Al Caught a Shark

 

Ohio Key, Florida at Sunshine Key Rv Resort  (high 88, low 78)

 

It seems like summer here and it’s hard to believe some people are still dealing with snow and ice.  We’ve had a few days where it was particularly hot and muggy, but for the most part it hasn’t been too hot yet.  However, being out on the water is always much cooler than on shore.

We did decide to stay here a few days longer.  We are now planning on leaving Monday.  That gives us 28 days here, which is about 28 days too short.

We took the boat out again yesterday (what a surprise) and did a little fishing and snorkeling.  The visibility was pretty bad yesterday again, so it was more of a fishing day.  I found a book I’m enjoying, so I spent my time reading.

Al had a pretty good day fishing.  He bought some frozen squid and had good luck with that.  I hate for him to use squid because it’s messy and leaves a lot of goo on the boat.  Plus it smells very fishy.

We saw this beautiful iridescent Portuguese man o war floating on top of the water.

Later on, Al noticed a clump of sea grass with this pretty little creature on it.   We have no idea what it was, but it seemed to be riding the currents on the sea grass.

We fished right outside the channel by the Sunshine Key Marina for part of the day, then moved around to the other side of the island.  This is another shot of some waterfront sites at the campground. 

The water was a pretty blue color, but it was murky.

On the other side of the island, there is a channel cut out with some shallow grassy areas on both sides of the channel.  We’ve snorkeled there before, so we know there is a little undercut on the grassy areas which is a good place for fish to hide.   Al decided to try his luck fishing there.

He caught his first ever shark.

It was only about 2 feet long.

It turned out to be a Bonnethead shark, and I don’t recall ever seeing one before.

It’s a member of the hammerhead family, and I have definitely seen them before….many times.  In fact one time when we were looking for a spot to dive, a large hammerhead shark came to the surface and laid on the surface of the water right next to our boat!  It was so  cool.  I stood in the boat taking picture after picture of it.  I really need to pull out some of my old diving pictures.

The Bonnethead shark likes warm waters and swims in groups of 5-15 individuals, but sometimes there can be hundreds!   Wow!  How cool would that be to see hundreds of them!   They are smaller sharks that grow to between 3 and 5 feet long and are not dangerous to man (or woman).

The thing that we both hate about fishing, is that sometimes the fish swallow the hook.  That is what happened with the shark.  Al didn’t want to risk losing a finger by trying to get the hook out, so he had to cut the line.  They say the hooks dissolve and the fish will be fine.  I sure hope so.  That’s why we prefer spearfishing.  You target the fish you want, and shoot it.  Unless it gets off the spear, you have the fish you want.

Sometime near 6pm, we reluctantly drug ourselves back to shore and loaded the boat up on the trailer.  It’s sure nice only having to trailer the boat a block home!

We were exhausted when we got home last night.  I don’t know what it is about being out in a boat or on the water, but it’s very tiring. If we weren’t leaving Monday, we would probably take the day off today and relax.

We are planning on taking the boat out today and launching at Bahia Honda.  They are having some sort of nature festival today, so we need to get there early before there are no more parking spaces.    Boy, do I wish I could lounge around a little this morning, but Al is nagging at me to get moving!!!