Creatures of Florida

Photo 1 & 2; last week we were coming home from a late night with the kids. we got home, piled out of the car. Miles said "but mom I don't have any shoes." You see Wendy always, I mean always, makes sure that the boys have shoes on when they go out side. Well this time on her on volition Wendy said "its OK just don't step on any cockroaches." You see there are lots of those around here. Well Miles missed all of the cockroaches that I'm sure were scurrying out of the way but he ended up stepping on this snake that I grabbed after some delicate wrestling on our garage floor.




3 & 4 are from my last late night shark fishing adventures. How it works is I walk up and down the beach in knee deep water with a head lamp on and spear any glowing eyes I see. The hope is to get some big fish and or stingrays for shark bait. This night I got a sting ray within the first 3o minutes and put that on the shark rig. I walked it out to waist deep water and chucked the ray with two big hooks and about a pound worth of weight in the ocean. I then go back to spearing, until 2ish. This night I tagged a Lady fish about 10 inches long that we ended up using for bait. Then I got a 4 inch white fish that I used for bait to catch the beautiful Snook that you see below. I understand that they are great eating. They also put on a BIG fight. Alas though, they are out of season so after the attempted great photo with my frozen camera due to the frozen chum sitting next to the camera on the way to the beach I let it go. The last thing I speared that night was this cat fish It was grunting as it forced air through its gills. They can breath out of water for some time I am told. As I was looking at it I noticed it had a mouth full of fish. On closer review, they were its babies. There is one that fell out and is on the top of the cooler you can see. I felt bad. I'm OK killing fish to eat or use for bait that other fish will eat but this poor momma fish was just trying to raise a family. I pulled her of the spear and let her go. Who knows if she was gobbled up by the next shark or big fish? I just know I felt a little better about trying to let her go back to her mommy life.