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| Tom was proud of their big catch, all flatheads. |
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Arch Island.
As it turned out, the day proved to be the longest Tom and I had been apart in so long we couldn’t remember. But, by no means did I find the “alone time” without him a necessary element to me. I’ve never been one to say I needed time to myself. Plus, we easily slide into quiet times engaged in our own activities in our day to day lives.
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| According to Anne and Rob, this was a typical catch that is quite adept at cleaning fish. |
By 2:00 pm, I started looking out the window to see if they had returned. We chuckled over how unusual it is for us to be apart for more than a few hours such as when we were living in an areas where I’ll shop on my own. That hasn’t occurred since we lived in Hawaii in 2015. Not a good driver, I don’t trust myself to drive on the opposite side of the road.
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| Rob, an expert at filleting, cleaned all the fish while Tom bagged them. |
Using a fishing line with three leaders, Tom caught two fish at a time on multiple occasions. So I can only imagine how excited Tom must have been when he pulled up his line to find two fish on two of the leaders. That was a first for him!
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| Anne drove the boat while Rob worked on the fish. |
Flatheads are described as follows from this site:
“A flathead is one of several small to medium fish species with notably flat heads, distributed in membership across various genera of the family Platycephalidae. Many species are found in the Indo-Pacific, especially most pAustralia’spopular sport and table fish. They inhabit estuaries and the open ocean.
Flathead is notable for their unusual body shape, upon which their hunting strategy is based. Flathead is dorsally compressed, meaning their body is wide but flattened and very low in height.
Both eyes are on the top of the flattened head, giving excellent binocular vision to attack overhead prey. The effect is somewhat similar to flounders. In contrast to flounder, however, flathead are much more elongated, the tail remains vertical, and the mouth is large, wide and symmetrical. Flathead uses this body structure to hide in the sand (their body color changes to match their background), with only their eyes visible, and explode upwards and outwards to engulf small fish and prawns as they drift over, using a combination of ram and suction feeding thereby improving their chances to catch prey.
Flathead has two short spikes on either side of their heads and on top of their heads that contain venom. The venom, while not fatal, can cause pain and infection for no more than about 2 days. Some anglers believe the pain of the sting of the flathead fish can be reduced by rubbing the slime of the belly of the same fish that caused the sting on the inflicted wound, due to a particular gland in its belly.”
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| It was a hazy day, but it didn’t rain during their fishing trip. |
Rob explained that flatheads have a toxin along the gills which he carefully avoids when fileting. Tom was careful to avoid cutting himself with the gills, doing so without incident.
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| Lighthouse along the Huon River. |
Anne and Rob had brought along food for breakfast and lunch. They’d informed Tom not to bring along anything to eat as they had plenty for him as well. But, in an attempt maintain our usual low carb, interval fasting way of eating, he graciously declined, especially knowing I was preparing dinner back at the house.
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| Anne and Rob are a delightful couple, and Tom had a great day. They were out from 8 am to 3 pm. |
Had I known he’d catch so many fish, I wouldn’t have made dinner and we’d have eaten fish. But, with fishing, one never knows. I often fished from our boat or at the dock at our former home. In our old lives, Many days, we ended up empty-handed, never planning fish for dinner. This is obviously not the case fishing with Anne and Rob.
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| Anne drove while Tom and Rob were fishing, although once they stopped, they anchored. |
We’ll have fish tonight, freezing the balance to enjoy over the remaining 11 days until we depart for Sydney on March 1st. Recently I’d purchased a batch of flash-frozen barramundi, an Australian favorite, leaving us with many upcoming fish dinners.
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| “Sleeping Beauty” can only be seen in this area of the Huon Valley. |
That’s no problem for me since I especially enjoy fish and Tom, only slightly less interested in fish dinners, will hopefully join me in the pursuit to use everything we have on hand.
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| Closer view of “Sleeping Beauty’s” brow, nose and lips from right to left. |
Of course, Tom enjoyed the lively conversation. When I asked him if he enjoyed time away from me, he replied, “I missed eating sunflower seeds and smoking cigarettes while fishing. You? No so much!” We laughed. That’s my guy!
We’ll see you tomorrow with more of Tom’s photos from his fishing expedition. Thanks to Anne and Rob for Tom’s enjoyable day and our supply of flathead!
Enjoy the day!
Photo from one year ago today, February 18, 2016:
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| The botanical garden we visited in New Zealand was creatively designed with colorful groupings such as this. For more details, please click here. |