After all the delays...all the waiting...we headed down on the morning of the 4th of March, and returned this a.m. @12:20-ish. Winging it, flying by the seat of our pants, hoping we would be able to find half-way decent accommodations within our budget...we survived, fried our pasty-pale Michigan skins (peeling profusely now!), had just enough money to get home, and spent 7 nights on Marathon Key. Some wheedling our way through cities on day 3 slowed us down from what could have been more direct routes...& I really didn't get to do any exploring on the mainland, and had a couple of days in the keys when I had to be a bum, catch up on rest, and give my fried skin a break from the (tropical) sun! However...sitting in the shade of palm trees sipping ice tea or root beer, watching gulls and pelicans coasting by, being serenaded by white-winged doves that sounded like cuckoo birds, reading a book on FL fishes trying to ID everything I saw on the party boat and/or at the pier...sure beat the hell out of being back here watching the snow melt, especially wearing shorts every day and trying to identify fish that were red, pink, orange, yellow, blue, silver...sometimes all in the same fish! We must have caught 20 spp. on the Miss Islamorada, my catch was 4 littlehead porgies, 1 white grunt, 1 gray triggerfish, and two beautiful mutton snappers that had to go back...and died anyway from the pressure. Okay, I get that they are trying to protect them, but when you watch them float away dead because they are too small too keep & you winch them up from >100 feet of ocean...I neither saved it, nor get to eat it...
Nevertheless, and in spite of various rough spots, the trip overall was as great time for me and totally a reconnaissance mission for me. Found a really nice place to stay & LOTS to go back and explore.
I even did some fly fishing! A nice something or other followed my fly on that amazingly beautiful beach and then spooked with a flash the size of a dinner plate...jack or pompano? Unfinished business...
Enjoy!
A tired but rejuvenated Jonathon
No matter how big the one you just caught is, there's always a bigger one out there somewhere...