Reel Blessed Chapter of Fishing’s Future held our first surf fishing event on Saturday, our final event for the Vamos A Pescar grant. We reached out to surf fishing guide Captain Paul Sperco, and he agreed to help us by donating his time and the use of his equipment to help make the event as successful as possible.

Tania and I arrived at Blue Heron Beach at about 6:45 a.m. to ensure we could get enough beach for our 17 participants and 15 rods. As we walked on the beach, it was a magnificent sight. The sun was cresting the horizon, and the sea was flat. As Tania took in the sight, I started to set up. At about 7:30 a.m., our volunteers started to show up. Once I had our banners set up and rods rigged up, we started baiting hooks and tossing them out.

Captain Paul went above and beyond for Reel Blessed. He donated his time and brought additional sand spikes, extra rigs that he makes, and about 30 packages of Fishbites. We should be able to hold our next surf fishing event independently with the equipment he provided us.

The event started at 8:00 a.m. We had 13 participants present, and I received a message that one family was running late. We opened in prayer, followed by introducing Captain Paul Sperco. As Captain Paul spoke, our first rod went, and we had a fish on. Before Captain Paul finished his brief, we had three other rods go. Hopefully, this indicated how the rest of the event would go: families catching fish while enjoying time together.

During the event, the action was non-stop; we always had a rod going, sometimes with fish on the other end, and sometimes the fish got off. By the end of the event, we caught too many fish to count. Although we did not catch any pompano, we caught whiting, croaker, spot, black drum, flounder, ladyfish, jack crevalle, and bonnethead sharks.

We fished until 11:45 a.m. when I called the children in to start a beach cleanup. Each child received a bag and was told they had five minutes to pick up as much trash as possible. At the end of five minutes, the child with the most trash was given a Reel Blessed hat.

After the beach cleanup, we let the families go, and the volunteers and I packed up. We kept some fish, and I told the families who wanted fish to meet me at the cleaning table by 12A Buoy. I ended up teaching one family how to fillet all the different types of fish we caught, and they were excited to eat fresh fish for supper. It took me about 30 minutes to clean and divide the fish.

The cleanup for the surf fishing event was a bit more intense than our regular events, as I had to clean everything once I got home. I had to rinse all the rods and reels, open everything up, get all the sand out, and treat all the flag poles and stakes to prevent rust. But the smiles on everyone’s faces and the emails and text messages we received make it all worth every drop of sweat!

This was a great event. Being our first event, we learned multiple things which will help us in the future. Also, Captain Paul provided us with pompano jigs, which he makes, seven sand spikes, and multiple bags of Fishbites so we could hold our next surf fishing event on our own.

Tania and I want to provide a special thank you to Captain Paul Sperco, our volunteers, and our sponsors. Without your help, Reel Blessed Chapter of Fishing’s Future would be unable to impact our community the way we do.

Reel Blessed Chapter of Fishing’s Future is a 501c3 non-profit. If you are interested in helping us financially so we may continue to run our events at no cost to our participants, click the “Donate” button below (Be sure to Type “Reel Blessed” in the comments). Or, if you like to fish and would like to donate your time and volunteer at one of our events, Click the “Connect” button below.