Keeping Up With Kendra: Gulf Fishing!

I had no idea what I was going to get myself into when I went fishing in the Gulf on vacation last week. If you haven't noticed, keeping up with me is a chore. Especially when you take my hot mess self on a boat, in the ocean, to fish. I thought for sure I was going over board several times. It was the most fun I have ever had and now I want to move there just to fish!

To catch you up to speed, I went on vacation last week to Destin, FL with my husband and my best friends family. We had a BLAST! Definitely a much needed vacation and some time to just be "kids" as we say. In preparation of our trip down there, my husband reached out to his good friend from high school, Adam Schroeder, who moved there almost 10 years ago. He works for a fishing charter business, Panhandle Fishing Charters, and knew I wanted to catch some sharks. Yes, I am crazy and no I don't care what your thoughts are on it. We decided on a morning fishing trip out on this 24 foot Skeeter Fishing Boat that was so fun to ride on (and nap on)! There were like 9 poles for us to go back and forth with plus a shark pole! Yes, I was determined.

We went out in the gulf to fish so it was like a 20 minute ride out there (the building's looked so small if you looked back). As Adam was getting us set up to fish, he pulled out some LIVE shrimp as bait. I never knew that is what you were to use but we did. Before you ask, no I didn't bait my own hook, mainly because I didn't have enough hands between balancing and holding the pole. I thought it would take a while for a fish to bite but heck no, the fish were biting! Talk about some exotic ones! We caught Black Snapper, Red Snapper, Mingo, Amberjack, Sheepshead, a Mother-n-Law fish that looked like a cheetah, and more! We were only able to keep 18 fish that were in season but some are better than none!

Dolphins- let's talk about these pain the butts! There were so many dolphins around us! At first I loved them. Such amazing creatures but I also became fairly annoyed with them. They kept taking my fish right off my line as I was reeling them in!

All in all, it was the best time! Plus, at the end once we were back, I got to watch Adam "clean" the fish (prep them for cooking).