My friends told me to cast out as far as I could into the bay and let it drop to the bottom. Then slowly retrieve it, dragging the sea bottom. Naturally, I assumed I would snag it on the bottom, but they assured me everything would be ok, (right).
Just as the sun was close to setting, one of my friends hooked the first squid. It bent his pole double, but he dared not set the hook because don't forget, there are no barbs on this lure. So he just kept on reeling it in slowly, all the way to the shore and wow!
I was surprised with the simplicity of this technique, and at that moment I thought I hooked the bottom. My friends laughed at me and assured me to just keep reeling slowly. Sure enough, I felt the pulling and I knew I had something on the other end. It took me about three minutes to land a beauty that weighed about two pounds. I had this new found feeling of accomplishment, and I was ready for anything.
After catching about two or three more squid, I hooked what I thought was a bigger one. While bringing this one to the shore, this squid decided to do a little damage. As I was reeled the squid to the top of the water just in front of me, the squid took its anger out on me and started spraying its jet stream of ink right at me. You can only imagine what this looked like to my friends with the ink coming out in spits and spats and me trying to avoid it.
I must have looked and acted a little crazy because I wasn't about to drop the pole and throw in the towel at that moment. The squid and I were linked by just a thin line, but even so, I landed that sucker!
What came over me at that point was a challenge to all of the squid in the bay - the war was on! All of my clothes were ruined with the black ink but it didn't discourage me. All of my friends just simply sit down on the shore and watched me in action. I walked back and forth covering all of the shoreline and felt like I was on a mission! Don't forget that the fishing stops when the sun sets, so I was in a hurry as well. I had a vendetta against all of the squid in the bay because this one squid ruined my brand new t-shirt! It had a fishing logo, and I wore wanting to impress my new found friends. But, all they could do was laugh and watch as I got busy doing what I do best.
When it was over I had put in the bucket at least sixteen of those ink squirting suckers! I felt redeemed! I lose a prized t-shirt, but I gained the respect of my fishing friends. They all got together and decided to name me the squid catcher of the trip. It felt like an honor to be accepted into their inner.
I provided a valuable service by continuously catching this valuable bait. I did it for the entire ten day trip. The squid did their job during the entire trip, because we caught numerous fish trolling and bottom fishing. In turn, we made a meal of the larger squid ourselves.
I had so much fun on this trip that I bugged my new found friends about going again. My Red Sea experiences started and as I look back on those days, I still have the desire to do it again and again. Telling you about my experiences makes me live those trips again and it makes me feel so good to think about them. Now that I look back on this phase of my life, I conjure up more and more of those special moments when you feel one with mother nature. You get the feeling of being invincible. And, to think I have loads of stories to live over makes me very happy.
I would like to share them all with you. Actually, I really wish I could be there on the Red Sea with you to experience them for yourself. I am sure you would get the very same feelings that I did. For now, an old fishing story will have to do.
