Barbecue Tales part 13 - Lemon Fish

I have posted before about fish as part of my "Barbecue Tales" series.  We have cooked fish tacos, cooked fish in the fish basket, and cooked fish on the barbecue on foil (lovely and sumptuous!) Well today I proudly present to you fish cooked in the fishbasket which is lined with lemon.

But let me take a step back and tell you where all this beautiful fish came from.  Enid and Ciaran are staying with me, woohoo, and today we went out with the Salty Goat boat for a fishing day.  It was a great day and we all had success.  Enid caught the highest number of fish out of the three of us, I caught the biggest fish, and Ciaran...well Ciaran gave us a right old laugh when reeling in his very first fish which was putting up a great fight.  He battles and battles and then up comes the fish, the tiniest little tiddler ever!

I digress.  Back to the cooking.  So the lemon served three purposes - flavor of course, adding moisture to the already succulent fish, and kept the fish from sticking to the fish basket.  A win on all counts,

And of course there is nothing as good as eating fish that you caught yourself.  We had a fabulous dinner the three of us.  And afterwards we had scrumptious Key Lime Pie for dessert. Done and Done. Done!

Another great day out on the Salty Goat fishing boat

I wish I could report to you that this is a fish that I caught.  Alas no, this was Dan's (pictured) haul.  Isn't that amazing. It's a mutton snapper and I estimate it was around 25lbs.  What a beauty.  Well done Dan!

I am happy to report though that I had an incredibly enjoyable, and successful day.  I caught 35 fish! 35!!!  And lucky I did because including myself I had 4 people scheduled to call for dinner that night.  Imagine the embarrassment if I hadn't been able to serve fish that I had caught myself after inviting and promising a seafood supper!!

It was a most enjoyable evening of succulent fresh fish, with key lime pie for dessert, washed down with a  lovely bottle of sparkling Spanish cava.  

And a beautiful sunset of pink and blue hues to finish it all off perfectly.  Life is good.

The day I caught a shark

This year in Key West, as my regular boat was in dry dock getting some maintenance done I ended up going out fishing with a new boat and crew - The Salty Goat.

It was a very different experience from my previous experiences - being a smaller boat with less people I found it a more personal and professional (that is not a criticism of any other boats I've been on! It was just different!)

We had such a good time fishing on the Monday (and caught so many fish) that we decided we would go out twice more in our remaining week in Key West, and hence we booked Wednesday and Friday.  Both as it happened turned out to be quite the experience!

Wednesday.  My fishing partner and I caught sharks.  Need I say more?  Ok well let me tell you how good it feels to reel in a big fish that is battling to get off the hook and swim away.  10lbs of wriggling muscle (mine) meant this little bad boy put up quite the fight.  Is it common for two people to catch a shark each you ask?.  It sure as hell is NOT!  I feel truly lucky.  Special shout out to Captain Ashley and First Mate Dan who helped us with the shark haul and take such good photos.



Then  Sunday (last full day in Key West) we woke up to torrential rain and storming and were nervous if we would get out at all.  Captain Dan gave a good safety talk and weather warning - they would go out, if you didn't want to go out that was fine, but if you went out there was to be no complaining, it was going to rain.  So of course we went out!  And it was wet, cold and rainy.   But it was an adventure and afterwards while eating our cooked up fish in Dante's (which we had caught) we talked about the horrendous weather and all we saw and caught that day.  A special mention to the crew on such an awful day (Dan and First Mate Greg) - thanks for going out and all the assistance hooking and cleaning the fish etc.

I will definitely go out on this boat again when I am in Key West next time.  Roll on my next visit to Paradise!