This is my post for #freewriters 2981 prompt stress hosted by
We were both tired of going to Long Point and had a lot of stress from watching pompano skip from the boat and boil off of it, and not bite.
So I had the bright idea of us driving to Wabasso and putting the boat in there, then run to Vero Beach. Halfway to Vero, I saw a friend who works for mosquito control pulled up to an island. He had not got out of his boat yet, so I pulled in to ask if he had seen any pompano down that way. He counts the mosquitoes in all of the ponds on the islands for our entire county, so he covers a lot of area by boat. He said the only one he had seen was on the north side of Paul's Island, which was in the opposite direction from where we were headed.
After talking with him, I went another mile south before turning back to the north. Instead of going back to the ramp, I passed it up so we could run five miles to Paul's Island.
We were going around one of the little round islands and saw a boat headed for the same island. When we were on the east side of it, we heard three blasts from shotguns. I wanted to know what was going on, but my sister wanted to get away from the area. I knew people duck hunt on the river, but I never seen them hunting this area. When we got to the west side, we saw a man picking up the biggest ducks that I have ever seen. I pulled up to them and asked what kind of ducks they were. The man picking up the birds said they were geese. He said they were African geese, there was another word between African and geese, but I can not remember what he said.
He told me he was from Jensen Beach, and they showed up in Miami several years ago, and now they are migrating north. I asked if they are good to eat, and he said yes, they are really good to eat. Now I want to go goose hunting in Florida. I asked if we could take a picture, and they were happy to let my sister take some.
After talking with them, we went on to Paul's Island. We saw a pompano and anchored, but could not fish because the little fish (pickers) kept taking our bait. We moved and saw another one and anchored again. It was not long, and my sister had a fish, it was a three foot shark. While she was fighting it, a pompano got on one of the other rods. I was trying to reel it in, but lost it. The only other fish we caught were three stingrays, two blowfish, and one catfish.
We had both had enough and headed back to the ramp, for once, it was going to be an early day. Back at the boat ramp, my mosquito friend was getting ready to pull his boat out. He pulled up to me and told me he skipped three pompano on Judah's Island. Judah's Island is near the mouth of the creek where we had been going by every day we fished when going to Long Point. This made more stress. Then he tells me he talked to another friend who was fishing at Long Point, and the pompano were biting. For a split second, I thought about pulling the boat out and driving back to Roseland and putting it back in, but by now, we were both not in the mood to fish.
While we were at Paul's Island, my sister pulled two bananas from her bag. She knows I do not like bananas on the boat. I do not think she will ever do that again.
photo taken by my sister