Day 33 - The Final Week Begins

Not to sound fanatical or desperate for food (because I'm not), but I got up 'naturally' this morning at about 5:30am and decided to go fishing for about an hour and a half before having to go to work.  This is very unusual for me.  I am certainly not a morning person.  Perhaps I am becoming one?  I looked at the weather forecast and the tide and saw a brief window of opportunity to get out for a little while.

I was on the water fishing by 6am.  The weather was starting to get lousy and there will be few opportunities for the next several days.  It was windy, foggy and drizzly.  On top of that there was a tremendous amount of seaweed in the water and it was getting snagged on my line every time I dropped it into the water.  Not a good sign.  However, I had several good spots marked from the previous few trips that I decided to go directly to in order get a few quick fish and head home. 

2 fish on at one time!

Despite the adverse conditions, my plan worked very well.  I got the job done.  I managed to catch 4 keeper sized fluke with at least as many short throw backs.  I spent about an hour fishing and was home before the rest of the family was even awake.  I was smart about putting these fish right into an icy cold cooler and there they will sit until cleaning time.  There will definitely be another big fish fry soon!

On my way to work I noticed a strange grinding noise coming from my truck's left front tire area.  This did not sound good at all but I can't imagine what would have caused this overnight.  At lunch today I stopped in at a local garage and they were nice enough to have me bring my truck in tomorrow to check it out.  On a whim I went to the Chevy dealer to see what they had available.  Even used, these Suburbans are quite costly.  I think it would be a much better idea to try to fix what I have rather than get something new or used.  Hopefully this will be a pretty quick fix because without the truck, the boat is out of commission for a while.

I worked all day and it was a bit stressful at times.  When work was over I had all of that fluke to clean at home so I set up a fillet station in my garage and got busy.  Unfortunately, the fish from the previous day (that had died in my live well) had gone slightly bad.  I didn't want to risk it so instead of cleaning these three fish for food, I made bait slices out of them.  Hopefully they will come in handy sometime in the future and not be wasted.  Other than those three fish, I meticulously cleaned all the others and I have a very nice stock of fluke at the moment.

Wonderful fish and veggies for dinner

 I had a nice dinner of broiled fish, asparagus and rice and after dinner I treated myself to a wonderful bowl of popcorn with spiced honey butter.  Man, I really found a winner with this treat.  It's got salty, sweet, spicy and crunchy all rolled up into one pretty healthy treat.  I have a feeling I will be making this quite often in the future.