Remember Chapter 58 "A Bad Day at Fishing ..."? Well, here's one about a good day of fishing.
Our April 2005 trip was planned to be 3 days of fishing, but turned out to be only one. Luckily, it was a good one!
We drove down to Jonathan Dickinson State Park near Jupiter, Florida on a Monday. A few miles from the park, I spotted a large cloud of smoke that looked like it was hanging right over the area we hoped to camp in. Below are a couple of photos I took.
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Cloud looked huge from a distance
Almost to the park
On the left, the cloud looks really large. As we got closer, it began to look a little more confined. It turned out to be some tree-stump burning at a park just North of Jonathan Dickinson. As we entered JDSP, we figured out what the burning was for. Almost every Australian Pine in the park had been damaged or destroyed by the 2004 hurricanes, so the park management was taking down all of the pines in the campground. Notice the lack of trees in the photos below. What a shock! There used to be so many trees, you couldn't see two campsites away. Now, you can see all the way across the campground. I've also included a photo from Chapter 58 to show how it formerly looked about a year ago. Go back to that chapter to see more photos of the park before the storms.
View across the campground
Site 33 in April 2005
Site 33 in April 2004
Still a few small trees and bushes left on the campsites
Despite the lack of trees, we still enjoyed the camping. Certainly not bad for the $12 a night that you pay at Florida State Park campgrounds, if you're a resident and old. Below, I've included a couple of shots of our campsite. Notice how wide the spot is, with enough space across the front to pull the truck and boat in perpendicular to the RV. Couldn't ask for much more than that.
Plenty of room all around
The proud fisherman
The collection - small but tasty (yes, all were legal limit size >20 inches)
Enough about camping, on to the fishing! We got up at 6, stopped by the store to pick up ice and bait, then on the water by 7:30. Within an hour or two, Buck caught a single small Dolphin (Mahi-Mahi) and we continued trolling around 200-400 feet. As we wandered along, we barely missed a rather large piece of a tree in the water. That was the key! Less than a minute later, as our baits passed under the tree, we started getting hits. Within a very short time, we had several Dolphin thrashing around our boat. We managed to bring in 4 of them, before they went on their way. If I was a little faster at re-rigging my line, we probably could have caught a few more, but I certainly can't complain. Bringing in 4 of those lively little fellas in about 10 minutes time is exciting enough and we had plenty to eat well for several meals.
How's this for an amazing mural?
The original
Joined by his friends
Close-up of the White one
Then, sometime around noon, we noticed hydraulic fluid leaking around the steering mechanism. We kept fishing for a while, but then Buckner decided we'd better head back and try to get the steering fixed. We headed in about 1:00 or so, unhappy about having to quit early, but at least satisfied that we had an early catch to show for our short time on the water.
We pulled up by the boat ramp and started cleaning the fish. Before finishing the first fish, I noticed a Pelican floating behind the boat, waiting for a hand-out. As we peeled off the Dolphin's skin, we threw it to the waiting bird. Before we'd finished the second fish, there were three Pelicans. Soon, I counted 16. So I took a few more photos (below). Note the White-Faced Pelican -- I don't know if he was a different species or what, but all the others were Brown. We fed them all, finished the fish-cleaning, then headed back to the RV.
And thus ended the fishing part of our fishing trip. We spent Tuesday afternoon trying to find a shop capable of fixing the busted O-rings in the hydraulic piston. We took it in Wednesday morning, got it back Thursday around 2:00, installed it, and headed home Thursday afternoon, a day earlier than expected. HOWEVER, we had some great meals -- Fish Tuesday evening, BBQ Wednesday noon, etc. It rained quite a lot Wednesday afternoon, so we couldn't have done much fishing then anyway. The wind kicked up Thursday and got worse Friday, thus the going home a day early. As I said back in Chapter 58 - A Bad Day at Fishing is Better than a Good Day at the Office - still holds true. In this case, it was a fairly good day at fishing. Also, spent Wednesday and Thursday wait time showing Buckner how to use a computer, so time wasn't wasted. He's about to jump into the world of computers, internet, DSL, email, and all that, so this was a great opportunity to get him started. Hoping it won't take him more than a week or two to find this and read it ... LOL. Then he can ask me what LOL means ... another one of those details one must learn to really get by on the internet.
My Travel Log
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65. A Good Day at Fishing ...
