Catch and Release and Release

Today's beach activity was an afternoon of fishing. Carolina Coastal Adventures, a place on Carolina Beach, rents kayaks and also does half-day fishing excursions. Not deep-sea fishing, mind you; you just putter around the sound (well, OK, so you go really fast from one fishing spot to the next, not putter), trying to catch fish.

This was an absolute BLAST! It was a gorgeous day: sunny and warm, but with a nice breeze so we stayed cool. We had plenty of beer, and enough water to keep from getting totally dehydrated.

And, yeah, we caught some fish! Final tally of "real" fish was four redfish and three speckled trout; we also caugh a pinfish and a couple of other "junkie" fish.

None of the redfish was large enough to keep, and we didn't particularly want to clean and eat them, anyway, so after Captain John kissed them goodbye (I refused to kiss them!), we held them in the water until they felt well enough to swim away.

But, sadly, the fish were not the only things released today. I hate hats. I've always hated hats. Essentially the only time I wear a hat is when I coach baseball. However, I figured that it would be good to have a hat on if I was going to be out on a boat for several hours, so I bought a UNC baseball cap at the Dollar Store before going on the boat. I was actually torn between the UNC hat and a doofy pink cap; the UNC one was a little nicer and, of course, was a UNC hat.

So, yeah, on the way back from fishing? The UNC cap blew off, and is now swimming freely somewhere in the sound!

Should've gone with the doofy pink one.....