Photo. Hooked on fishing! Kim Nielsen with his big catch. The tail of the fish reached Kim down to his feet. © The tour operator Barakuda Dos.
Kim had the pleasure to enjoy a great day out on the Atlantic Ocean with the tour operator Barakuda Dos. He was together with other sport fishers from several countries.
The fishing boat was a sport fishing catamaran with two powerful Volvo Penta Turbo Diesel engines of 320 HP each. The size of the boat was of 12.00 meters length and a width of 4.50 meters, and carrying fishing equipment for both trolling and bottom fishing.
It took 1 hour drive out from harbor in Puerto Rico in Spain before we started fishing, tells Kim. Puerto Rico is a former fishing village. Today it`s one of Gran Canaria’s most popular family resorts and is situated at the mouth of a valley on the south coast of the island.
The captain on the boat took a blue marlin fish, also called swordfish, weighting 320 kilo, early in 2010. His big caught is displayed in his room in the boat. The blue marlin is one of the largest fish in the ocean, and spends most of its life far out at sea. Ernest Hemingway's wrote about a fisherman fighting this fish in the classic novel The Old Man and the Sea.
With beer in one hand and the fishing pole in the other hand Kim enjoyed his fishing. He spent most of the day the 21st October 2010 on the Atlantic Ocean eager to catch a big fish. The Barracuda fish bite off the line from our fishing gear several times, tells Kim. The hooks are very expensive, so the sport fishers didn`t like that. We had to be extra patient. A fishing quote goes like this: A woman who has never seen her husband fishing, doesn’t know what a patient man she married!
To search for fish we used sonar. After some hours in the hot sun, I noticed that the line from his fishing pole was stretching. Good things come to those who bait (quote from an unknown author). It`s was something big that had been stuck on the hook and it was not willing to give up easily. Finally Kim managed to drag the 15 kilo long tailed beast, the eagle ray, onboard. He had to threat it carefully to avoid being touched by the poisoned tail of the fish. Kim was soaked sweat after his hard efforts, but first and foremost he was happy, he says, and then he could continue fishing again: with the fishing pole in one hand and a cold beer in the other hand. Since the fish`s tale was poisoned he didn`t eat any part of the fish. Another fishing quote goes like this: Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day (Author Unknown).
According to information from Wikipedia, the eagle rays are a group of cartilaginous fishes in the family Myliobatidae, consisting mostly of large species living in the open ocean rather than on the sea bottom. Eagle rays feed on mollusks and crustaceans, crushing their shells with their flattened teeth, while devil and manta rays filter plankton from the water. They are excellent swimmers and are able to breach the water up to several metres above the surface. Compared with other rays, they have long tails, and well-defined rhomboidal bodies. They are ovoviviparous, giving birth to up to six young at a time. They range from 48 centimetres (19 in) to 9.1 metres (30 ft) in length.
Kim experienced also other exciting things on the boat trip. The water was full of life. I observed both dolphins and whales. The most amazing, according to him, was the flying fishes. They jumped out from the water and flew 50 – 100 metres through the air before they dived down again into the water. Their fins were extremely large, which they used intensively, and enabled them to take short gliding flights through air just above the water's surface.
Drinking cold bear in the sun, riding on the waves on a boat, and fishing strange fishes - That`s worth living for!
Stein Morten Lund, 1 April 2011
Additional information
The tour operator Barakuda Dos` website: Barakuda Dos.
Read more about wild adventures on our global travel guide Travel Explorations.
Quotations about fishing:
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day (Author Unknown).
If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles (Doug Larson)
I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there (Robert Altman)
Good things come to those who bait (Author Unknown)
Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught (Author Unknown)
Men and fish are alike. They both get into trouble when they open their mouths (Author Unknown)
A woman who has never seen her husband fishing, doesn’t know what a patient man she married!
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