OBX21 Fishing

 Still posting pictures from our vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This bunch of pictures is from a particular highlight of the week, when we rented a boat and... went fishing!

It's odd that waking up early on vacation brings up feelings of excitement rather than sleepyness. We planned on renting the boat for 4 hours, like... all morning. There's a small bait shop up there, too. But I totally forgot to snap a couple of pictures in there.

The night before, we all went to Walmart to get a fishing license. Most people might not know that you need to have a license to fish, if the boat cops "catch" you without one, it's fine... I mean... a huge fine.

It's kind of funny that you need a license to fish, but not one to actually drive the boat. There's a couple of simple rules on this print out. Basically just be cool. Make sure you bring the paper license with you, it's not something they look up with a computer. I think it was like $14, and lasted for 7 days.

Our boat is the one on the right. Say goodbye to the land for the next few hours!

There was a brief lecture on how to drive the boat and spots on the map we were to be confined in. They obviously don't want us to get in any trouble out at sea so we need to stay near the safe space.

My friends all had brought a ton of fishing gear. They often go out in their own tiny boat where they're from in Hampton, so they knew what they were doing, while my other friend and Minty were total rookies.

It's a simple little boat and it's all ours for the next 4 hours! I did like when the rental person calmly mentioned there were life jackets on the boat, but honestly if you fall overboard just... stand up. The water was very shallow all around here, like 3 or 4 feet deep.

This is not a huge complicated fishing lure, this is the anchor, silly! We were told there's a good spot around this area, so time to toss down this in the water and start fishin'!

Here fishy fishy! Does that area look like it might be home to some fishies? My rookie friend was given a few lessons on how to cast the reel from his fishing-a-bunch father before the vacation. Who also lent him a fishing rod, even though extras were brought along.

Hurray! We got one! Thanks for the picture, little fish! Hope you enjoyed the free meal, as we were using headless shrimp for bait. It's kind of tiny, so back in the water you go! I didn't get pictures of every fish. That would have gotten annoying. But we didn't know that at this time. 

We caught a few small fish, but we decided to move the boat under that bridge over there. There was a canopy on the boat but that bridge was going to cover us all in wonderful shade. And maybe some fish like hanging around under there, too.

How fast is a knot? We were going about 9 knots. Google says that's about 10 miles per hour, so a little bit faster than my friend usually rides his bike, which cruises at about 9 MPH. Sure feels like we are going faster with the loud engine and the wind blowing in our faces.

Parked under the shade of the bridge. Check out those people fishing off of the bridge support. How did they get over there? You can't see it in the picture, but there's a boat on the other side where we can't see. 

Time to bring out the big guns! Er... good bait. My rookie friend's father gave him some of this stuff called Bloodworm Alternative which is tiny science rectangles of awesomeness. Held together by a plastic mesh, you can cast this several times without using another piece, as the fish don't actually eat it. But oh... do they try!

The Science bait was working like a charm, almost every other cast we would hook a tiny fish, sometimes back-to-back catches! They were called "croakers" because they made a croaking noise while you unhooked 'em. We let them all go back except one, which my other friend re-hooked to use as bait itself. He didn't catch as big a fish as expected with it, just this crab.

Nice and relaxing. My friend doesn't like to eat fish, so there's no real point in him fishing. But there's a fun "booster pack" effect going on, where you don't really know what you've hooked until you reel it in. Did you get a rare fish? Nope, just another common croaker. 

One of the "recipes" in my friend's Dungeons & Dragons cookbook was for simple "Iron Rations" which should have been served in little tins, but instead brought along in these plastic bags. My friend who hates seafood, and has been handling fishy things all morning, had a fun time pushing food to the top of the bag to snack without actually touching the food.

After the snacks we decided to move the boat again. We were only catching tiny croaker fish over there and hoped to get something bigger. The Captain of the boat was using a phone app to navigate. There was a super-detailed computer map and it was kind of funny that he was staring at it more instead of the water while driving. There was no other boats around, it's not like real traffic or anything.

Water navigation involves these markers in the water. Green on the right as you are going out, and red on your right as you are coming back in. They keep you away from the shallow waters, and also make cool places for bird nests.

Speed yacht! The traffic laws on the ocean are sketchy at best. Sure, this is far away not to hit us, but the waves coming off of the back of it will surely cause us trouble. Is it the fun kind of trouble, though? We steered a little closer to it, just to be crazy a little.

SPLOOSH! The boat rocks mightily and waves crash into the side as we go up and down a few times. Whooooaaaahhh!! That was fun!

We parked the boat again, this time it was farther away from the land, to try and get something bigger. Maybe the deeper water held bigger fish? The Bloodworm Alternative was still being awesome, but still only catching tiny croakers. We never really caught anything worth keeping but it was fun trying.

Just as we were about to start going back to end the day, we noticed a dolphin tour boat in the distance, and there were dolphins giving them a show! I took dozens of pictures to try and get a "good" one, and I circled them here so you can see them better. They were jumping out of the water and blowing the spouts, those dolphins were probably having more fun than the people on the boat!

Back in we go. You rent a boat for 4 hours but really it's going to take time to drive back and all. Don't forget about that. 

There was some kind of tour boat we tried to catch, and we all had a moment of fun pretending to be pirates. I think we were catching up to it, but we turned away since it was going in a different direction. Yarrrr! They got lucky.

I figured I might mention that there was a sort of bathroom on the boat. This hatch led to a tiny room you step down into with a toilet filled with cat litter. I guess it's better than going off the side of the boat like everybody joked about.

I tried to get a picture of the churning water around the side of the boat. Be careful you don't drop the phone! This was probably not a smart thing to try, but we didn't drop the phone so it's okay. And since we took the risk, for sure we're posting the picture.

That tiny aqua building way over there is the boat's home. The official fishing totals were Captain: 2, Friend: 2(+1crab), Rookie (& Minty): ...12! Yes, the person who never fishes caught a full dozen little fish. Individually they were too small to keep, but all together we might have had a meal, ...that is, for the others who would actually eat the fish.

Safe back on land! We had a fun time. I can see how some people make a full hobby out of this, including my friends who do go out a lot. It's a lot of relaxing but also the total sense of excitement is there, too. I would have liked to have stayed out longer.