Wanda's
Fishing Memories Part 1
by: Wanda
Dateline: 6/26/00
Years ago I was a Navy wife, and we were stationed in Jacksonville, Florida. we used to night fish in the St. John's River near bridges with cut squid, and most often we caught a greenish ocean cat in the three pound range, and some nights a lot of three foot green eels...strange looking writhing in a big ball in the moonlight!
We always threw both species back, having been told by locals that sea cat were poisonous, and the eels simply were out of our range of knowledge as table fare. I have since been told that eels, sliced in rings and cooked like Calamari? (squid) are a delicacy for those who know how to prepare them.
At Mayport just north of Jacksonville, where the Intercoastal opens out to the ocean, it is bordered by rock jetties, and the fishing the is good either way the tide is moving. We caught red sea bass and red snapper on shrimp in the middle of the afternoon, and we were intrigued to watch a large trawler type boat fishing out in the middle of the cut. The boat had outriggers, and downriggers, a large chain on a winch which was used to land giant gaff sail catfish. Whole live sailor's choice (pinfish), brim sized, were used for bait on a huge hook, and the giant catfish were winched up to the surface. The cat were about six feet long with a very large arched sail on their backs.
We had no idea what we were seeing until we looked them up in our fish encyclopedia. Anyone fishing brackish or salt water really should rely on a fishing book to identify unknown species, and to be able to read about the edibility of each type fish. Some fish are poisonous or contain high levels of mercury or other toxins, especially in older fish of some species. The books also give information on habitat and preferred baits, and often methods of fishing most productive to each species.
We were also stationed at Panama City, Florida, and found the jetties at the St. Andrews State Park to be an ideal family place. There the jetties form a protected lagoon on the back side of the beach strip, and the kids used to play there in the sand and calm shallows, while I fished the Intercoastal Cut from the asphalt filled jetties a few feet away at the edge of the lagoon. The grade of the channel there was much steeper, and fish quickly took the bait under a rock if you weren't fast enough to beat them on the retrieval. Using old spark plugs for sinkers saved a lot of money as it was easy to lose your entire rig when a fish took you under the rocks.
We often caught pan sized trigger fish there, and while their exterior is like tough leather, once skinned, they are good eating. The raccoons that gather at the country store to scavenge food from the trash cans just before dark, would sit up and beg for our fish as we were on our way to the car. We couldn't resist tossing the smaller fish their way. Even the tough skin of the trigger fish was easy for the raccoons to manage. Never get close enough to let a raccoon bite! They can be very vicious!
Other critters we encountered while fishing were some small pin striped pole cats which scampered in and out of the rocks at Mayport, stealing freshly baited shrimp if it was left even for a second on the rocks before casting. They never sprayed us, but we were told they could. We weren't really sure they were skunks because of their very short hair, and pin striping,
While fishing the Florida keys under bridges in the middle of the day, we encountered large swimming birds called Cormorants, which had a bright red fleshy cone on top of their beaks, and they would swim up under water and would eat several whole fish, stringer and all, before you knew they were even there.
At Bahia Honda and Marathon we caught numerous three foot bonnethead sharks on pieces of squid in the mid afternoon in the shallow water just a couple of feet from shore near the foot of the bridges. Sheepshead, and croaker also took the squid if we fished near the bridge pilings where they were feeding on barnacles.
I have been called a tomboy because I love to fish, but it's worth being teased to enjoy such a great sport... (Actually I'm a feminist with ruffles and lace, and I do wear nail polish!)
Good fishing to you and good eating!
