A Boy Remembering Key West Fishing
by Don Jones
"OK, son. Time to get up," my father said in the darkness of the early Saturday morning. Once the sleep began to wear off, the anticipation of what lay ahead began to take over. This morning was like many of the mornings I enjoyed when I was twelve years old back in 1956.
Dad had already loaded the boat with supplies, the gas tank, tackle boxes, bait, and fishing poles. The stars were out as we got into the station wagon and headed for the Boca Chica Sea Plane base at the edge of Key West. At three in the morning, there was no traffic on the streets to slow us down. Dad had checked the weather with the naval base the night before, where he was working as the Chief Master of Arms, and knew that it would be a clear day for fishing and that the seas were going to be flat.
We arrived at the Sea Plane ramp where the old PBY would come onto the base. The giant planes were parked in a neat line in front of the hangers. The wind carried a whiff of sea salt from the ocean along with a slight smell of kerosene from the nearby planes. Dad had backed the boat into the water, and my older brother Ronnie was standing by the shore holding the rope while dad parked the wagon. We got into the boat and dad backed the boat out. We headed for the open sea. I got to sit in the front of the boat, and kept looking back as the lights of the base slowly drifted further and further till they were just a light now and then on the horizon.
We had traveled out to the ten-mile buoy and tied up to it. By now the sun was beginning to herald its coming. By 5:00 a.m. the sun was peeping over the horizon, and we had our lines baited and in the water. The thrill of the first strike hit, as my line went tight and I began to haul in my first catch of many. It was a nice red snapper. My brother and I were having a ball helping fill the two wash tubs sitting in the middle of the fourteen foot Cypress strip wooden boat. Dad was using the deep sea rigs. He had two of them out, one on the back of the boat and one off to one side.
After a few hours, dad was about to call it quits when his deepsea rig began to sing from a strike. He was using live bait, with what I thought was a monster hook. Whatever took the bait, had to be big. We pulled in our lines as he began to fight his catch. After about 15 minutes of pulling and winding in line ,we got a chance to see what he had caught, a small jewfish. There would be enough meat on the table from that one catch, for the next couple of weeks. After we got his catch in the boat, we untied the lines and headed back to the base.
It is interesting that I trusted my Dad’s judgment when I was young. He was a seasoned sailor of over 20 years. He had been in the war, around the world several times, and at sea for as long as 6 months at a time. It never occurred to me to be afraid of the sea. Looking back now, not in my wildest imagination would I travel out of sight of land in a small 14-foot wooden boat, with a 14-horse power motor, and without a radio. I don’t have 20 years of seamanship and expertise on the high seas, if I did, I might be as bold as my father was. To my Dad, it was an insignificant fishing trip, out to the 10-mile buoy.
After we arrived home at 9:00 a.m. we started to clean our two tubs of fish. Dad hauled up his catch on the clothes line pole and weighed in his catch at a whopping 50 lbs. All the apartment dwellers came to watch, as Dad worked and told his tale of fishing to all the other navy buddies.
There were many fish fries in our apartment complex that year, until the fish were gone. Then we would get up on another dark Saturday morning, and start all over. Such were the days when I was young.