Fishing the Thunderbolt
My family and I had gone to Key West for a week in mid-July to see an old family friend. When we got the the first night we took a nighttime boat ride around the knotted mangrove trees trying to see the tail of a redfish on the low tide. When we got back that night we grilled some mangrove snapper he had caught that day and relaxed around the fire pit watching the shadows of fish swimming under the luminous dock lights.
The next day we went out reef fishing to catch some more mangrove snapper for dinner again. Then my dad’s friend had the idea to go out to a wreck called the Thunderbolt which was a sunken freighter. We headed out with about an hour of light left in the sky. As we pulled up to the spot where the wreck was I looked over the edge of the boat expecting to see a ship below us, and was extremely confused when I only saw the black abyss like ocean. Once we anchored up i immediately grabbed the dead ballyhoo from the bait-well, but my dad said that it would never work. I insisted on using this as my bait and my dad finally gave in to my request. As the bait was sinking towards the wreck I got sidetracked thinking about what types of monster fish could be living on the wreck.
All of the sudden the rod felt like it was being ripped from my hands and i tried to reel up the strong fish on the other end of the line. After a ten minute fight with the fish I finally got it to the surface and saw that it was an enormous, torpedo shaped amberjack. I gloatingly looked at my dad with an I told you so look because i was so proud that my decision to use the dead bait had caught me this trophy fish. When my dad helped me hold it for the picture it was as tall as I was at that time which made me even happier. That was a greta day for me because I had accomplished a great fishing trip using my own knowledge and had been right about the bait. That night for dinner we got to have grilled amberjack with mango salsa on top which made me feel even more accomplished because it fed everyone with meat to spare.
Similar to the last story, i enjoyed reading it. The story is interesting and like your last one, it has some sort of physical and athletic pretense to it. You did even better on this story with details and language than you did on the last one. I also found the message of this story much easier to understand. So, overall, great story.
ReplyDeleteThis story is a great read for anyone who has any liking for the great outdoors. Your sensory details made me feel as if I was out there fishing with you. One line that caught my eye was the one about proving your dad wrong. This gave me a sense of how you felt during the event. There are very few things I would critique about this essay. The small things I noticed included that your paragraph structure did not make much sense and the grammar and spelling were not greatly proof read. Overall this story had the right material to be a great nonfiction piece and with a few small changes it will be great.
ReplyDelete