#80 - The Man's Gotta Fish

This weekend, Deputy Dave and his brother, Kevin, had a weekend of fishing. Those two have fished together since they were in their 20's. Now, they are in their 40's and 50's and they're still going strong and fishing by ocean kayak most of the time.

Deputy Dave with Henry, the fiance of our oldest
daughter, Heather. He'd never fished ocean waters
before today and I think he liked it.

The great thing about fishing by kayak is that you get to explore. You can go places on the water in a kayak that you can't reach in a regular boat. This means Deputy Dave can either fish the open ocean or he can explore the inner most part of nearby creeks, inlets, canals and flats. All he needs is about 3-6 inches of water to float along in peace.

This weekend they fished near the Texas City Floodgates and Deputy Dave took some awesome shots of their adventure.

On the way back through the flood gates on their way home there were converging waters which created turbulence. Deputy Dave got stuck with one wave headed for him and another pushing his kayak from behind. The force of both caused his ocean kayak's bow to scoop well below the water, so he leaned back in his kayak with all his strength, but he was now submerged up to his waist under water, then the kayak finally popped back up. That was close. Losing his fishing load on the kayak would not be fun. Yes, he always wears his life-jacket. Ocean kayaking should not be taken lightly.

High tech glasses that manually adjust to the level of sun.

Flounder! One of my most favorite fish!

Redfish.

The second fishing trip on Sunday found them headed to Deer Island via West Bay. It was beautiful. I hope I have the pictures matching the trip --- maybe not --- but I know I'm close because these photos are from their weekend of fishing.

And, Deputy Dave brought home to delicious beauties this weekend. I can hear the dinner bell ringing!

He catches the fish. He expertly cleans the fish and ends up with perfect
fillets. He cooks delicious recipes. He is the Fish Master.
Here we're having Trout and Flounder.

I love these two guys.

My brother-in-law Kevin is a good man. He works at one of the
petro-chemical plants in our area. Deputy Dave and him are close.

I love that Deputy Dave comes home with the freshest fish imaginable, he cleans it and cooks it. I love cooking baked or fried fish, but he truly loves to cook, cook, and cook.

So, he made sauteed battered fish served with a caper butter sauce. With a bit of rice, we had a perfect meal (no veggies this time---the idea was to really focus on savoring the fish). I had two fillets of fish on my plate, one flounder fillet and the other trout. Each were mouth-watering. It's good that I rushed to take pictures of the food I was about to dig into because a few minutes later the entire plate was wiped clean. I made a happy plate, an ecstatic plate; every bite was consumed with me being in seafood heaven.

We can't hardly eat fish anywhere else because our home-cooked fish is always so very fresh. It's very difficult to compete with the high quality we get at home. The good thing is...when we are at an area restaurant, especially in Kemah, Texas, we are most assured to have the freshest available. If you ever come to the Houston area...you've got to go to the Kemah Boardwalk. Since we live so close to the bay, the fish (on ice) is sometimes alive when he gets home. Of course, it is a relatively short drive for him to get home with the fish, contributing to the freshness. You can't get fresher than this. I love that these guys actually fish for enjoyment AND to feed their families.

Nice Redfish. It was caught and released. Deputy Dave
practices catch and release frequently. Otherwise, it's dinner.

My question to Deputy Dave is:  Can you guys go again next week?

Side topic...Okay...I got a haircut. It's been months and months since scissors have touched my hair. My curly hair was like a weed, growing fast and out of control. My regular hair-dresser was on vacation. For some reason, she felt the urge to hit Las Vegas, so I took one of her new gals. She gave me a layered cut, then decided to flat iron my curly hair to show me that it can be straight. I have a flat-iron and know how to use it, but I let her go crazy on me.

However, I think she soon regretted her decision because it took her a LONG time to straighten my hair because it is rebelliously curly. She worked so hard that she actually became overheated with beaded sweat dripping down the sides of her face; she had to take a break, then get a fan to blow on her while she finished the tedious task. I left the beauty shop with flat hair sticking to my head like strands of lifeless silk. I walked in the door to the house and it took hours for Deputy Dave to even make a comment about my hair because he doesn't like it straight. He kept dodging me, pretending he didn't see it, but it was clear that he was not pleased. He wasn't prepared to lie to me.

Regardless, I had fun for a day with it straight. Even so, it was TOO flat, so I went into the bathroom, sprayed it with hairspray and messed it up a little. Yes, I am a Texas gal. I was far from the Southern curse of "Big Hair," but I surely didn't want sleek, stick-to-my-head hair. I walked back out of the bathroom with my messed up hair and Stefie says, "Oh mom, I'm glad you did that; it's a lot better...I like it now."

Flat hair messed up.

I actually slept better without fighting a mess of hair all over me. It was great. Layers can indeed lighten your load, and I think the hair cut has helped me to lose two pounds. However, I'll be curly again by the end of the day; I don't want to traumatize Deputy Dave for much longer. Poor guy.