It would be out of character for me to visit the Florida Keys without writing about my experience there. Partly because I usually write about anything that stands out in my life if I remember too and also because so many marvelous writers called the Florida Keys their home – Ernest Hemingway and Harry Truman to name a couple.
We left for Florida full of anticipation. Our intentions: Deep sea fishing, jet skiing, soaking up sunrises and sunsets, enjoying the sea food we’d heard so much about, para-sailing, and having a great time together! (We succeeded)
The Florida Keys is such a tranquil place with breathtaking sites that can leave one awestruck. There’s nothing like waking up early in the morning just before dawn and walking out your front door to a dock where your fishing boat is waiting to assist you with the morning’s catch while taking in the Florida sunrise. A cooler full of Corona’s, some sandwich meat and bread, a nice cigar, fishing poles with proper bait, along with a full tank of gas is similar to how most of our mornings started during our stay at the Gulf View Resort in Marathon (Mile 58). After crossing over from the gulf side to the Atlantic it was off to the races, of fish that is. Who could catch the biggest one, what bait will they go after, where will they most likely be, what’s the best fishing method for these waters? All questions running through our heads as we loaded up the boat before heading out to sea for a relaxing day of fishing.
Once we were a few miles out and at between 300 and 600 ft depth I just started looking for birds. As a city kid, being raised by an outdoors man has been quite helpful for me at times and this was one of them. Being born and raised in a desert (Las Vegas) I had few opportunities to be out on a boat in the middle of the ocean but for some reason I didn’t feel out of my element. I was the first to spot a flock of seagulls diving into the water and circling above a few hundred yards from where we were trolling. I yelled out while pointing, “That’s where the fish are everyone.” The boat’s bow turned hard to port shortly thereafter and we were off to see what all of the commotion was about. Sure enough, as we approached the area where the birds were circling above we looked down and saw a school of Mahi-Mahi swimming below feeding on a smaller school of fish; the circle of life was turning right before my eyes.
We had the lines out already and before long 2 of our polls had tension….(2:36 in the video below)
