Monday, February 21, 2022

Fishing With Dylan: A Work In Progress

    Many people come to Miami for the nightlife, the ocean, the beautiful weather, and especially the women. My friend Dylan and I, however, decided to pursue a different kind of MILF this Sunday. He got me a shirt with the inscription "Man I Love to Fish" (a very accurate gift) for my birthday, and so I decided to use it. We went to Haulover Inlet today, which is a spot that I haven't been to in years, mostly because of the rocks. That would surely come back to haunt us today.

    Dylan recently moved to Miami from New York, so it was interesting that he knew of the spot already. After all, it is one of the more popular fishing holes in Miami. This was not the first time I'd gone fishing with Dylan. We previously tried out kayak fishing (I believe the first time I've tried it) around Maule Lake and East Greynolds Park, but we had no luck using frozen squid. The current under a bridge to which we paddled proved too strong to pull out a fish, too, and we ended up with no catches. However, we did get a bite (the fish broke Dylan off by the rocks and pilings), and we had a great time on the water which encouraged us to keep trying.

    This time I made sure to buy live shrimp, seeing as how the squid last time was virtually ineffective. I've always preferred live shrimp to anything else here in south Florida. However, it didn't seem to make too much of a difference in the end. We were fishing by the rocks, which is good structure, and we saw fish, but most of them caused our hooks to get caught up. Our hooks got "rocked" on many casts, and we unfortunately lost a good amount of tackle (and money) between the two of us. That's the cost of fishing by structure.

    We did have a few bites, but no fish caught except for one Tomtate I caught accidentally; I was reeling in my bait to check on it as the fish hit the hook on the way in. Regardless, we were happy to come away with SOMETHING. Despite not catching much, we had a good day on the water until sunset, when we had a catch and left. We're still waiting to catch a solid fish together - it's a work in progress - but even when we don't, it's great to just have a good time on the water and forget about problems. That's what fishing's all about.