HONEYMOON!!!!!

Alice and I went took our honeymoon trip to Florida to go fishing and also visit my Grandma and her Grandpa. We got to her Grandpa's house in New Smyrna beach first and had a nice dinner. We walked to the beach that night and felt the softest sand in the world! It was like walking on warm snow powder. The next day we drove to my Grandmas house and did a little bit of fishing in a pond behind her house. I caught one nice Largemouth and a couple of small ones. The next day Alice caught a pretty good one on a spinnerbait.

Finally we made our way across the state to Pine Island. It has the coolest little towns i have ever been to. Matlacha was a great little place that is an old fishing village. Saint James city(i don't know why they call it a city) was another spiffy small town. The entire island is surrounded by mangroves and creeks...perfect kayak fishing area.

We got a site at a KOA campground to park our trailer and it ended up being on a small pond. Needless to say i fished it as soon as we were set up. I had a few hard hits on a spit'n image but none that got hooked. I decided to wake up early the next day because i was so excited about the potential big bass i missed. I got up around 6 and started fishing immediately. I had a couple hits but again no hooksets. About 45 mins of fishing i finally hooked one on the spit'n image. It started to scream drag! I thought "This is going to be the biggest bass I've ever caught!" It took several good runs and i finally got it to shore..."what the hell is that??" I was 100% certain it was a freshwater pond but i had no clue what kind of fish it was. After looking for a bit i thought...mangrove snapper? Nah. Its freshwater. But it was! A 22" mangrove snapper in a landlocked freshwater pond. Later I found out that people have caught snook, tarpon, sheepshead, and mangrove snapper all in this little pond the size of a football field. Crazy! I also learned that it is not uncommon for certain saltwater fish to adapt to fresh if they are hatched in it. (Thanks for the info Cory Routh)


Over the next 3 days my new wife and I fished the west side of pine island and got on some good fish. It is unreal how full of fish the area is! The mullet there must be on steroids because they were the size of small torpedoes and jumping everywhere all the time! I'm talking about 4lb+ mullet! Altogether it was extremely fun and fairly productive. We found some nice creeks and cuts in the mangroves and caught snook, trout, ladyfish, puppy drum, and catfish. On the 2nd day Alice saw a 5-6' long shark in about 2' of water and took off after it to get a better look! FEARLESS! What a trooper :)

Pine island is an amazing place to fish and the people there are great! I think I know where i want to live for a while. I have to start working towards that...

AMAZING HONEYMOON! BEST WIFE EVER!!!

Beaverdam 8-30-10

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!!!!!!

Got me a citation Sheepshead!!!!!!!

Good times at the first island of the CBBT! I got out on the water around 1pm with 4 dozen fiddlers and a good attitude! I had a great breeze at my back which made the paddle nice and easy. I picked a random piling and dropped my fiddler down and had a hit immediately. I only moved pilings a few times but there was no point in moving because i caught all my fish on the same piling. The first couple fish i hooked were stupid little oyster toads...i hate those things! Within 2 hours of fishing i hooked into something solid. I knew right away it was a good one. I had my drag nearly as tight as i could get it but it still stripped my line out like crazy. It pulled so hard my rod doubled over and rested on the side of my kayak nearly tipping me over. After about 5 good runs from the surface to the bottom i finally landed it. I knew it was near citation size but wasn't positive. It ended up going 24'' 9lbs 6oz. Just 10oz shy of a citation. I was much more lucky on the next one. It started to get a little windy from an obviously nasty storm but i still had a bunch of bait. I HAD to use it up right? Within 15mins i hooked another good one. It fought just like the first but as soon as it came to the top i knew it was WAY bigger. I ended the day with a 9lbs 6oz and a 11lbs 10oz Sheepshead. along with 8 stupid oyster toads. Not too shabby for just 4 hours of fishing!!!

Nice day at beaverdam turns evil!!!

Alice and i fished Beaverdam for a couple hours on Sunday the 18th. It started off just a little breezy and very sunny. We paddled back into a cove to get away from the wind and i caught a small bass on a sinko. We decided to head across the lake to try another cove and paddled against the light wind for about 10 mins. The cove was nice and calm but the clouds were getting a little dark and we could tell a storm was coming. I said "It's OK, the storm is still quite a ways away." Soon after that comment KA-BOOM! a bolt of lightning flashed not far away. We started paddling out to the main lake and made it just out of the cove when the rain hit. It started off with a lot of wind (in our face of course) and just a little rain. Then it hit... HARD rain and wind pounded us as we paddled across the lake. Alice is new to kayaking so her arms started to give out around the same time she said "I JUST WANTED TO STAY AT HOME AND GO THROUGH WEDDING PICTURES!!!" :) I had to laugh on the inside after she said that. The wind never let up at all so i decided to tie her kayak to mine and tow her in. At this point the wind was kicking up white caps. White caps in a lake!!! I dont think i have ever seen that at Beaverdam before. We made it to the shore line but not the ramp. We both took off toward the overhang at the lodge to hopefully wait the storm out...not gunna happen. I decided to run to my truck and drive it around to pick up Alice and the kayaks. I make it to my truck and drive halfway around then realized the gate was already locked to the lodge entrance. I took off toward the ranger station to get the ranger to unlock the gate but he was less than helpful. I knocked on the door and he opened up and immediately said "I was about to close up, good thing you got here in time". The park closes at 8:30 and it was only 8:15-8:20. I told him quickly "Can you unlock the side gate? I couldn't paddle to the ramp because of the storm" he just looked at me like i was stupid and said "I aint goin out in that Sh*t!" so i just said "OK. just give me the key and i'll bring it right back!" Big belly jerk said "I cant let you do that." Angry at this point i said sternly "My wife is sitting out in the storm...just give me the key!" He wouldn't budge and just told me to wait out the storm! I run back to Alice and told her what happened so we waited a little longer but it was no use. The storm showed no sign of going anywhere. We both ran to the truck in the lightning storm and pulled up tot the ranger station again and asked him one more time but he simply replied "cant you just drag them over here?" Too pissed to argue i said "yeah i guess!"so i ended up dragging the two kayaks 150 yards to the truck in the pouring rain, lightning, and 40-50mph winds. I am still pretty pissed at him. I guess i need to call parks and rec to talk to his boss...

Beaverdam topwater bass

I fished at Beaverdam for about 2 hours today and ended up with about 10-12 small bass. They all hit a Pop-R. The biggest was about 15". Pretty fun evening.