Finally, Here's the Bleepin' Video

OK, hopefully this is the video of me fighting my Tarpon. I have mastered uploading pictures, however, I am obviously challenged when it comes to video. We should have made a video of me trying to upload the video, now that would be some entertainment. Every other word would have to be bleeped out. It would go something like this.

(Kim sitting at the computer, looking frazzled) "This bleep bleepin' video, I have tried to get this thing working 15 bleepity bleep bleep times. Maybe if I had some bleepin bleep help, I could get this bleepin' thing to work. But nooooooooooo Andrea is just sittin on her bleep bleep sofa watching bleep Survivor while I've been working on this bleepin' blog. She bleepin' calls me every bleepin' five minutes." (Andrea, sitting on her sofa, remote control and cell phone in hand) "Keeum, Lisa sent me an e-mail, she can't watch the bleepin' video. Keeum, Juanita sent me an e-mail, she can't watch the bleepin' video either. Keeum, what in the bleep are you doin' over there, everyone keeps e-mailing me about the bleepin' video. It's just a bleepin' blog, why the bleep can't you get it up and running? Bleep." (Kim slams the phone down, but Andrea is still on the line) "Keeum? Keeum? Are you there Keeum?" (The screen fades to black and credits begin to roll)

Enjoy!!
edited.

The Tarpon God

Let me start out by saying that this blog took me a couple of days to finish because I had to regain the use of my upper extremities. Keep reading, that will make more sense in a minute.

In our lives we meet people every day, but very few of them leave a lasting impression. Every now and again we are lucky enough to come across one of those rare gems that leave a "Joe Has Been Here" sign hanging from our hearts. The Joe I'm speaking of is, in my book, the Tarpon God, also known as Captain Joe.

Joe is a fishing guide with over 50 years of experience. His specialty is Tarpon, but if you ask him he'll tell you that he fishes for anything with fins and a tail. He very generously offered to take us Tarpon fishing and after thinking it over for about 2.5 seconds we said, "OK!!" He seems to think that Andrea did something nice for his wife, personally I think he's suffering from a case of mistaken identity but not being one to look a gift tarpon in the gills, I kept my mouth shut. ;)

We started the morning out catching some Pin Fish for bait. We caught them the old fashioned way with a rod and reel. I was looking around for the cast net and Captain Joe pulls out two small rods with tiny little hooks on them. I thought, "holy cow, this is gonna take us a week!!" When we went out with Captain Rachel, she must have caught 3,000 Green Backs before we started fishing, of course she was using a cast net. By the size of the Pin Fish we were pulling in, I was starting to realize that we weren't in Kansas anymore. This was some serious fishing we were about to do. :o Gulp.

Although Andrea's fishing skills have vastly improved, the poor girl still suffers from a case of premature jerkulation. The minute a fish even looks at her hook she jerks it out of the water. Captain Joe brought me to my knees when he told her that the first rule of fishing was making sure that the jerk was on the right end of the line!! I knew right then I was gonna love this guy. Between his quick witted humor and the fact that he used fishing line to hold his hat and sun glasses on, I knew that we were going to have a great time even if we didn't catch a Tarpon.

After we caught 10 or so Pin Fish we headed out to the spot to start fishing for Tarpon. I probably should mention that I have never fished for Tarpon and until today I had never even seen a Tarpon except on fishing shows. Andrea went out with Jason a few months ago and saw quite a few but she had never caught one either, and she really wanted to. It wasn't at all like I expected. We just put the huge Pin Fish on these huge hooks that were tied on to these huge polls.....can you see where this is going? Anyway, we just threw them in the water under bobbers and waited.

Now I had been hearing some rumors that this guy Joe was one of the best Tarpon fisherman around these parts but after he tried to club a 2 inch Cat Fish and it ended up sticking him in the hand, I started to get a little bit nervous. He assured us that it would only burn for a couple of weeks or so. But honestly, what's a fishing trip without a Cat Fish incident anyway? Casualties were still at a minimum so it was all good.

With our bait in the water we watched and waited for our bobbers to go under, well actually to disappear, never to be seen again until the predator that had taken hold of the line started to get tired. Speaking of bobbers, one of Captain Joe's friends, appropriately named Bob was fishing for Tarpon near by and they were keeping in contact via radio. I never got to meet him but I heard him cheering for me when I was fighting my Tarpon so I can only assume that he was a really nice guy. Poor guy was fishing in the same spots we were and didn't get a thing, so we deemed him our honorary good luck charm for the day. Thanks Bob, maybe we'll meet again in a Mr. Donut somewhere!! ;)

Well I guess I let the cat out of the bag, I caught a Tarpon!! Where in the hell did that stupid saying come from? You get clawed and scratched to death trying to get a cat in a bag, so why would you want to turn around and let them out? Unless it was an accident. I digress.

Anyway, I had been standing in front of my huge pole for only about 3 minutes and all of a sudden it doubles over. I grabbed it and immediately felt the power of this incredibly huge fish. It was at that moment I realized why the huge Pin Fish, huge hook, and huge pole. It was also at that moment I started to wonder what in the world Captain Joe was trying to tie around my waist. What an inappropriate time to measure me for my custom Tarpon fishing outfit. Then I thought, oh thank God, he's tying me to the boat so I don't get pulled out. Actually, it was a belt that had a place to rest the butt of the rod so that you could use your body weight as leverage. For the record though, I would still like to have a custom Tarpon fishing outfit. Just sayin'.

This fish was so awesome, it jumped high into the air several times. It looked to be about 3 to 4 feet long and Captain Joe said it was about 100 pounder. It took me about 45 minutes and every ounce of strength and determination that I had to land it but I did it, all by myself. All hail the Silver King!! It was an absolutely amazing experience that I will never forget. Like your first true love, you never forget your first Tarpon. Apparently this Captain Joe really did know what he was doing!! The rumors must have been true!!

Poor Andrea was all to pieces because I brought a different camera that she wasn't used to and the whole time I was fighting the Tarpon she was muttering to herself about the camera and how she hated that camera and then she walks up to me and says in a really soft and calm voice, "Keeum, I know your kind of busy right now but I cain't see anything through this camera." I unintentionally ignored her, because I think I was in shock, so she just started snapping pictures even though she couldn't see a thing.

As it turned out, the problem was that the batteries in the camera were going dead. Another thing that annoys Andrea beyond belief. Ooops, my bad. I remembered to clear the memory card, I just forgot to change the batteries. Sheesh, I can't remember everything!!!

Ok, on to Andrea's Tarpon. Captain Joe said it was about 75 pounds but it looked every bit as big as the first one. I can't really remember how much time lapsed before Andrea hooked it but it wasn't too long at all. I remember watching Captain Joe baiting up both polls and thinking to myself, "dear God please don't give me another one right now." Bob yelled congratulations to me from his boat and I could barely lift my arm to wave thank you.

For some reason, Andrea's Tarpon didn't jump as much as Tarpon usually do, at least that's what Captain Joe said. Actually, it only jumped once. She did an absolutely awesome job of fighting it. A couple of passers by even stopped their boat to watch her. She stayed calm and cool and kept the jerk on the right end of the line. LOL! I had changed the batteries in the camera by that time and I got some good pictures of her and her Tarpon. Captain Joe did some video taping as well.

Andrea got her fish to the boat a bit quicker than I did so it was still pretty frisky when Captain Joe went to grab the leader. All three of us ended up getting a big splash as the fish slapped it's tail against the water in protest. It felt great but caught us totally by surprise. Joe was soaked and so was his camera.

We actually hooked a third Tarpon as well but it jumped very aggressively three times in rapid succession and snapped the line. It was an incredible show though. We were most definitely members of the Tarpon club now!!

It was an absolutely spectacular day, one that we will cherish always. Honestly, I don't know which was more fun, catching the Tarpon or spending the day with Captain Joe. His hilarious stories and quick wit make him quite the charmer. Not to mention the fact that he is an encyclopedia of knowledge about all things fishing!!

Thank you Captain for one of the most memorable days in our lives, and thank you Bob for being our good luck charm. Until we meet again, remember to keep the jerk on the right end of the line!! I know, I'm wearing that saying out, but it just kills me!!

Pictures are coming soon, I promise. We are experiencing some minor technical difficulties but please stay tuned.

Peace, Love, and Tarpon!!

It's Always Something

It seems that lately I'm getting quite a bit of practice "just enjoying being out on the water with friends." Although I will say that I am getting very good at catching bait. Bait that we have to end up letting go because we don't get enough bites to use it, but it's FUN. Real fun. Speaking of bait, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Andrea's huge faux pas (pronounced foe pa, unless you're Andrea and then it's pronounced poo pa). Either way it was a really big poo pa.

We stopped at the bait store, like we usually do. We bought way too much bait, like we usually do. We got 4 dozen regular shrimp, 2 dozen large shrimp and 1 dozen pin fish. That may not sound like a lot but it was 5 o'clock in the afternoon and we get scared after it gets dark, but I was payin' today so I was callin' the shots. More is better, that's my motto. After last night I'm thinkin' I might change my motto. But anyway, Andrea put our $20 worth of bait in the bait well and off to the boat ramp we went.

There was not a wave to be seen for miles!!! We were so psyched!! The water was as smooth as glass, really shallow glass as we soon found out. The tide was low, very low and we get scared, very scared that we're going to get stuck on a sand bar and have to spend the night out there waiting for the tide to come in. Don't laugh, it happens!!! Is anyone else noticing a common thread here? IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING!!!!!

We never actually got to our intended fishing destination since it took us 30 minutes to travel a quarter of a mile we decided that it was time to stop and fish. I threw out an artificial top water lure and Andrea started straightening up the boat, she does that a lot. After about 15 minutes, the relaxing silence was broken by Andrea yelling, "Oh no I forgot to turn on the bait well!" followed by, "Oh no their all day-ed!" And finally, the sound of the bait well turning on. O...........K........Turning the bait well on seemed to be kind a moot point to me, but I guess that was her last ditch attempt at CPR. "My bad," she says sheepishly.

With the bait well looking like a scene out of the movie Dooms Day, I decided that I better throw out some chum and get ready to throw the cast net. I caught a bunch more pin fish, and some weird looking little fish with yellow tails that kept trying to bite Andrea. The word must have gotten around quickly that she was harboring a weapon of mass destruction. It's not pretty when bait fish attack. Her finger was bleeding!!! : O

Honestly, that was about all the excitement for the evening. Actually we didn't even get a bite, unless you count the fish that bit Andrea's finger, of course. Oh, I almost forgot, I did catch the teeniest tiny little trout in the cast night. It was about as long as my index finger and had all the markings of a full grown trout. It was soooooooo cute.

Sorry guys, no pictures this time. I will be posting some pictures from our trip out to the Skyway with my dad a few weeks ago though. Check back!!

Peace, Love, and Bait Fish!!

Tug Boat Stir

Ok, let me start out by explaining the picture up there. Andrea is always saying that I purposely post ONLY good pictures of myself and that I post all bad pictures of her. So.........To prove that I do no such thing, here is the absolute worst picture of myself that I have ever seen. It was taken on July 21, 2007, on Scott's Birthday, at his favorite Chinese Buffet. Happy Now Andrea?

Fishing today was uneventful, for the most part. We were so ready to get out on the water after all this rain that we totally neglected to check the wind. We got the boat hooked up without a hitch. Well actually, we had a hitch, we just didn't have a hitch getting the boat on the hitch. Alright, now I'm confused. We got the boat hooked up with no problem. We got gas and bait no problem. Launched the boat, still no problem. When we got to the open water at the end of the canal, problem. Waves, big ones, bigger than our boat ones.

We did make it over to the flats to try to catch some bait, with my new chum recipe that includes a can of Jack Mackeral. We caught some Pin Fish but quickly realized that we really weren't going to need that much bait if we were going to have to stay in the canal. So, off we went, back to the canal. We have this little spot that we like to call the corner. It's located, as you might guess, right on the "corner" of the canal. We've had some pretty good luck there. But today, as luck would have it, there was a very large barge parked almost directly in front of our spot. Crap!

We managed to shimmy our way in between the barge and our spot then threw out the anchor. Andrea's watching the anchor rope quickly disappear and she says, "man it's really deep here!!" To which I reply, "news flash, barges don't usually dock in 3 feet of water, Andrea!!" I don't think she appreciated my tone.

We fished for an hour or so and had not one bite. Well, Andrea thought she had a couple bites but it turned out she baited her hook with this really large Pin Fish and it was just trying to swim against the current.

We were anchored pretty close to the barge and Andrea noticed that there was a door on the back end of it. I took note too and kept on fishing. About 15 minutes later this gentleman comes out wearing a hair net or something on his head. He may have been the barge cook or something, I don't know. Anyway, he proceeds to ask us how we're doing. I smile and say, "oh fine thank you, how are you?" Before the poor guy even has a chance to respond Andrea yells, "no we're not doing fine, we haven't caught one thing!!!" Now she was right, we hadn't caught a thing, but our boat wasn't sinking, so I figured we were pretty darn fine. Whatever. All the poor guy wanted to do was tell us that a big tug boat was going to be pulling up and docking right behind the barge and it might cause quite a stir in the water. I don't know if you've ever seen the waves that a tug boat makes but a "stir" is a bit of an under statement. We thanked the nice man in the hair net, pulled up our anchor and left.

It was still pretty windy so we headed back up the channel to a big dock where there are usually yachts docked, but there were no yachts there today so we decided to fish there for a while. After we were there for about 10 minutes, sure enough, we saw the tug boat that Mr. Hairnet warned us about. It pulled into the channel, honked it's big tug boat horn and started backing in behind the barge. As we're watching the tug boat Andrea decides that being a tug boat captain would be a really great job for me!! She says, "Keeeum, that's what you should do, drive a tug boat!!! You'd get to fish off the boat, honk the horn, and you wouldn't have to worry about anything because you'd be protected by all that rubber around the boat." Good God, there wouldn't be a channel marker left standing if I got behind the wheel of a tug boat. Ask Andrea to tell you the John Boat story.

The long and short of our second spot is that we didn't catch anything there either, but we laughed a lot. Andrea gets a little bit annoyed with the fact that I leave things laying around sometimes, ok most of the time. Anyway, she gets most annoyed at the way that I take the top off of a water or gatorade bottle and then end up losing the top because I don't put it back on the bottle. So I'm fishing and she's straightening up the boat (she does that a lot) and she says, "I swear I think you eat the tops to these water bottles and since you do maybe you'd like to tear into this Jack Mackeral can that you left sitting over here!!" Always the smart ass, that Andrea. But she does make me laugh and you know they say that laughter IS the best medicine. Although I prefer Valium myself. JUST KIDDING.


We actually did get some bites at the yacht basin but we never did pull anything in. I had what felt like a pretty good size fish on my line but it made a bee line back toward the bridge and cut me off on some barnacles. We ended up having to put up our bimini top because the sun was getting so hot. The sudden shade must have reminded Andrea of being on a picnic or something because I turned around to find her all stretched out on the back boat seat just chillin' out. She would sit up every now and again to re-cast her line and each time she would tell her shrimp, "alright now, you be good and don't get eaten." Now, scary thing number one is she's talking to a freakin' shrimp, but even scarier thing number two is that I was losing shrimp right and left and she must have had that same shrimp on her line for an hour. I'm thinking that she could start her own shrimp training show at Seaworld. Can't you just see the little shrimp doing flips and jumps like the dolphin!! "'Focus your binoculars at the center of the pool for this amazing arial shrimp display!!! Don't blink or you'll miss it!!"

Oh My God. I think I may have gotten overheated. Maybe I should have stayed in the shade too.

Peace, Love, and Tug Boats

Shark Week!!!

One of my patients recently asked me, "what's the biggest risk that you've taken lately?" I didn't exactly know how to answer that until I watched Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. Now I know it was SCALLOPING!!! Hoooooly Cooooooow!!!




I have no earthly clue what makes me watch these things. Maybe I just don't realize how bad it's going to be until I start watching it. Well, let me see, the name of the show was "Top 5 Eaten Alive!" Hmmmm Sounds harmless enough!!
LOL!! Well, now that the rain has stopped we're going to take out the ark and see if we can't catch some fish. Stand by for some really great stories!!!

Scallops in Steinhatchee!!!

What an absolutely wonderful weekend!!! I haven't had so much fun in a long time. I've always loved to hunt for hidden treasures and I would say that adequately describes scalloping. With an added bonus of seeing some other really cool creatures (starfish, sea urchins, and fish).

Steinhatchee is the scalloping capital of the state. People come from everywhere to search for these beautiful and delicious little creatures. It takes about 2 hours to get there from Tampa. Lets just say, it took us a lot longer than that. It was our first long trip with the boat and well.....Have you ever seen that bumper sticker, "Honk if parts fly off"? We lost 2 nets, and a bungee cord on the expressway and we almost lost our console cover. Yet another lesson learned.

We stayed at a place called Paradise Suites that I found online in April. Come to find out it was a miracle that anything was available at all during scallop season. Apparently people have to book rooms over a year in advance since scallop season only runs from July 1 through September 10.


Paradise Suites is run by a little boat captain named Ed. The rooms are bare bones sleeping and eating quarters for the avid fishperson and scalloper. Captain Ed is the owner and sole employee of Paradise Suites, he runs the front desk, cleans the rooms, does all his own maintenance and looks out for each and every one of his guests.


When you arrive, a welcome sign with your name on it is hannging on the door of your room (there's only 4) and the key is inside sitting on the kitchen table. No deposit is required, no check in is required, you are on your honor from the moment you arrive until the moment you leave. What a wonderful little place. Andrea was ready to reserve the room for the next 30 years when we found out that Captain Ed is planning on retiring in November and will be tearing down his little cottages and planting a garden. Wonderful for him but kind of a bummer for us.

Our first trip out for scallops we spent about 45 minutes searching for schools of scallops propelling through the water like little packmen. We were thinking that we were going to be really fast to catch them. I used a stick and poked around in the grass to try to get them to run out. They never did. Then Andrea says, "maybe we have to get into the water to see them!"

Even though I knew that we would ultimately have to get into the water, I really wasn't super keen on the idea. I was the kid who wouldn't even take a bath after I saw the movie Jaws and I'm the adult who would sooner drag my best friend behind a jet ski than fall in the water trying to get her back on. But that's a different story. Andrea will be more than happy to tell you about it.

After a few minor injuries getting out of the boat Andrea was out in the water sans her snorkeling gear and scallop bag. After about 5 minutes in the water she shoots up, waving her scallop bag in the air and yelling "Keeeeum, Keeeeum, I found one Keeeeum!!!!" She was so brave to get into that water. I was so impressed.

I very slowly put on my own snorkel gear so as to let any sharks circling the area to clear out and then I took the plunge. I have to admit I was quite terrified at first, but after I found my first scallop I didn't think of anything else but what a wonderful adventure this was.

I will say, however, that the experience was incredibly different than what we expected it to be. First of all, the scallops aren't in big groups, actually the most we ever found together was 3 and second, they really don't try to get away from you. They just sit in the seagrass like little easter eggs waiting to be found.

A few tips if YOU ever decide to go snorkeling for scallops:

1. Don't get so busy looking for scallops that you forget where you are going and run into the side of your boat. It hurts.


2. A ladder for getting in and out of the boat is a necessity NOT a luxury.


3. Make sure that the top of your snorkel is pointing up, not parallel with the water. Salt water really makes you choke, or strangle as Andrea would say.


4. Scallops look much larger underwater than they actually are, so don't make fun of your buddies haul only to lift yours out of the water and find they are exactly the same size.


5. No matter how cute they look, scallops will bite and spit on occasion.


When all was said and done we got about 5 gallons of unshucked scallops. That equals about a pint or so once you take them out of the shell but it really is worth it. It is so much fun and I would do it again in a minute!!


We met some really nice people who gave us some great tips for cleaning the scallops. They used a small shop vac to pull the membrane off of the scallop. What a great idea, it cut an hour long process in half.






I hope you all enjoy the pictures. We really love sharing our adventures with all of you. Peace, Love, and Scallops!!

My Birthday Present Fishing with Captain Rachel

What an awesome time!!! There is nothing like hanging with a pro, doing what you love to do for your birthday. Maybe turning 40 isn't so bad after all.

We were up at 4:00am this morning so we could travel to Palmetto and be on the water with Captain Rachel by 6:00am. We went with her to get bait. Just watching her work was enough for me. If I never picked up a pole today I would have been perfectly happy. I just wanted to drink in as much of her knowledge as I could. She was absolutely amazing. She had everything under control. She put the boat on the bait, anchored, chummed, threw the cast net and dealt with all the little unexpected things that happen on a boat, all at the same time and all by herself. On top of that, she's 8 weeks pregnant. Who says women can't have it all!!??

After the bait well was full we headed out to catch some Snook. And that is EXACTLY what we did. We caught at least 15 Snook of all sizes. She showed us the best way to hook the bait, cast the bait, and chum the bait to find the fish (sending out the search dogs she calls it). It was truly a dream come true.

I wasn't sure that anything could top last weeks tournament win but I think I can speak for both of us when I say that today may have done it!!! Yeah, I'm 40, but I plan to have many more adventures like this one over the next 40 years!! Lots of fishing and lots of fun!! Peace Love and Fish!!

Old Salt Women's Fishing Tournament

Oh my gosh! I don't even know where to start? What a magical weekend. It all started at the Captain's meeting on Thursday night. The Captain's meeting is where you register for the tournament, learn the rules, and just party a bit. They raffle off a bunch of prizes too! One of the prizes was this awesome custom, hot pink, fishing rod by Ocean Girl. I turned to Andrea and said, "I LOVE THAT ROD!!." Sure enough, the next number called was mine!!! I could't believe it. It's a beautiful rod worth about $160!!!

Fast forward to Friday night. Andrea came over and we got the boat all ready to go and all of our rods set up. We rigged up a bunch of hooks, oiled our reels, and gased up the boat. We were so excited because we were really feeling like we had a chance in this tournament with all the knowledge that we had aquired over the past year and a half. Everything was ready to go for 5:30am Saturday.

Saturday morning came quickly, especially since neither one of us slept because we were so excited. We had a few little mishaps but we were on the water by about 6:30am.

By 7:30am we had caught the 2nd Place Trout that won us $300, a trophy, and a spot in the Old Salt Fishing Foundation Hall of Fame. Ok, I made up the Hall of Fame part, but it sounded good.

Although Andrea made me weigh the fish in, it truly was a group effort. I was making chum, throwing the cast net, and catching bait and Andrea was putting the bait that I had caught on the rods and setting them in the rod holders. All of a sudden one of the reels started to scream. To a fisherperson, there is no greater sound. It's what we live for.

When we turned around to look, it just happened to be the Hot Pink Rod that was doubled down to the water. Andrea grabbed the rod and I grabbed the landing net and in just a few seconds we were measuring our 21 inch trout. The trout, that would ultimately win us $300!!!

As you can imagine we are sooooooooo excited. Who would have thought the two girls that started out in a little blue Gheenoe, who couldn't catch a fish if their lives depended on it, would take second place in a fishing tournament. It really is a dream come true for us both.

Father's Day Fishing with Dad!!!

Citizens Arrest, Citizen's Arrest!!!

What a beautiful day to honor the memory of those who are fighting and who have fought for our country!! I was thinking as we were launching the boat how sad I felt for all the people who have died for our country that aren't able to enjoy a beautiful day like this. God bless them, God bless them all.

We decided to take the boat out later in the day since Andrea had to work 1/2 day. It ended up being a better choice anyway since everybody and their brothers, sisters, cousins and neighbors were out on the water. There wasn't even a parking space to be found at the boat ramp. I got lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it) some doofus who had no clue how to back his trailer out of a parking space was leaving. It took about 30 minutes but he finally got it out of the spot. All I knew was I wanted to be as far away from that boat ramp as I could possibly be when that guy tried to get his boat on that trailer.

Today was the first day in a long, long time that we were able to actually get out of the channel and run the motor on the boat. The wind has been so bad and we're skeerd of big waves.

It was awesome. The wind in our faces, the water rolled out for us like a red carpet. We docked at the Rattle Fish Grill, had an awesome lunch and headed out to our favorite fishing spot.

Elated that our spot wasn't yet taken, we threw out our anchor and prepared to fish!!! Fast forward 5 minutes and the sheriff pulls up in his 25 foot boat and asks us if he can board our vessel. I would've needed a new pair of Fruit of the Looms if I had been wearing any, but mine were Victoria Secret so it was all good.

So Deputy Fife says, "How are you ladies today?" To which Andrea replies, "Well we were good until you showed up." She's the only person I know that can get away with saying some of the things she says.

So all he did, short of giving me a heart attack, was check to see if we had all of our safety equipment and make sure that we didn't have any fish that were illegal to keep. "News flash fella, you have to let people fish more than 5 minutes if you want to bust them for trying to keep undersized fish!!!" It's good to see our tax dollars at work!! Doh!

We only caught one fish all day, an undersized Snook at 20 inches. ATTENTION: WE DID NOT KEEP IT. THE FISH WAS RELEASED UNHARMED AFTER THE PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN. I REPEAT, NO FISH WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS BLOG.

I might be getting a little paranoid since our recent brush with the law. Of course it didn't help matters any that Andrea commenced to singing "I shot the Sheriff, but I did not shoot the Dep-a-tee!!" What a goofball.

Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged but there just isn't a lot to say when you sit in the channel for 4 hours. We have to get out into the big waters for there to be any big stories. ;)

Oh My God!!! I Caught a Snook

It was 25 inches long! It put up quite a fight.

Winds of Change are Blowing

Guess what? There's a story behind this Sheepshead!! Andrea and I spent the weekend at our favorite beach cottages called Changing Tides. Oh, if only we could have changed the tides, we would have had a much better fishing weekend.

We've been looking forward to staying there ever since we got our boat because there are boat slips in the back of the cottages. Dreaming of pulling up to the cottage in our new boat, we headed out on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately the wind was really bad all weekend and we never actually got to drive the boat from the ramp to the cottage, it was just too choppy, and we are just too wimpy (says Jason).

Soooooo, we decided to just hang out at the cottage and fish off of the dock. We met some other peeps who were out there fishing and we all became fast friends. They were having the absolute best time catching Catfish off of the dock. It was at that moment that I realized I might take fishing a bit too seriously. I'd rather have a root canal than catch a Catfish, but honestly it really is about the thrill of the catch and just having fun.

While fishing off of a small dock I spotted this large Sheepshead happily eating barnacles from the bottom of a sailboat. I quietly called everybody over to have a look, then made up my mind that I was going to catch it. I put a shrimp tail on my hook and just let it hover at the surface of the water by the boat. Low and behold, I caught it!! I watched it unassumingly take the bait and head back under the boat. Hooked!! That was the first time ever I had actually seen what I was trying to catch. It was very cool. Thanks to Rose, Abel, Julie, and Kelly for the picture and a really great Saturday afternoon!!

Oh and thanks to Andrea too for providing non-stop entertainment for the masses!! :)

Holy Freakin' Cow

What a Hog!!!



If you think he looks bad, you should have seen me!!!


Jeez, I don't even know where to start. We decided to take the boat out last night (Monday) because it had been very windy all weekend long and we were in dire need of a fishing fix. All shakey and sweaty from withdrawl, we hooked up the boat and headed for the bait store. About a mile down the road we realized that in all the excitement of getting the boat ready, we forgot the dock ropes and our depth finder. How in the world could anyone forget their ropes and depth finder, you ask? Obviously my friend, you have never suffered from fishing withdrawl. Fortunately we were headed to our night time sweet spot and that happens to be only about 3 minutes from the boat ramp. We're to skeeerd to go out any further in the dark. Old salts, we're not!!

So, Andrea backed the boat off of the trailer (since we didn't have our ropes) and it actually worked out really well. Mr. Fix it had shown us how to do that when we first got our boat and thank God (again) for Mr. Fix it. For those of you who may be new to the blog, Mr. Fix it is my dad, who just happened to be fishing on the other side of the bridge last night and caught his bag limit of Mangrove Snapper. We'll be waiting for that fish fry call, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Alright I'll get to the fishing report. The evening started out slow, the water wasn't moving much, and it was a little bit windy but not too bad. Andrea had rigged our poles up before we left and we were ready to go. I don't think we even had a bite for the first 45 minutes that we were out there. Then, something under the dock started antagonizing Andrea (it's amazing how smart fish are). She'd get a bite and yank her line and the shrimp would come flying out of the water missing about 1/4 of its body. She threw it back, yanked it again and another 1/4 was gone. She did this until her bait was gone and then re-loaded and started the same routine again. After about four shrimp and 16 tries she stared to get a little upset but I just went about my business. Every now and again I would hear an expletive, not uncommon when fishing with Andrea.

About an hour had passed and I had pulled up one or two little Mangrove Snapper and Andrea starts yelling, "YEAH!!! I got the little son of a bi*#$, that'll teach you, don't you dare even think about getting off my line." I turned to see her reeling in this 11 inch Mangrove Snapper with a fat little belly and a huge grin on it's face." You gotta love Mother Nature.

Well, it's 7:15 a.m. and I have to get ready for work. You'll have to come back tonight if you want to hear the story that goes with the picture of that monster on the side of our boat!!

Ok, I'm back.......Now about that monster. I was just chillin' out, getting ready to call it a night and I decided to give my dad a quick buzz to give him a fishing report. I no sooner got the words, "there hasn't been much action over here" out of my mouth when this huge freight train hit my line. It was the most unbelievable thing that I have experienced in a long time. It was fighting like crazy, it was huge, and it was on the end of MY line. I don't remember much from between the time the fish hit my line and the time I finally got it to the boat, but I do remember that I was standing on the bow of the boat and it pulled me down from there. What a rush. All I could think about was keeping it on my line so I could see what in the heck it was.

Andrea was scrambling with the camera so we could get a good picture and I was just trying keep myself in the boat. I kept yelling, "it's a shark, I think it's a shark!!!" All I knew was that it was big. REAL BIG!!

As it turns out it was a monster Red Drum. We could barely lift the thing out of the water for a picture, besides I was really scared of it. Brave Andrea finally lifted it out of the water with a towel so we could get a picture. I know I joke about Andrea a lot but she is always right there making sure that I have everything I need to have a great time fishing. She's my fishing angel!!

So there you have it. We have no idea exactly how big that fish was but it keeps getting bigger every time we tell the story. To put it into perspective though just look at the size of that fish's head compared to the size of Andrea's hand. It was BIG, REAL BIG!!!

As a side note I would like to add that you guys can post comments to any of our blogs and we would love to hear from you. So get posting!!!

Latest Fishing Pics!!

Dad, Dolphins, and a Picture Perfect Day!!

What an awesome day!!! The fishing was EXCELLENT!! Andrea caught her first Sheepshead and it was a whopper, 18 inches!!! She started yelling the minute it took her bait. "It's a Sheepshead Keeuum, I've never caught a Sheepshead Keeuum!! I don't think I can get it, it's really really big!!" She's just too funny. She also caught a 15 inch Trout, and a 14 inch Pompano. She's almost ready for her own fishing show. Can you imagine the ratings!! Move over Grey's Anatomy.

A big pod of dolphins surrounded our boat for about 5 minutes or so. They were cresting about a foot away from the boat. It was so magical. They are such beautiful creatures.

My dad met us out on the water in his boat and that was a blast. He would drift right by us, around us, in front of us and then he tied onto us and ate a sandwich. Right after that we were told that we better leave our great fishing spot because a tugboat was going to be pushing a really, really big boat out into the channel. We didn't waste any time moving to another spot. No problem man!

I caught 3 Mangrove Snapper that were about 11-12 inches each, my dad caught one too so he took them all home to clean for dinner. It really doesn't get a whole lot better than that.

Fishing, Family, and Fun!!

Bluebird Skies

Fishing today was really awesome!! Andrea had the whole weekend off and we had planned to do a lot of fishing but Mother Nature was not very cooperative. Today, however, was a picture perfect day, when we started out anyway. We started out fishing the flats, God I don't know why we ever even stop at the flats we NEVER catch anything on the flats, today was no exception.

Foiled again, we moved on to "the point," and anchored up there for awhile. We did really well positioning and anchoring the boat. We had a prime spot. The bite started off pretty good. I got a small Sheepshead and Andrea caught a keeper sized Mangrove Snapper. About that time, two big Dolphin swim right through our fishing hole. Dolphin to a fishing hole is kind of like lightning is to swimmers, it causes anything with any sense to clear out.

We got the odd bite here and there, things were starting to pick back up and then some jackass pulls right up on us. Hello???? Fishing Etiquette 101, anybody? He kept trying to find just the right position and he kept turning his motor on and off. Between him and the dolphins there was little point in staying at "the point."

When we tried to pull up the anchor we were suprised to find that we had hooked a second anchor, it weighed a ton and poor Andrea had a really hard time pulling it up. She fell backwards onto her butt, she was sweating and huffing and puffing. Passers by probably thought she was trying to real in a Killer Whale.

Guess where we went next? Yup, you guessed it, back to the freakin' flats. Don't ask.

We moved over to an old piling with some rocks around it and I started pulling in Sheepshead like crazy. I think I caught six in all, each one bigger than the next. That's my kinda fishing!!

Andrea was just commenting on what an absolutely beautiful day it was and all of a sudden, the wind turned and the seas were at about 4 feet. It was CRAZY. Thankfully we were only a couple of miles from the boat ramp but we were both soaked to the bone. That trip was eerily reminscent of another scene from the perfect storm, still no George Clooney.

We're safe and sound though!! It really was a great day!

Ok, Ok, Here's the Blog

Confession time!! The fishing tournament didn't go so well. The weather was awful and it really made for some tense time on the KW (Key West). We did manage to catch a sheepshead to enter, it was 2 pounds, the winning fish was 7 pounds. All in all it was pretty miserable but we did get some experience under our belts!!


More recently, we took the boat out last night for some week night fishing and we REALLY had a super great time. The night started out slow but we ended up having a decent fishing night.
The birthday girl (she's 50 now everybody!!) caught a beautiful Red Fish and I caught a chubby little Mangrove Snapper. We also had a bunch of good bites and caught a couple of Lady Fish. We had fun and the boat got a much needed bath.

As you might have noticed, we are really enjoying our boat. My dad has helped us make it the perfect little fishing boat. We were getting quite a bit of water coming in the boat when we stopped and it was driving us crazy, wet feet in cold weather really ruin the day. Mr. fix it got right on it and designed some little stoppers to let the water out of the boat but not in. Genius, I tell ya!!

We went out to the Sky way bridge fishing with Mr. fix it a couple weekends ago and we caught every little sand perch within a 40 mile radius but not one Grouper. But what a great time we had spending quality time together on the water. : )

I do solemnly promise to blog more. Sorry you all had to wait so long.

P.S. Andrea gave up cursing for Lent (tee hee) she has to put a dollar in a jar every time she slips up. I see a cruise to Tahiti in our future!!! Oh Yeah!!!