Since taking up residence in Big Pine Key last April, our go-to water hangout has typically been Pine Channel, sometimes near Secret Island, sometimes the sand bar at the southern dead-end of Harbor Channel. Both are just a couple nautical miles north of us.

With nothing in particular planned for this weekend, Grace floated the idea of going on a fishing trip on Saturday. We geared up and headed south of the bridge this time, not too far from Little Palm Island (but still away from most of the boat traffic, and very far away from the Picnic Island partiers).

We stayed in this spot for about four hours, pulling about 20 fish, mostly large grunts, although a yellow jack was a particularly interesting catch (Did you know yellow jack aren’t bad eating? We chowed down on him as soon as we got home, and had no complaints). We were…