Drive-through fishing

May 4, 2007

On Friday we caught a couple rides south to Deadman’s Cay to Max’s Conch Bar for some of his famous conch salad. It lived up to its reputation and his roadside, tiki bar provided great atmosphere. The talk is all about politics these days after FNM beat out the incumbent party, PLP in Wednesday’s election. 75% of Long Islanders are FNM members so the island is still celebrating, and probably will be for the next month or so!

On the way home we got a ride with Roger, a local fisherman and also a crew member of Running Tide, Long Island’s entry in the Family Island Regatta. After talking about fishing and sailing, he invited us out on an afternoon fishing trip with his son Christopher. He picked us up at the dock at 4:00PM and we drove to the Northeast side of the island where he keeps his 17 foot fishing boat in a protected harbor. He also owns a much larger commercial vessel which he takes as far south as Cuba in search for lobster and grouper.

Let it be known that the crew of Whisper has been trying long and hard, with nearly identical techniques, to catch some fish. Heck, we’d settle for just one mahi mahi. Even a small one, we’re not picky. We’ve been fishing every chance that we’ve gotten while offshore, and even in the waters of the ICW in Florida. Nothing. Just one little bite that ruined a lure on the way to Nassau. Needless to say, we’re a little fed up and have been beginning to doubt that there are fish in the ocean.

Well. Now we’re even more frustrated. It had not been thirty seconds after Roger threw in his two lures, that we caught our first mahi of the day. Thirty seconds after that, our second mahi bit the other lure. We trolled around for another hour, but the seas were getting rough, and we already had two large fish, so we headed home to a wonderful dinner.

Roger gave us an entire mahi, even though we only wanted a small filet, so we invited Joe and Jeannie over from the boat Madrigal and had sushi appetizers followed by wonderful pan fried fish. Like all the people we’ve met on Long Island, Roger was friendly, proud of his Island, a real family-man and generous. We’ll be back for the Long Island regatta in a couple weeks so we’ll see him there.

P.S.: Kit kat got her fair share of fresh fish both raw and cooked. She ate so much fish last night that for the first time in her life, she has slept through breakfast. It’s already 9:00AM and she has not yowled yet.






The fishermen with their catch.