Our Second Trip to Destin

Well, we loved our first trip to Destin so much we decided to go again, in November, less than a month later. This time, we booked a room at Wingate Hotel. It was not a fancy hotel, but adequate, close to the pier, and most importantly, provided free hot breakfast. When you are out fishing, you don’t know when your next meal will be, so it’s best to load up on a lot of food. And load up we did, and stacked our plates high with waffles, sausages, eggs, oatmeal, etc. After the big breakfast, we headed to the Okaloosa Island Pier again. The weather was a little bit cooler, around 65 degrees. We were a little bit disappointed when the Spanish mackerel didn’t bite. We were told by another fisherman that the weather’s too cool for Spanish mackerel and they likely won’t be back until next spring. But luckily, we were prepared. A few weeks before coming to Destin, we went to our favorite Asian market, H Mart, and bought a few pike mackerel to use as bait. It is very oil fish, so we thought the smell would attract any hungry fish. We cut them into smaller pieces, hooked the piece through the spine so it won’t fall off, and simply dropped it vertically from the pier until it hit the bottom. We didn’t have to wait very long. After a few minutes, I felt a bite and I caught a sizable bluefish. It was quite strong, and I really enjoyed the fight. Part of the reason may have been that neither of us had proper saltwater fishing poles. We used medium-action freshwater outfit that wasn’t very strong, so the fight was intense, and I could feel every tug and run of the fish. After a productive morning session, we bagged about five bluefish. The following morning, we went to the East Jetty which is a few miles east of Okaloosa Island Pier. Again, we had pretty good luck with bluefish. All in all, our second trip was better than the first. We caught more fish, enjoyed our stay at the hotel, and except for the chillier weather, we had a great time. One disappointing thing was the fish itself. Bluefish wasn’t very tasty; it was oily and fishy. Spanish mackerel was oil too, but bluefish had unpleasant taste in its oil. I later learned that freshness is very important with bluefish, and that I can mask the unpleasant taste with lemon juice, vinegar, and other acidic sauce. Later in this blog, I’ll try to share with you some of my fish recipe.

Yep, that’s my picture (finally!), proudly holding the bluefish.