know, this thread reminds me of the night that me and a dashing squid groupered up in the front seat of an eensy Ford Escort.

It was a whale of a time.

But I digress...

Posted by: Jett on February 14, 2004 12:45 AM

Hope you didn't take a pass on the trigger fish. Yum yum!!!!

Posted by: Larry on February 16, 2004 10:04 PM
Post a comment