Back From Fishing w/J3 and WOW Did I Need That!!!

Greetings and Salutations!|
Now, for those in the know, J3 was the Righteous Retired DotMil dood who hooked me up with the Boat. Now part of the naming will become clear as I go along, but just bear with me as it has been a LOOOOONG weekend to a certain degree.

Shortly after getting the Ultimate Gift, AKA “The Boat” J3 asked if I was interested in doing a deep sea fishing trip with him, Friday to Sunday. I had to think it over a wee bit as the only other time I did a deep–sea fishing expedition, I lost like 10% of my body-weight via MASSIVE amounts of Projectile Vomiting.

So naturally I was a wee bit hesitant to say the least…

Therein started the pro/con list, and after a bit of self-debate, I figured why the fuck not?
I mean if I die? I die. Nothing I haven’t faced before.

Soooo, I did have a ace-in-the-hole by way of Scopolamine patches. Seems that the old ‘truth serum’ drug combats motion sickness exceptionally well. Throw in a handful of Ondansetron, which is an anti-nausea drug, and allll the bases were theoretically covered.

And in reality?
Fuck yeah they worked.
ZERO issues for the whole trip.

My exceptional thank you to Doc Samizdat who, on hearing about my potential issues, shot me a script to my local Walgreens, who promptly filled both of them. For those unfamiliar Doc is an occasional blogger and substacker who writes about the intricacies of the Modern Medical field and just HOW utterly fucked our system is…

He also treated her boobie-cancer with mad success

Anyways, once I got ‘patched up’ with the scopo’ and the ‘tron, I was ready to wrastle a giant octopus!

We left out for the dock at oh-dark early, and whilst on our way there, a beautiful sight popped up in front of us:

Not one but two rainbows.
Me being a wee bit of stupid-stitious, I took this as a sign that this trip was going to be cool AF and all was well overall.

Now I didn’t get too many pics, not did J3 as we concentrated on fishing and the like. Add on the cameras we had were our phones, and there was a wee bit of chop we had to deal with, we only took pics when it was safe to do so, which is why there’s a paucity of pictures as opposed to any other event like this. As cool as it would have to document the whole evolution, the reality is I nor J3 could afford to lose our phones. So this’s what y’all get, end of story mmmmmmnnnn-kay?

The way things ran was the boat initially took us our for about 4 hours. Once we go on station, everybody dropped lines and we went from there. The bait was a mish-mash of guts, whole mini-squids (my favorite that I used to great success in landing my 4 red snappers) as well as heads from ‘other fish’ that some of the guys had caught.

Now shortly after getting to ‘Station Number One’ I, the ORIGINAL “Big Country of Fame and Lore”™ dropped my line, and waited…

The peace and quiet…
Startling to say the least…
So… as I sat there with J3

-I- suddenly got a hit!!!

I fought the fucker pretty well until he was exhausted… Once I got him onboard, it turned out that he was/is a hefty red snapper… not bad for my first fish in almost 35 years amiright?

So after the fight was over, I reeled him in enough and one of the mates on the boat assisted to ‘unhook’ and stash (the now renamed snapper to dinner) it in the ice box.

It came in at about 15.5 pounds.

Not a bad start Aye?

He’s now gracing MY freezer in the form of some exceptionally HUGE filets which in turn are waiting-to-be tasty grub. Now… this went on all weekend long.

The rule of the game is that the boat would move out for an hour, hour and a half and then stop. Not sure -how- they (the Captain and the crew) gauged where it’d be a good spot to drop lines, but invariably, all the stops were good. I’m figure fish-finder sonar/radar or the like. So it was very much like some Infantry encounters we used to have back in the day… scoot, followed by ‘shoot’ (i.e. dropping our lines) and then after two hours, we went back into ‘scoot’ mode.

I’ll be honest… I missed a few of the ‘shoot’ sessions as I was soooo tired from some ‘other issues’ that cropped up right before I left. Being emotionally exhausted and THEN having to climb onto a boat rigging for full-combat fishing ops? list that under “Shit that was uncool”… and on that note I’ll just leave it at that.

J3 had himself a blast as you can see:

Getting him to move from that point probably would have required a torpedo hitting us… and even then?

Hmmmn I’d say it’s a tough call… he’s a retired Bubblehead who literally saved the USS San Francisco SSBN when it ran at full steam into a previously unknown and uncharted underwater sea mountain in 2005.

The San Fran ran smack damned into the mountain, and the ENTIRE Front End got crushed in like a beer can. 1 KIA, 98 WIA.

CPO (Chief Petty Occifer) J3 was the one who saved EVERYONES Ass and man, I got nothing but MAD respect for guys like that… anyways not to cut it short but…

Either way BOTH of us had a ball.

We also had a visitor named “Crush” show up:

When the sun went down, two big ole turtles showed up, apparently (according to J3) that they were/are attracted to the lights the boat used to illuminate the whole area of operations.

So essentially we did the “fish-on-fish-off” thing from oh dark early, until we got in this AM at 0300.

Right before we went in, J3 took this pic of me, which I really sort of dig. A beautiful sunset or was it sunrise? Hard to say as I’m still sort of a ‘lunchbox’ right now…) and me just -chillin’ for the first time in years… ZERO expectations, no need to please anyone… no-nuthin’ A true Zen moment if you will…

As it was, that was my ‘last line of the mission’ had the meaning that I’d either catch something OR as more commonly the outcome, that IF my bait got snatched, then I’d call it a day and ENDEX (End Exercise).

In this case, I was actually forced to shut down as the Captain fired up the engines, and that, is as they say that.

When we got back, the boat backed in, and we prepped to disembark.

…and yes, the boat is called “The Sea Trek”

Seems the owner is a Trek-Geek
No problem on my end… I too, am a Trek-Geek as you all know.

Once we got in, the mates started pulling ALL the fishies out of the cool-box storage spaces and laying them out on the dock so we could figure out whos was whos:

That’s a whoooooooole lotta fish ain’t it tho?

Now the way we distinguished ‘who’s fish belonged to who’ was via a zip strip. Each color indicated who the fish was owned by so to speak… J3 and I had yellow zips which distinguished ours… a fairly easy fix amiright?

The mate, once we had landed a big fucking fish, well the mate would grab that sucker(s) and then would grab a zip strip and run it usually through the mouth and out the gills, where THEN we had an ID marker, as well as a convenient carry handle. As you can see

Those right there were my catches…

Not a bad haul.

I unfortunately hit my 2 fish limit in the first two-hour run. I was then left to harvesting Vermillion and Triggerfish, and ‘trading’ to guys who didn’t get any Red Snappers.

All in all, a pretty fair setup.

So, after we got in, for an addition negotiated price, two of the mates from the boat went nuts with the filet knives and carved up out overly-full cooler:

Filled to the bloody brim eh wot?

After our doods w/the knives got done, we ended up having this to show for it:

Alllllllllllll filets, all the time.

Call it about 100 pounds of the freshest fish that you could ever find. I took 3 bags, and left the rest with J3 as Sapper and I LOVE our fish, but I didn’t want to have this go into freezer-burn mode, and from what J told me, the pile that he had after doing our split?

He said it might last a month, maybe two.

So overall, a fantastic, relaxing day that mellowed me, allowed me to gain some Zen and Clarity which as of late has been sorely lacking in my life, and that NOW I’m doing much better.

I owe it in no small amount to people like J3 and his lovely fambly, as well as his wifey who allowed us to go out like big boys w/out a permission slip LOL.

Now I have other interesting things to speak of regarding J3, but I’ll save that for later. Needless to say, he impressed the Hell out of me (for a fucking Bubblehead/Navy guy) and I can see this as the beginning of a glorious fren-thang.

Nope… what I want to continue on about?

MOAR FOOD!

Namely what happened when I got home.
It seems that part of my ‘share’ was a couple of big, thick chunks of Amberjack. According to J3, you need to move quickly on Amberjack as it becomes pretty grody if you don’t use it ASAP.

So I went and did something similar to what J3 did on the boat… which I forgot to mention, J3 was the unofficial cook on the boat whilst we were oot and aboot. For the first dinner we had that night, he took a Red Snapper that LITERALLY had been caught not 4 minutes before and had the mates clean it, skin it, and filet it, and deliver it to him in the galley.

No bullshit man….when he threw it in the skillet, it was still fucking moving man!!! It reminded me of some of those YouTube vids of people in China or Japan who’re chowing down on a fish that’s just -laying there- gasping for breath as people are literally chowing down on the poor thing still fucking alive.

Shades of Hannibal Lector anyone?

A bit much for me
Call it my empathic side.
But I can say for sure, you cannot get much fresher than that.

So, since I had to cook up the Amberjack, I went with J’s idea. I made a Blackened Butter Seared/Cooked Chunks of Fish, served over rice.

I prepped it according to the Master Fishmonger’s (J3) guidelines (that’d be J3) and then mixed up my dry spices. Once that was done, I melted a full stick of salted butter, and then reduced the heat juuuuuuuuuust a wee bit. I needed it to cook and not torque the stuff right?

Over all, it looked great and smelled ever BETTER

The only problem I encountered was that halfway through the cooking, the chunks were oh-so-wanting to flake apart. Somehow I managed to keep it under control, and the other side got a nice glazed cooked covering of the spices:

Oh yeah baby….

<drool><drool><drool><drool>

THAT is a meal just waiting to make sweet love to my taste buds right? It was so bad that ALL the animals, Chili, Stella, Bob AND even Beans were circling the kitchen… they had NO IDEA exactly what was on the menu per se, but they knew it was going to be good.

And sure as shit, it was (past tense intentionally):

Oh. My. Sweet. God. In. Heaven.

Once I laid the chunks o’fish onto the bed of rice, I then scooped out and poured the remaining butter/juice runoff over each plate, which only enhanced the flavor.

Needless to say, Sapper was happy AF.

Him being from Minnesota, as landlocked a state as you can get? Considering in the modern age that yes, yes they can get what ostensibly is considered ‘fresh’ but in this case? Let me tell you, when you can see the meat of the filet ‘twitching’ as it goes into the butter on the pan?

Yeah baby… that is fresh-fresh.

To say he was impressed is an understatement

So that was my weekend… this past weekend at least…

Now, outside of THAT, there IS something I DO need to address…

Namely just who the cute chick I went to visit in East Tennessee the previous weekend is. I have to say, the level of grade school harassment I’ve gotten is borderline crazy as fuck. So… let me ‘come clean’ if I may… if only to dispel any bullshit floating around out there in the blog-o-sphere.

Said aforementioned female loves me to death, and I feel the same as well, if not more. It started some years ago, and I don’t ever see this changing, at least while I’m still alive. It was unfortunately a short visit however, we both made the most of it.

In this case, she’s probably waaaay too young for me, (plus it’s not that kind of love you perv-os) and her love for me is so pure, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t quite ‘get it.’ It’s not a problem however, as in the long run, I’ll never lose my feelings for her.

Any guesses yet gang?
Well it’s pretty simple:

I went to see Adriana!

And it was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!
When I pulled up to the house, she came to the front door, saw me, and started screaming “Dada!!!! Papi is here!!!! Papi is here!!!!”

God did it feel good…

I got her a “Hello Kitty” ‘marshmellow?’ stuffie with a witch theme for Halloween, and she was thrilled.

Stuff like that and fishing this weekend reminds me of just how much I’ve been missing out on in my life…

As you can see, she’s between growth ‘spurts’ in that she’s in ‘chubby-monkey’ mode. BabyDaddy and I had a good hour or two conversation wargaming the overall handling of Addy, and told him that they are welcome here at the Casa…

They may be down around Christmas… we’ll have to see. I really would love to have them TBH…

Either way, I got to see “my girl”.
And not only did she remember me, but was thrilled to see me.

Overjoyed even.

THAT is why I left Florida for the weekend.
Shit like that recharges my batteries.

So… after that, to further define that weekend as there’s sooooo many rumors flying around about the individual giving me a ride. Said-Female is a girl who used to hang out with her but no longer does at all.

Originally when I touched down in Bristol, I took an Uber to the hotel, which cost me my left forearm, right big toe, and a sperm sample just to begin with. That shit is pricey Yo!

After realizing I needed something that wasn’t going to ‘rape my wallet’ every time I needed a ride, I made a reach-out call to an Old Fren named “A” for brevity’s sake.

Luckily I managed to get ahold of “A” who just so happens to be like a lil sister to me. I knew her waaaaaaaaaay back in the day at Fort Campbell where I used to flirt with her until I found out she was married. We managed to stay frens up until -I- got married, and the fren-ship sort of faaaaaded as such things are wont to do. I eventually remembered her because she was that cool if you know what I mean…

In fact “A” had sort of vanished from the memory banks… I mean it was over almost 30 years ago, back when I was a Male Hormone with Legs, and she’d been a primary target….She’d faded up until she and I had “A” over to dinner at our little apartment in Kingsport that we’d gotten to fight for Adriana.

“A” came over for a (in my opinion) a pretty lavish spread as I wanted her to look good as she is allll about appearances. So “A” showed up, and as the night progressed, “A” and I started talking and comparing notes from our mutual time at Fort Campbell if you will… and yep. It turned out I’ve known her since 1996… like 29 years plus or minus…

Once we recognized each other, it became ‘old home week’ for the two of us… which from what I can tell bugged the shit out of her but to me and “A”? It literally was laughable in that she and I due to all of our mutual circumstance didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell, even back then… nevermind these days…

Doesn’t matter either way…
What I loved about her this past trip is that she offered to be my Uber Driver for the cost of gas, and few meals, to which I agreed to. Add on that I totally enjoyed the company of a very old fren whom I have nothing but the deepest respect for… She’s a badass, and I’ll just leave it at that.

So there’s my confession LOL
THAT was my cute chick hookup last weekend LMAO

I went out to see my Gran#2 and had a great time in doing so.
It was worth every single dime, and I got the added bonus of being able to reconnect with “A” as she’s always been a good listener, (and Fren) and I dunno… it was just cool. I might have to put her ‘on the payroll’ as my p-shrink the way we’ve talked in the past few…

So, another fun filled exhausting weekend.
Always a pleasure however
So More Later
Big Country