Relaxing in Carrabelle and a Fish Story…

Our days here at Carrabelle, Florida have been spent much the same as the days we spent at Mexico Beach and Panama City… at the beach. Most mornings we get up have some coffee, some breakfast and catch up on the newsworthy events. Sharon will peruse Facebook and some blogs while I read about the stock market, news and catch up on my blog reading. We will usually lounge around till noon when we will make lunch and prepare to hit the beach.

After digesting lunch we make our way over to a nice white sand beach about a mile or so west of the RV park. We park just behind the dunes and tote our gear over to the surf. The sand is just as white as the sand was in Mexico Beach and Panama City but the water here is nowhere near as clear as the water at the other two places. The water is browner in color most likely due to the proximity of all the sediment laden water flowing from the Carrabelle River. So since we are not getting in the water as much as we were before I bought a fishing license to try my luck at surf fishing.

Sharon brings along a book to read while I enjoy some relaxing surf fishing. Now I am not an overly zealous fisherman but enjoy throwing out a line and bait to see what I might end up with at the other end. I usually just use any meat scraps from whatever we ate the night or two before. Meat trimmings are simply tossed in a bag and frozen until used. I have caught quite a few small whiting and a lot of hardhead catfish. When I give up on fishing we take a long walk up the beach where there are little or no other people. We so enjoy watching the shore birds and walking out into the water on the shallow sand bars.  The sand bars have yielded many interesting shellfish finds as well as a stray fish lure or two.

The second day we were here I planned to use a minnow trap in the morning to catch some live bait. I used some meat scraps and set the trap but nothing at all, not even a small fry, found their way into the trap. So with little bait left I hoped to later catch a small fish to use for cut bait. As we pulled into our parking spot Sharon noticed something on the sand and it turned out to be four squid… I assume someone either accidentally dropped them or dumped them there after they finished fishing.

With this new bait I set the line out and scored a few decent sized whiting that made way to our freezer. But now for the real live fish story… as an interesting thing happened while we were sitting on the beach. I had just thrown out my bait and tightened up the line. I sat down in my beach chair and looked up the beach and saw a sizable fish that beached itself in a apparent attempt at catching some dinner. As it was flopping on the beach some 75 yards down from us I took off in a full sprint and was able to catch the fish by hand just before it reentered the water. I hadn’t sprinted like that in decades and was sure I would feel it the next day. Sprinting down the beach and catching a fish by hand made my Indian ancestors very proud I am sure!

The only other interesting catch was a small black tipped shark that I returned to the sea to get bigger and some nice gafftopsail catfish. Who would have thought that one the best fish I caught was by hand and how big was it? It was about 3-4 pound Spanish Mackerel and you can bet it will find its way to our grill real soon…

We leave here soon and head on over to Jacksonville Florida… We have really enjoyed the forgotten coast and will cherish the time spent here. We will miss the sunrises and the sunsets here as this park lived up to its name, Sunset Isle RV and Yacht Resort.