Fishing/work day

Jackson Downey

Kelly Griffin-Brown

Senior Project 

May 23, 2023

                Florida Fun

During our time in Boca Raton, Florida we learned a year's worth of job and fishing experience within fourteen days. Our mentor Jordan was a construction worker, who turned into a self-employed IT business creator. Now Jordan owns his own prestige fishing charter business down in Boca Raton. Jordan has shown us all the nitty gritty fishing techniques while teaching us the essentials for owning, running, and upgrading a home. 

My personal favorite part of the whole trip is the fishing trips that Jordan took us on. Normally Jordan would charge $750 for five hours of fishing on his charter. He was nice enough to take us fishing on his boat five days out of the fourteen. To fish Jordan uses a technique called slow-pitched jigging. This technique is extremely common in South America where big tuna are prevalent in deep waters. The tuna we looked for is called blackfin tuna. These tuna range from ten to forty pounds, while being seven to twenty-five inches in length. Blackfin is extremely common off the east coast of Florida, and they love to travel in schools. The tuna hang out in 250 to 600 feet of clean, transparent dark blue water. The jigs we use to catch them are five inches to a foot of shiny colorful steel mirroring a big shrimp or fish. Once we find a good depth to where our solar panel monitor is marking the tuna; we drop the jigs to the bottom and work them up every ten to fifteen jigs. The jigs are vertically styled, which means they stand straight up and there are tri-prong hooks on both the top and bottom of the jig. When you pull the rod up in the jigging motion the vertical lour will raise up a foot or two and then flutter down horizontally. When the flutter motion occurs on the jig, the tuna are immediately attracted to it. On a good day, we would catch five or six blackfin tuna. These fish are very dense in protein and calories so it was best we only kept two or three each time. One tuna would feed Mark, Sam, and me till we are full. We learned how to fillet the tuna, and how to get the sashimi off of it. We also learned different styles of cooking tuna. We cut the tuna into slivers and made nigiri with the sushi rice, this was my personal favorite. We also learned how to cube and sear the tuna. Searing was an extremely difficult technique due to the tuna cooking all the way through in under 45 seconds. At the end of the day, any of your catches with Ejs fishing charters will be delicious. 

Jordan has a strong background in construction and plumbing from a young kid to a young adult. Giving we had to work for seventy-five hours of community service, Jordan saw this as a perfect opportunity to pass some of his knowledge down to us. For the first project, Jordan has wooden ramps to get his boat onto a platform in his backyard. He wanted to upgrade these into concrete ramps, so it is smoother and more accessible to post his boat on his already concrete platform. In order to build these concrete ramps we had to make our measurements first, then place three wooden two-by-eight planks to outline our ramps. This will be our foundation to pour the concrete in as well. We learned for the concrete to dry we need some sort of metal or steel to keep the concrete in place and together. Instead of buying new stuff, we cut off the metal netting of Jordan's old fence using a round saw power tool. We placed the metal netting inside the wooden ramp outline. It ended up fitting perfectly and the only thing we needed was to get all the concrete mix. The next day we came back to Jordnas did the math and figured out we needed just about 1000 pounds of concrete mix. Twelve bags of eighty-pound concrete mix. This was going to put a lot of stress on us and the truck. Although we were determined to do anything for Jordnain's return for letting us go on his fishing charter for free. We headed over to the home depot and hauled all of the bags of concrete mix back over to Jordans. This is when we broke open every bag and poured it into a wheelbarrow while continuously stringing water into the powder. This seemed to me like 1,000 pounds of pancake mix being prepared. Once all of the mix was ready we slowly poured it into the wooden planks with a nice bed of concrete, dirt, and steel. The concrete would only take twenty-four hours to fully dry. When building these ramps we were faced with extreme fatigue and cramps. Concrete is absolutely no joke to work with, I learned construction work is difficult and precise and you must be mentally strong, smart, and patient. 

Another project Jordan had for us was to build an eight-by-six-foot deck with an electrical and watering system attached to it. The vision was to have a nice deck area next to his boat platform. He wanted a clean place to put all of the boat necessities, along with the hose and an outlet to plug the boat's electronics into. It was a brilliant idea and outline with a clean, simple blueprint. Mark started off by cleaning off all of the wood planks we ripped apart from Jordan's ex-wife's old deck. He was cutting off all of the rusty old nails that might be hanging onto the plank still. Then he gave it to Sam and me and we lined up the three-plank foundation. This would hold up the eight other planks that go on top and create the deck look. Jordan showed us how to properly nail deck boards to hold for decades. While teaching us how to successfully execute a strong reliable deck for himself. The next step was to build a ninety-degree trench going ten feet long and fifteen feet to connect with the watering and electrical systems. After digging a smooth six-inch deep 8-inch wide trench, it was time for the water and electrical pipes. We connected them to the house and ran it using five, five-foot tubes. We connected these tubes with two types of glues/appliances. The first one we put inside the pipe was purple glue, then the second layer was clear. This ensured the pipes would stay together and nothing would seep through. It was a successful job doing so. We hooked up the hose and the outlet box to the porch attaching all routing through the ground. We successfully built a clean porch with attachments in just under three hours.

The whole 77 hours with Jordan was an experience of a lifetime that I would not trade for the world. We learned everything that had to do with fishing, fishing rods, and lours. To own a boat and a captain's license. Then going on land and learning the gritty construction work and how to use the fun power tools. While working on major projects that might face us one day with our kids. Besides all that, most importantly Jordan taught us his experience of life and being a successful self-employed man. His life story was very valuable to us whether we know it or not. Jordan's path could maybe be one of ours one day.