Fishing with Emperors

After Andy left I needed a few days to get my life back in order. However, when Paul and Dave offered to take me fishing, it was an offer I could not refuse.

We originally were going to take Paul's boat, but soon after we left its mooring Paul noticed that the steering was not functioning properly. We went back and Paul was unable to do a quick fix. Luckily, the Kregenow's boat had just gotten out of the shop and was ready to go, so we transferred out stuff over and headed out once again. For this trip, we headed north up to the reefs along the west side of Babeldaob. This was one of Paul's favorite fishing spots, especially for grouper. LB decided that she likes grouper, so Paul wanted to let Dave try and catch her some grouper.

Paul took us to a good spot and we started casting. Paul showed me a good trick that helped me cast better, so I was casting further than ever but still not as far as the other two. At the first few spots, we came up empty. A few nibbles, a few fish chased our lures, but no bites. We tried a few spots until Paul took us to a shallow spot on top of the reef. Finally, Paul caught a yellowlip emperor, a type of white snapper. Paul then caught a few more fish and Dave also caught an emperor. I was still without even a bite until what we guess was a giant trevally got my lure and immediately snapped my line. Shortly after that, Dave also hooked into a GT. His stayed on the line and Dave began reeling the fish in. Gts are very powerful and have a lot of fight in them. Dave had to put all his strength into the fight that lasted over five minutes. Dave was patient and eventually landed a fifteen pound giant trevally. It was a very nice fish and Dave was very happy to have brought it in. After getting the requisite pictures, Dave decided to release it back and the GT lived to see another day.

Paul and Dave continued to catch fish, but I still had caught nothing. Finally, I got a strike and began reeling it in. I caught a 7 pound yellowlip emperor. They are very strong fish and he put up a fight, but I reeled him in. We kept my fish and three other emperors. Paul did manage to catch a grouper for LB. Once he got the grouper on the boat, it regurgitated a small portion of another fish it was digesting. The greedy grouper got what it deserved. It was a nice little haul.

After we got home, I went over to the Kregenows and helped scale the fishes while Dave was kind enough to fillet them. I took home three nice sized fillets from the emperor that I caught. It made two dinners for me and was extremely tasty. The fact that I caught it only made it sweeter.