Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

40 hour day! work, fishing, more fishing, family reunion, more fishing, then finally sleep.

It all started on Friday morning. I woke up with my lovely wife and headed to work. Not an eventful day at work... just work. I got home around 9:00pm or so, got my stuff together and took off to Back creek. I met up with one of my hardcore fishing buddies, Forrest, and we started paddling to Goodwin islands. If I had been out there before then I would have considered it a waste of a trip, but I did get some good exploring done. The total for the night (11pm-4am) was 1 snagged bunker, 1 snagged houndfish, 2 croaker, and 1 snagged slimy, stupid, evil, rotten, cownose ray. Oh yeah... and I also saw the largest school of silverside minnows ever in the history of minnows. I would say they stretched for about a quarter mile 200yds wide! All that bait and not a single fish trying to eat them! Horrible night of fishing but I'm glad I learned the area. I made it back home at about 5:30am and could not for the life of me fall asleep. I figured I might as well do something while I was not sleeping so I went to Beaverdam and fished from 6:30ish til about 11. I ended up with 3 bass (largest was around 17") and one stupid pickerel. I got home and took off to Mathews for a family reunion. I didn't stay too long because Forrest (who didn't get any sleep either) was waiting for me to take him to the CBBT for some more SHEEPSHEAD!!!! I love those fish!!! I met up with my friend with the bloodshot eyes and drove to the CBBT and found some parking after a few passes. We launched under the bridge and made the journey to the sheepshead capital of VA. It started off very strong with several hook-ups with big fish... but we couldn't land a single one. Forrest pulled one up right next to the boat but it took one last run as he was trying to land it and it broke him off. It was probably a good 25"... no doubt a citation. Better luck next time, Forrest! I hooked 3 big sheepshead but ended up with 1 croaker, 400,000 oyster toads, and one 15" sheepshead. Forrest hooked 2 big sheepshead, caught a few croaker, a puffer fish, and a toad or 2. Not a bad day at all. I made it home by 11ish after sleep-driving most of the way home and finally found my bed at midnight.

I got up Sunday morning at about 8am well-rested and ready to hit it again! Hardcore fishing buddy #2 (Ashley Bishop) met me at my house and drove me to the CBBT. It was no problem finding parking because nobody in their right mind would want to do anything on this cloudy, windy, and rainy day... Good thing we are not in our right minds!!! We launched the kayaks in the surf and started the nasty paddle to "the spot." After the exciting, windy, and very wet paddle out, I dropped my fiddler crab down and immediately hooked up with the first fish... a nice 25" sheepshead! As I was paddling back to the spot, I noticed Ash was was already hooked up on his first ever sheepshead. It ended up being a 24" 11lbs 4oz beast! I dropped down again and hooked another that was around 21". I released it and tried to fish more, but the wind at this point was getting so bad we couldn't hold still long enough to keep our bait on the bottom. We decided that 3 sheepshead with 2 potential citations was good enough and there was no point in trying to kill ourselves for another. We made it back safely after surfing the waves in, got a few pictures and headed to weigh in our catches. I didn't think that mine would go 10lbs but I was wrong! It was 10lbs 6oz at 25"! Ash had a much fatter fish that was only 24" but went 11lbs 4oz! His first and only sheepshead was a nice citation! What a great way to spend the weekend! Less sleep = more fish!!! Got home around 6pm to see my shiny new wife waiting for me with a smile!







LIFE IS GOOD!!!!!!