We had an AMAZING time fishing this morning. Truly amazing.
Full sized image. Cody starting things off with that relatively small snapper pictured above.
Bailey kept pace with a yellowtail of his own, and those fish are real fighters.
Bay then added in a nice Ballyhoo, which we cut up for bait to catch some larger snappers.
Cody then followed suit with a really nice Bluerunner, which are also fighters and Cody needed a little help getting this bad boy into the boat.
Pictured below are the boys in front of the boat they used to land (no exaggeration, I swear) more than 70 fish. We caught and released them all, except for the Ballyhoos we used for bait.
I can't say enough about how much the boys enjoyed this experience - it was literally everything they hoped for, and that we hoped for them. We were referred to Captain Chris Morrison and except for that referral, we knew little about him. He was the perfect person to take us on our first Florida Keys fishing trip. He was great with the boys, took us a an amazing spot for fishing, taught the boys to cast and how to land all these fish, and then turned them loose to deliver knock-out punches to one fish after another. It is not a "tall fish tale" to say that for about an hour, we were landing roughly one fish per minute. If you count the ones we hooked but could not get into the boat, we were way over 100 fish for the day.
We caught snappers, grunts, Jack Crevalles, Bluerunners (great fighters), catfish (dangerous spikes!), everything. We hooked two bluefish, but both chewed through the line before we could get them in the boat. They are terrific fighters, though, too. At the end, Cody hooked a nice houndfish but that sucker shook the hook free, too, after a nice fight that included a couple of airborne jumps.
Captain Chris Morrison, we came to learn, is an award winning captain and angler with more than 70 world records in several categories, including sharks. I saw a video on a colleague's cell phone with a 14-foot black tip shark that Captain Chris caught using (get this) 12 lb line and fly fishing equipment. Amazing.
It was a spectacular experience for the boys, and for their dad too.
Somewhat sad to say, we'll be heading back to Chicago tomorrow morning early, as this vacation winds down. But Hawk's Cay is a great place for family vacations, and we'll be back. And Captain Chris is a great angler and teacher, and when we visit the Keys, we'll be back to chase more fish with him.