A Day on The Water

Knowing for months that my family was going to get a surprise visit from the Heroes Thanking Heroes team was tough to keep secret, but awesome.

I knew that Jim & Juan would be coming and I thought how cool it would be to get them out on the water, fishing pole in hand. We made the plans and were at a friend Johnnies house before sunrise. Our plan was to fish the bay using croakers, a small bait fish that makes a croaking noise underwater. We loaded up and hit the water about 6:30 heading towards the Galveston Bay near Texas City.

The first fish in the boat is Jim's. It's a small, beautiful silver and yellow finned fish called a pompano. They're rare to catch in the bay but I think it's awesome because the first an only time I caught one was with Johnnie about 5 years ago and even then, Johnnie was surprised because they aren't part of the normal catch.

The next fish is Juan's. It's a fish I'd heard of but never seen, especially in the bay. He caught a cool looking Spanish Mackerel. It has sharp, long fins and a mouth full of teeth! What am I thinking? Everything in the bay has teeth. I'm thinking how great it is that these two wounded veterans, who are great friends to me are here, fishing saltwater catching fish and enjoying a beer. The water is so calm and we have a nice breeze blowing that it couldn't get any better for relaxation and reconnecting.

As we're hitting a slow spot in our fishing we see a pod of dolphins slowly swimming around our fishing area and Juan, Jim and I think how cool that is! Johnnie, our fearless captain knows that if dolphins are near, the fish we hope to catch are gone, apparently, they like flounder, reds and trout too, we move on.

We move under the I-45 Causeway bridge after getting pelted with rain (not fun on a boat doing 30 mph) but we survive, we do get rained on again later that day and consequently baked nearly to a crisp.

We fish a few other spots and have some luck. Johnnie catches some really cool looking redfish (a "Midas touch" golden colored redfish) and a couple of trout. We aren't filling the boat cooler with keepers but were sharing stories, poking fun at missed fish and stolen bait and having a good time. I laugh audibly to myself as I watch Jim put a fresh shrimp on his line, he casts and his fresh bait flies 20 feet past where his line lands. Shrimp gone, reel in and start over but I've done it too.

We've now had breakfast burritos, a few beers, a few fish that got away and a few keeper trout as we point the boat back towards Tiki Island, where we launched from. We get the keepers cleaned (mine ;-)) and head for home. The smiles, the stories and just the peacefulness of it all makes me look forward to the next time I can get out on the water. Jim hadn't fished in over 10 years and it'd been that long since Juan had fished salt water. I love that we could have this experience together and though I wouldn't say it while we were out on the water, I enjoyed watching Juan and Jim trying to & catching fish more than I enjoyed catching my own!

I can't wait to get back out on the water, fishing pole in hand.