Padre Day 6: Fishing for Dinner

We woke early again this morning to another beautifully sunny and warm day. After another taco breakfast courtesy of Vi, we stopped by the Blue Marlin grocery to pick up lunch for our fishing trip and a fishing license for Vi. We were meeting our fishing charter at White Sands Marina in Port Isabel so we headed across the bridge, stopping for a minute at the Port Isabel Pier and Lighthouse.

Captain Cliff and the pelicans were waiting for us at White Sands Marina. His normal fishing boat was in the shop so he was leasing a boat for our charter today.

We climbed aboard and got everything settled then made our way out of the marina. We happened to pass the "Pura Vida," a sailboat with the same name as the one Mike and I had recently donated after seven years of ownership.

Our fishing day started at the old Causeway Bridge, under the piers, for mangrove snapper. Mike had great skills, reeling in seven keepers. I caught just one keeper plus a sheepshead and a mojarra.

Mojarra are very uncommon fish in the Gulf of Mexico. They are more commonly found in the Caribbean. When I first saw it, I thought I had pulled it's mouth out but Captain Cliff assured me that this look was typical for the fish.

Vi didn't have any luck with the mangrove snappers but caught a stingray and two sheepshead.

We stayed in this area for about 1 1/2 hours then decided to go up the coastline about 15 miles to fish for speckled trout. This was a different kind of fishing and I was apparently not good at it at all. Captain Cliff brought in a trout we could keep as did Vi.

We returned to the marina about 4:30p with all of our catch. We thought it had been a pretty successful fishing day with eight mangrove snapper and two speckled trout.

Captain Cliff filleted the fish for us as the pelicans feasted on the spoils.

His recommendation for a restaurant to cook our catch for us was Blackbeard's, a restaurant on the strip not far from the condo. So we went back to the condo and made ourselves presentable for dinner. We took five of the fillets and had them fry half and blacken half. We added scallops and shrimp then picked two personal sides each.

It was wonderful food, the best of our trip.