This is my post for #freewriters Tuesday prompt fishing boat hosted by @mariannewest
The boat in the picture is the first fishing boat that my husband and I owned when we first got together. One of the fish houses had a mold for it and we paid them to pop a boat out of their mold, this was 1985.
We always fished together until one day my husband had to go to a fishing meeting on the west coast. We had been catching jacks and he told me while he was gone to take the boat and catch the jacks. I did not want to do it but he convinced me that I could handle it.
I was so scared, one thing was we always left the dock well before daylight, which meant that I would be running the boat in the dark. I made it to the bridge without hitting anything. I anchored and waited for the jacks. I saw the ripple that they make when they are swimming and started to shake, it was show time. I pulled my anchor and started the motor with the buoy in my hand. I threw the buoy cutting them off from the direction that they were coming from, they will turn back in the direction they came from when scared. I circled them with my net and watched my corks go down, I knew I had a good set. (a set is what we call it when we run the net around fish).
I roped them in, throwing ice on them as I went. I had so many fish that I had to idle to the fish house. Once there, the owner helped me clear the net. I had 1,500 pounds.
That was the day that I started fishing my own fishing boat.
When we fished the ocean, I still fished with my husband. But in the river, I was captain of my own boat.
Since I took over the other boat, my husband built this boat for him to fish in the river. It is what is called a bowrigger, the motor is in the middle of the front of the boat. It is there because it will run in shallow water. It was fun to run, but a little scary because you stood on the bow. To keep from falling off, he built a railing around it.
This was in the ocean, a friend was fishing by himself and got a good set of Spanish mackerel, my husband got on his boat and helped him get the net back, that is me in the other fishing boat. Another friend took the picture.
Before we owned our own ocean fishing boat we paid a percentage to the fish house and fished their boat.
This fishing boat belonged to one of the fish house owners. It was an old wooden motor boat that he towed two skiffs with. He would anchor the motor boat off. He tied the nets together that were in the skiffs and he and his son would row around the fish.
After the net ban, the owner put the boat on the hill. The hill is what shore is called. A hurricane took the cabin off it and later it started to deteriorate so he hauled it to the landfill.
In the last 36 years, we have had many boats, but I think this is my husband's last fishing boat.
This will be my last fishing boat. This picture was taken by a friend of mine.
unless otherwise stated, all photos are mine