Finsation: Day 9 - Marathon, FL

August 8, 2014

We got up at 5:40 AM, made sandwiches, grabbed a bite from the continental breakfast, and were out the door. After meeting our guide, Billy Whitney, at Hawks Kay Marina at 7:15, we zipped off in his 20', 150 HP boat. Our first stop was a point of land and rocks that the outgoing ride was rushing around. We fished with spinning rods and jigs. The jigs had flat, 1/4 oz., heart-shaped heads and white bucktails, they were called backbone jigs if they had the bucktails and skimmer jigs if they did not. Billy cut the heads off of live shrimp and put the tail on our hooks... a lethal setup.

Wham! My line started flying off of my reel. "That's a bonefish!" shouted Billy. The immense power of the fish astounded me. I held on as the fish burned my reel. Then, in the blink of an eye, he turned perfectly to spit the hook right out of his mouth. It's never fun to lose a fish, but we were already off to a great start. We moved to the next spot.

The second destination was another point, but this one consisted more of mangrove trees. Off the bat, I caught a foot long blue runner. He fought strongly. Soon, my dad had a fish on the line as well. It took no time at all to see that his fish was a good one. Bonefish! Then, just like my fish, it spit the hook.

My dad hooked and lost another bonefish before getting one to stay on the line. The fished smoked his line many times, and even shot under the motor once, before my dad landed the 23", 5 lb beast. Whoop!

We kept fishing that spot and I hooked and lost another bonefish when I cast toward a baby hammerhead. We even got to see a big 5 ft shark swim by us. We ventured from 3 ft water to 7 ft water and got into a bunch of little, hand-sized snappers. Billy elected to move away from the bait steelers.

Our next, and final, fishing spot quickly proved superb. We continued to catch a lot of little snapper. However, we also got into a barracuda haven. We pulled them out left and right. The biggest one was caught by my dad and sat between about 2 1/2 and 3 ft long. Like the bonefish, the barracuda fought powerfully. Furthermore, their acrobatic leaps made them all the more fun to catch. At one point, my dad and I each had one on the line at the same time. While we fished, Billy tossed out a shark line with a live snapper we had caught earlier. Something hit the bait but cut the line like it was floss.

Before we knew it, it was 11:30 AM and our fishing for the day was over. In our 4 hr trip, we must have caught between 20 and 30 fish. We each caught 3 or 4 barracudas, my dad caught the one bonefish, and the rest were snappers and other small fish. Outstanding day.

Billy put us on a lot of fish and was a fun character to be around. He has been in the Keys for over 40 years, so he knows a thing or two about the fishing here. I would take another trip with his Soc-et-tu-um charters.

We departed from the dock and made our way straight to Key West. Arriving in a little over an hour, my dad saw a place with little electric beach town buggies and rented one. It was much easier and more fun to zip around in the buggy as we explored the unique island.

We grabbed a beer in Irish Kevin's Pub and then a Pirate's Punch at and old and famous bar, Captain Tony's. That was a lot of fun. We walked around a bit and found an older man from Cuba, named Raul, rolling cigars in a shop. We talked with him and watched him for a while before buying two. Here is how he made the cigars (in case you are interested):

1. Get a handful of dry tobacco leaves, all oriented parallel to each other.

2. Lay out a large moist leaf on the table and begin rolling the handful of dry leaves in the moist leaf. If you reach the end of the moist leaf, continue with another one. You will finish with a bit of a taper but both ends will be open and the cigar will be very rough looking.

3. Wrap the rough cigar in strips of newspaper like was done with the moist leaves.

4. Let the cigar sit for about a minute. This allows the moist leaves to dry and hold their form.

5. Remove the paper. Wrap again with moist leaves. Be more careful this time, as this wrap will be visible in the finished product.

6. When you reach the end, taper down to a point by using cigar glue and twisting and pressing the end until the tip is complete.

7. Raul suggested letting the cigar sit for a day before use.

After the cigar shop, we drove to the edge of the nearby military base and then to the southern most point of the continental U.S. At this point, we were closer to Cuba than to Miami.

Finally, we had to return the buggy. We went to The Conch Republic, or The Conch Farm as the locals call it, for dinner. It was packed but the food was good. I was stuffed after conch fritters, snapper wellington, a Key Lime mojito, and Key Lime pie.

Afterward, we explored around a bit and then headed back to our hotel. By now it was nearly 9 PM. Along the way, we found some sort of festival and stopped to check it out. The 300 to 400 person gathering was a big class reunion for a broad span of class years. People were dancing, showing off cars, and eating all sorts of foods, having a great time. The live band wasn't too shabby either. We headed on back, for we knew our second fishing trip would come early in the morning.