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More fishing. First the hammerhead shark pup I caught and released was a bonnethead shark, which is a subspecies of hammerhead. Also from the shape of the head it was a girl. For the fans who wrote in and said they liked to eat hammerhead shark, but it was a lot of work to clean: I’ve never tasted shark where I was happy. Maybe I’ve never had it cooked correctly, but I also don’t like swordfish, so maybe I just don’t like that much beef on my fish. Besides, I’d rather have released the pup and let it grow then try to eat it. There’s just something about sharks that it’s not about eating them, it’s about catching them, and feeling all that power at the end of your rod.

Today, we caught lot’s fish, but had to release almost all of it. We got to keep one snapper, that I caught, and a Spanish Mackerel that Trinity caught. We had them for dinner and just the two fish was enough to feed all five of us. Add salad and you have a meal. But, because it was the smallest number of fish we’d caught on this vacation we didn’t think it would be that much meat, so we all ordered food, as well. Way too much food. The snapper was it’s usual good self, but none of us had ever had Spanish Mackerel before, and we all declared it better than regular mackerel. In fact, Spanish Mackerel has moved up to my top three spots for tasty fish. Yum.

The rest of the catch was not for eating, but it was for testing our skills with rod and reel. Sharks, lot’s of sharks. Jon caught two lemon sharks, and Grandpa caught one. Grandpa has just reminded me that his shark was the biggest, but that Jon’s grouper was the biggest. The groupers in question were Goliath groupers, and they were all babies, because grown up can be the size of a Volkswagon. No, really, that big. What they caught was big, but not that big. They are protected species so you have to release all you catch, and we did, but wow they are a powerful fish on the end of a rod, and impressive when you get them out of the water. I caught two black groupers, but they were both too small to keep so back they went, but one was big enough to bend my rod in that exciting ’U’ shape that means you’ve caught something big. I caught another bonnethead shark pup late in the day, and it was a fight again. It was a bigger pup, less baby, and more young adult. It’s skin didn’t feel as smooth to the touch as the first one. I guess you have to toughen up as you get older. Trinity agrees with that, but adds, it was also a boy, and maybe boys aren’t as soft. Maybe. Nothing that I’ve hooked fights like a shark, though Grandpa thinks the Goliath grouper is stronger on the line. Having never hooked one of those big, bad, boys, I can’t speak to it. Jon’s undecided, but we both agree the sharks were very cool.

Birds we saw from the boat: osprey, frigate birds, ibis, cormorants, brown pelicans, terns, and gulls, lot’s of gulls. Sea gulls are like sparrows to me, though, I know what they are, but am not good in a quick spot to be definit on exactly what kind of sea gull, or sparrow, the bird happens to be. So, I’ll pour over my Peterson’s guide tomorrow and see if I can narrow down the choices. I’ll have to look up the tern, too, because I’m just not as good at sea birds as I am at more land-locked ones. We saw the osprey at almost the same point as the first fishing trip, but today there were two of them, wheeling and turning in the air. The first time there had been only one and it was doing serious fishing, diving into the water, surfacing with a shake of it’s feathers and climbing into the sky, to search the water below for another chance at fish. I think I’ve only seen one osprey the entire time I’ve lived in St. Louis, here they were the bird of prey I saw most often. There was also a small hawk that kept swooping overhead, and again I’ll look through Peterson’s to see if I can narrow down my choices, but it was always very fast and high overhead, so I may just put that under mystery bird. I’m sure it was a small hawk, but beyond that I’ll have to think on it.