Knot Yet doing what she was designed for.

When the guys at Ocean Yachts put in all those hours back in 2000 building our boat, I am sure they never envisioned it finding its way to the Great Lakes and being used as a pleasure craft.  These boats are built with one purpose in mind and that is to fish.  Sure, they are nicely appointed and you can spend some time on them, but they are built to fish.

Not us, we are built to cruise.  Move 30 miles or so, sit down and relax for a few days, then pick up and go when the weather is nice.  So, why buy a sportfish?  Well, I love the layout and I love the seaworthiness.

My friends in Florida love to fish and it kills them that I own such a hardcore machine and it never sees a line.  So, I wasn't in Florida a week and the boys were skipping work to go fishing.

We meet at the boat at 7am.  I have exactly no saltwater fishing gear on board (yet).  So, we grab a couple carts and ferry all of James' rods, reels, lures and coolers down to the boat.  I have said that we didn't buy her to fish, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't dying to fish her.  Fun!!!

Just like any fishing, we fished for hours, we covered miles and nothing.  Then suddenly a knockoff... nothing.  But, I guess there is hope.  It wasn't long and we have a double of... bonita.  Apparently, the non-tasty relative of the tuna.  They look just like them, but nobody eats them.  We keep a both for bait.  Next action, we have three rods go off at once.  This is fun!  The cockpit is full of action and I am all smiles.  Bonita again.  Oh well, back they go.  At least we are catching something.  But, enough with the bonitas.  They were in 150' of water, so we make our way out to 250'

We barely made it to 250' and off goes one our rods.  James gets a great fight out of a beautiful mahi mahi.  A nice bull, probably 15 to 20 lbs.   A few jumps and right up to the boat, then a quick turn and gone.  We get the lines reset and make plans to circle back through that spot again.  The whole time Macara has been saying that one of the lines in pulling too hard, but nobody is listening to her.  Including me.  We make our turn and she says it again, but this time I could see the fish back there.  Macara get down there, that is your fish!



Moment's later all three rods go off!  Unfortunately, we only landed 2 of them.


We put in a full day.  We fished from Stuart down past Jupiter to Juno Beach and back.  We boated 3 dolphin and played with at least 2 more.  Overall, a great day.  And I must say, boy are they tasty!

Yes Uncle Dee, the Brooks' family is pulling away in the 2012 Fishing Derby.