Went inshore fishing on Kevin's flats boat yesterday afternoon after a lot of rain the last couple of weeks or so. We fished for a few hours with a beautiful sunset and a couple of beers. Fishing was great, we just didn't get a bite! We were using shrimp and mud minnows. Well as the fish story would go, I thought I would take the leftover bait home in the infinity (don't make sharp turns with a bucket of water in the trunk) and try throwing a few liveys off the dock. I've had good luck lately with the berkeley baits, so as it would be..... every cast from the first to the last of 7 caught 7 nice red fish ranging from 3 lbs to 4 lbs or so. Great fun on light tackle and certainly fun for our dog, Calie as she was just about to go in after the fish on each cast, only to attack the fish around the neck(?) each time I threw one on the dock.

Redfishing in January with 80 degree weather. It just doesn't get much better than this!

p.s. Update on the My Time... after lightening strike. I've been putting in many, many hours of electrical redo. Replaced interior lighting, 2 radios, 1 amp, 1 subwoofer, switches, computer parts... and parts, and parts, and I've got the entire electronics cabinet apart trying to figure out what to send into repair, and what to buy new. New bow lights installed, and many replacement LEDs ready to go in the cockpit that were fried. New VHF was delivered and ready to go in when the wx is nice. New Garmin for the helm after the Raymarine chartplotter determined to be DEAD. Next? Sonar, touchscreen, satellite, VHF, spot light, radar. YEP... they're all out. It's going to take some time. ENGINES? Maybe in a month or so they'll be done and ready for a run down the creek. Is it really worth all the time and effort? Maybe.

Summer vacation in Blowing Rock, NC.

We're having a great time here in Blowing Rock. Hiking up to Linville falls yesterday, fly fishing Linville river, Trout lake, Price lake, Watuga river, and various creeks. Fishing was best in Trout lake in Blowing rock. Hiked up Rich mountain with Trey and Brody. We all hiked up to Linville falls and Pepi and I hiked around Price lake. Today we'll explore the Appalachian trail and Grandfather mountain. Two days ago we took the kayak to Valle Crusis Park and Trey and Brody rode the Watuga for 4 or 5 miles or so for 2 and a half hours while I waded and fly fished at the Valle Crusis Park.

Laura's having a great show at the Blowing Rock International Horse Show. She is hanging out with friends and enjoying the great training she's receiving from the Towell family
and Finally Farm.

Day 10 (Saturday): Travel Day. Tom dropped off his family and the McNair group at Boat Harbour, while I took the 20 ft. Albury back and he picked me up at their island. We then finished preparing the boats for the trip and dropped off the Roberson group at Boat Harbour for their later flight.

The boats had a nice day to head to Lucaya, via the ditch through Grand Bahama after stopping at Green Turtle(for a rum drink), Spanish Cay(for a rum drink), and Lucaya for dinner, sleep and the remaider of the Trip home Sunday. (Sunday was a bit sloppy around Lucaya, but flattened out nicely the rest of the trip.)

(Std. photo at Green Turtle... this time other side of dock)

Day 9 (Friday): Early morning trip with Tom, AKR, and me on the Down-Time. We had one small blackfin tuna on early which I promptly tried to surf into the boat without success; fishing North of the Lighthouse, chasing birds, then chasing a "bat-man", and dealing with offshore weeds (of the right kind finally) out to the bridge without a single other real knockdown.

Ran in to pick up the next fishing crews and boats for live bait catching, using our newly found land crab chumming technique, and fantastic "silversides" for bait, or the live bait Trey, Laura, and Andrew caught under the docks near Taloo. The last bottom fishing trip we caught 30+ livies (grunts, sargent majors, yellowtails, etc.), and this morning we caught another 20 or so prior to running off-shore to get out of a rainshower.

All three boats went out. The T/T My-time caught alot of smaller strawberry grouper, lost a couple of big ones in holes, and Laura caught a very nice trigger, Trey a nice eating size grouper, and the captain the largest yellow-tail I've every caught... all on light tackle in a boat with no modern electronics. The fish-boy on the Playin Thru did his usual nice grouper catch... very nice naussa grouper, and fought another one under a rock for a long...long time. The Down Time was having a "downtime" while going 0 for 0 as the fish story goes, despite the hard work of the crew. Great time and a slick ocean. The fish was all cleaned and given to Junior at the marina for the goodwill investment.

Day 8: (Thursday) Today's agenda, go back to our favorite private beach and cook-out hambergers and hotdogs, use the camp's tube and go tubing, snorkling, and a little beach ball. A great day with the group and chef R-6 did his usual great job of cooking on the grill. We make a quick pit stop at Tahiti beach on the way back to the Taloo docks. Girls and boys go shopping for T shirts in town in the late afternoon prior to their 2nd hardcore ballon fight around the house compound. Great dinner at the house with veal chops, chicken, wine, spinich, beans, etc. A typical full meal here with keylime pie or homemade cake for dinner. We're certainly not lacking of food or drink!

p.s. Umbrellas came in very handy.... thanks to the Playin Thru cargo boat.

Day 7 (Wednesday): Bottom fishing on Playin Thru, but not much to report. Sharks, large grouper running into hole, some triggers and yellowtails by fishboy, and HOT, HOT, HOT. Ran back into port to jump in pool and go to dinner on the boat to Cap't Jacks. Great dinner, sunset cruise and return home. The usual card games, etc.

Day 6 (Tuesday): Fishing day on the Playin Thru with Laura, Kevin, Charlotte, and Fish Boy. Great day of fishing. Not much trolling. Had 2 or 3 strikes. One hit the back of the bonita teaser, 1 on cedar plug and another on a lure. Two probably tuna, and one a wahoo on the teaser. Started bottom fishing with a good chum line out of Taloo cut in 60 feet of water and using the crab for chum and sometimes bait. Grouper, yellowtail and trigger fish were on the menu. Laura caught this nice Bull Shark... everyone seemed to back up when I pulled this deamon aboard for a quick release.

Day 5 (Monday): Trip to Pete's Pub at Little Harbour and a stop at our private beach at Taloo. Pete's pub was great and a very good lunch. Also Trey and I talked to a local fisherman to get some local knowledge about hermit crabs and fishing with conch!

Day 4 (Sunday): Tap...Tap... Tap... on the window.... Shhhhhh....Shhhhh.... Shhhh... from Pepi and an Early morning morning fishing trip on the Playin Thru.

Late afternoon trip with the Down Time, The Downing family and the McNair Family on the Big H (23 Albury from Island Marine) to Fowl Cay national reef. Nice time and clarity was pretty good. As usual, there's no current.

Day 3 (Saturday): Travel day to Boat Harbour marina, pool and bar to pick up the families and relocate to Barefoot Bay house on the tip of Elbow Cay overlooking Taloo. This is a GREAT house. It's set up with 3 separate buildings. Two housing bedrooms, and the 3rd is the kitchen, livingroom, bar and dining area. In between them all is the pool and the outside bar. It's a very nice setup and has fantastic views, especially from the crow's nest.

First night at Elbow Cay.... of course tuna dinner at Abaco Inn everybody's favorite spot. No Doubt.

Late night swimming party at the Barefoot Bay house.

Day 2 (Friday): Spanish Cay to Treasure Cay. It was also a day to save on fuel as we trolled our way outside and stopped for some bottom jigging as we had minimal action trolling. Treasure Cay Marina had a great dinner buffet at this favorite spot of Tom's. This may be one of mine too! One of the major fishing tournaments was finishing up the same day, so there was a lot of activity around the marina. Kevin was showing-off his new fighting chair.

Day 1 (Thursday June 11): Great trip over from Lake Worth Inlet to Spanish Cay on Day 1. I've never seen a crossing any smoother. Check out the photos... they show what I mean!

Tom's arrival at Spanish.

A great day of fishing with great friends! Left the dock at 4:30 AM on a 1 ft. sea fishing day. Looked at the satellite and determined the best line should have been just South of the Deli and that was confirmed by talking to folks on the radio on the way out who confirmed that(they had friends who had stayed out fishing the night before). We found a good line about 67 miles out. Had a hit immediately and missed. Lost another nice fish at the boat, and landed a nice 12 lb dolphin. We worked our way south to an off-shore reef in 200 ft of water we had never fished before. I figured it was the nearest hard bottom to the weedline we were working and sure enough as luck would have it, we pulled a nice wahoo and multiple dolphin with a 30 lb. bull out from under the marker buoy. The bull dolphin almost jumped into another boat encroaching on our catch as the captain yelled at them to pay attention and turn away... the rest of the crew even chimed in! Way to go crew!

Fished R-8 on the way back and stopped at R-7 to shoot some sheepies with the bow. Great laughs that was and the cobia swimming near the boat just knew we had the bow? Don't forget the tabletop sunfish with 10 large cobia all under it and over it... what a onetime sight that was. Normally they'd swim right over to the boat without even a thought. We will get them next time as this was the first time PGP tried to bow fish. It will be well worth the fine tuning and I can't wait until next time!

Nice dolphin by the mystery fisherman, and it was his first time ever going out that far to catch fish! Good job RP!

And there's always fish boy to be there at just the right moment as can be seen in this double up by PG and fishboy and of course the photo opp at the dock. Don't forget FB lined in a nice dolphin! We had all 8 rods going off, one right after the other!
Great day !

Fishing on the My Time with Pepi!

Also great visit from the O'Briens for the Memorial Day Weekend. We fished off the dock and didn't do anything, but fished with PG and caught some redfish and a trout. We've had so much rain for 2 weeks, it's probably affected the inshore fishing. But finally on Sunday the weather broke and Pepi and I went out for a little sun, beer, and fishing for Cobia. Sorry the our guests missed the one weather day.

NEXT TIME !