Robin's Reports

2012-01-27T19:09:00.002-05:00

KEEP FISHERMEN FISHING!!!!
by Robin

http://www.fishnet-usa.com/KFF_Release1.pdf

U.S. Coastal Fishermen to Rally in DC on March 21, 2012.

KFF organizers unite to fix Federal Fisheries Law. Signed into law in 1976, the Magnuson Steven Fisheries Conservation & Management Act has been transformed from its original intent, to conserve our nation's fisher and support our nation's fishermen, into a weapon employed by a handful of megafoundations and anti-fishing ENGOs they support to drive fishermen off the water.

On Feb 24, 2010, United We Fish brought 5,000 recreational, commercial and party/charter vessel owners and folks together in Washington. More than 2 dozen members of the Senate and the House of Representatives took time out from their busy schedule to address the crowd.

The Mar 21 rally wants to unite everyone again under one common message: fair access to the seas.

Most U.S. fisheries are in better shape biologically than they’ve been for a generation or more. In fact, last year NOAA fisheries scientists announced that 84% of U.S. fish stocks studied for fishing activity were not experiencing overfishing as of 2010. However, despite the heavy sacrifices on the part of coastal fishermen, the same federal agency in charge of managing
the resource has been using a broken law to mete out broken promises upon these constituents to ratchet down regulations as fisheries continue to rebuild.

In December 2011, the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing in which several pieces of legislation to reform Magnuson were heard and debated, providing ample evidence that coastal communities are suffering from the weight of over burdensome regulation due to the rigid statutory definitions written into the federal fisheries law.

For information on how you can get involved in the national rally to help Keep Fishermen Fishing, call 888-564-6732. For more information on the rally as it becomes available, including bus sign-up information and details from the 2010 rally, visit www.keepfishermenfishing.com.

You can also stay up to date with developments via “Keep Fishermen Fishing” on Facebook
and can follow developments on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/FishMarchDC2012.

2012-01-22T19:20:00.002-05:00

PICNIK & PURPLE PORGIES
by Robin

My favorite online photo editing program is shutting down in April. I really loved how I could make purple fish with them. I will need to start saving for the real Photoshop program or something like it.

No more purple porgies. My pictures are going to be so boring!

On the bright side, I made some killer Kingfish dip with a side slap of Kingfish that a friend gave us.

High tide will be hitting early-mid-morning on Wed through Friday. I am trying to get my other fishing lady friends to hit the beaches with me & the kids. I need to fill the freezer with some Pompano while they're in town. Not to mention, it will be 79 degrees out!! Hello?? Spring Break hit in January.

Happy Fishing everyone!

2012-01-14T15:32:00.002-05:00

KINGFISH!
by Robin

Jack got a text last night from a coworker who caught extra Kingfish meat. He wanted to know if we wanted a piece to smoke. Are ya kiddin' me?? Of course!

So, it will be here in a couple hours. Not sure when we will smoke it but it will make into some nice tubs of dip.

By the way, the winds have picked up the seas again so we will not be fishing this weekend. That's ok. I need a break, especially after loading 20 tubs of manure from a horse farm over to our garden.

Happy Fishing,
Robin

2012-01-11T10:46:00.002-05:00

1/9/12 No KINGFISH, but some PORGYS
by Robin

We decided that we wouldn't get up pre-dawn to fish due to the full moon, interferring with the early morning bite. It was a decent way to start the morning. An hour extra sleep makes me a happy fisherwoman. Left the driveway at 7:30 and through the port by 8:30. Loaded up with pinfish on Buoy 5. Headed over to 8A reef to slow troll for Kingfish. I mean, dead slow. Barely bumped in gear, slow. We wouldn't want to drown the little guys.

I knew that last Saturday, they were not there on 8A and on Sunday, they were at Pelican Flats, but we did not want to go that far south. We had a plan to do some bottom fishing for porgys in the afternoon after limiting out on Kings in 30 minutes in the morning. HA! - NOT!

An hour goes by and we got nothing on a "barely" troll with live bait off the back. Jack switches up to a faster troll with a rigged & skirted, weighted ballyhoo. Another 30 minutes, nothing. I suggested that he troll away from 8A, towards our porgy "hole". Jack took my advice and we did that. I stayed on the bow, looking for any signs of fish life. Twice, I saw something break the surface & make big splashes. We trolled through that area and still nothing. I found a nice "hump" while trolling & marked it. We pulled in the lines & tried to go back and bottom drop on it. Didn't have much success with that, or possibly, we weren't very patient with refinding it, either.

Knowing we were only 4 miles from the destination, we agreed that it was better to just move onto the known area. Once we got there, somebody else was fishing very close-by. It didn't seem to bother either of us, or the drifts (which were kicking!). They had their spot and we fished ours.

At first, Jack pulled up a spade fish, then a juvenile red snapper. Both were released, in great condition. I was frustrated because I knew there were fish there, tapping my bait, but I wasn't able to hook-up. Jack helped me a little with my technique and then I hit my stride.

Because there are so many closures at this time of year, our goal is to find the smaller reef fish that we are allowed & bring them home. It's plan B compared to the Kings, but it makes for a good panfish dinner.

These guys are called Vermillion Snapper, or as the locals say, Beeliners. This was my first catch and he's a fat one. But, they're closed from Nov to Mar 31st, so he goes back to grow & spawn some more. However, I will be back in April to claim a few for the dinnerplate. They are extremely tasty, as most of the snapper family fish are.

Here is the Vermillion's cousin, the Red Snapper. Red Snapper have been closed for 2 years now. They have been considered overfished, but that is highly contested & debatable amongst fishermen. Let's not go there today. Even with circle hooks, this guy managed to inhale the hook too far to take the time to mess with. They don't like being kept out of the water for too long, so Jack is cutting the line to send him back down ASAP. He was a happy guy. The hook will rust quickly & fall out.

As the hours passed, the type of fish we caught seemed to change. We went from red to spotted! We call these chocolate chip porgies but they're officially known as Whitebone Porgy. Fun-fighting and yet, they're not too much of a challenge either. It's perfect for me since those bigger ones wear me out. The meat is exceptional! So, we kept all 5 of them, that we caught.

This is one of my porgies. Pretty nice size one. I was very thankful that we didn't spend our day weeding through any black sea bass, which are also closed right now. Down by Pelican Flats, you can't get away from them and it is irritating to spend all your energy bringing them up & sending them back down.

Probably, close to 2pm, the bite changed again. Whatever this monster was, he would take my pole and bend it down. I could not turn it towards the boat. Twice, he bit my hook in half!

He even took Jack for a ride during one of the drifts, but Jack was fortunate to get his hook back in one piece. After I took this picture, below, I swapped to a heavier hook and don't you know, the fish never did try again. He either had a sore mouth or knew I was better prepared for him.

The ride back in was beautiful. Flat seas. Warm 79 degree day. Clouds giving me many opportunities for playing with my camera. It was a good time to reflect on the day. Jack did an awesome job of setting us back on the spot every drift, which wasn't very easy. The current was fast and so we only had 1 opportunity to catch something as we passed by the underwater castle. Jack nailed it every set up. Thank you babe!

The last few minutes before entering the port, we got a gorgeous display of God's handiwork. Gorgeous!! I like the orange-pink skies normally, but it was hard not to love the blue/gold one on Monday night.

God Bless & Happy Fishing,
Robin

2012-01-02T15:03:00.004-05:00

Lures & Flys (or is that flies?)
by Robin

Seas are going up to the 12 ft range and gale force winds expected to show up at midnight. Yuck! The good news is that we may have low seas again next weekend. Cross your fingers, eyes, toes and make your puppies say their prayers!

In the meantime, Jack bought some more lead & circle hooks today. He was tying little "flys" (or is that flies?) on the backside of them so we could go catch a bunch more trigger & porgy next time out.

He also discovered a nasty smell in his lure bag. Somebody (that would be me) left some squid on a jig and it sat for close to 72 hrs, in the lure bag, and was quite ripe! Massive cleanout ensued. Jack cleaned his lures while he was also cleaning the bag & lure boxes. Good task to do in the winter while we're in-between those cold fronts.

My glow-in-the dark jig on the left was the culprit for the BIG STINK!

God bless & stay indoors! Florida is going to be near freezing temps this week.

Robin

2012-01-01T22:00:00.002-05:00

NYE Fishing trip
with Mike & Helen

by Robin

First, I have to thank our lovely hosts for the gift of the all-expense paid fishing trip aboard their sportfishing boat. It was their anniversary gift to us. Thank you! That was so sweet of you to treat us like that. (Jack and I have been married for 19 yrs!)

This is a photographic timeline of the majority of our day. I didn't even come close to capturing the hundreds of fish that were caught & toss back into the ocean. We spent the morning in rough seas, so my focus was staying on my feet and not rolling over the side of the boat. ha ha. I was also busy catching a lot of fish once I decided to cut my losses with my favorite jig and go to hook & dead bait.

Enjoy these pics.

Bizarre glitch when uploading. Won't go away. Sorry.

Ran through a pod of 50+ dolphin. So much fun to be surrounded by dolphin!

I'm not certain this was the first stop or two. We were having trouble holding the boat over the fishing spots because the current & wind were ripping hard.

Red Snapper, Vermillion Snapper & Black Sea bass are under closures. All fish were released unharmed to repopulate the ocean. Helen had a HUGE Vermillion at one point. Wish I had a pic to prove it.

Jack's trigger was 17" when I measured it at home. Biggest one of the day.

This was Mike's monster black sea bass (although there were so many).

We were waiting to pull into the parking slip.

Jack was not very patient with me wanting to capture a cooler shot. By the time I got back on the boat, half the fish were gone already. So, this is what was left for Mike & Helen to take home. That was Helen's nice trigger. We also had a mess o' Chocolate Chip Porgys.

This was Jack's trigger, fried up and on the plate by 6:35. So delicious! And fresh!

I'll add stories through the week, as time permits. I just had some free time tonight to work on the pictures part of it.

We're about to have a massive cold front & gale force winds tomorrow night. However, it is possible that the seas will lay back down by next weekend. Only time will tell.

Happy Fishing (& catching for many of you who caught your grouper before the season closure)
Robin

2011-12-29T19:27:00.004-05:00

FISHING REPORTS

by Robin

I'm doing some homework on the latest reports, which are far & few between. So, it looks like the mahi mahi are running south through the Gulf Stream. Nice size ones. The only problem is getting the full 26-30 miles out there and finding some nice color change & weedlines. Christmas mahi were caught between 250-380' deep.

A couple weeks ago, there were stories of cobia being on the cutting tables, caught off of Port Canveral waters.

The Pompano are also running from now until March (or so). They love the cold water. I see reports coming out of Playalinda and as far south as Sebastian Inlet for the pomps. Best way to fish them are with clams or sand fleas, but supposedly, they're even hitting dead shrimp in Playalinda. I saw a pic with a pink wiggle jig but our tried & true double-jig usually has a yellow piece on it. I love catching pompano and better yet, love eating them.

The whiting & blue runners are also hitting hard at Playalinda on cut mullet, dead shrimp. If I wasn't prepping tomorrow for Saturday's offshore trip, I'd probably do my best to make it out to the beaches and surf fish for some of these favorites.

Also, the large flounder are being found in Port Canaveral & Sebastian Inlet. They love the incoming/slack tide, eating a live finger mullet. Nice black drum can also be easily caught from the sides of the inlets.

Love winter fishing because many of the fish are coming inshore to us because they are seeking the warmer, shallower waters. That reminds me, I've been seeing really nice pictures of Gag groupers (HUGE) that are being caught in the 90 ft range. I've also seen a few Red Snapper pics that look like their in the 18 lb+ range. It is a big shame that they have to be thrown back. Supposedly, they are said to be overfished, but all reports I'm reading say the fishermen are having to weed through all of them to find 1 or 2 grouper. One fisherman said he threw back one over 26" long. They are taking over the reefs and wrecks. It is such a joke every time I hear somebody say they are overfished. I wish I could take all those people fishing, offshore, and then let me hear their new opinion of what they see, not what they heard.

So, that is my report for the week. Fishing days seem to be sparse in the winter, BUT, the fish are always hungry in the winter. I can't wait to go offshore and see what we can bring home. I need to start praying now!

Happy Fishing!

Robin

2011-12-21T12:57:00.003-05:00

God is teasing me. We're looking for a good day to head offshore before the 31st to pick up some deep water fish before the fishery closures for spawning season.
(Pic taken 12/31/2009. Amberjack & 2 red snapper, 1 being a monster)

SUNDAY (Christmas): EAST WINDS 10 TO 15 KNOTS. SEAS 2 TO 3 FEET. CHANCE OF SHOWERS. (it's minimal)

Of course, we will not be fishing on Christmas, but if the seas continue to diminish, I can definitely see us skipping the stores and heading offshore on Monday.

God Bless,
Merry Christmas,

Robin

2011-12-14T19:48:00.002-05:00

PICTURES of STORM
by Robin

Wow, I actually got back here in the same day! A miracle.

It was a big front that passed over us when we first got there. Not as intimidating as it looks because I knew that there was no lightening in there. The rain was fairly warm, considering it is December.

However, there was a much bigger storm offshore. Thank goodness we never actually went out that far. Of course, we met a sub exiting the Port. I tell ya, they are coming & going every single time we're on the water.

Happy Fishing!
Robin

2011-12-14T12:13:00.002-05:00

NEGLECT
by Robin

I don't think I've ever neglected my blog so much since its inception. In short, I haven't been fishing since August........... until Monday hit. I might as well have gone out in a hurricane since we had small craft advisories. I thought if we stayed close to shore, we could still work some spots by rocks & walls. Nope. The anchor wouldn't hold anywhere we tried. First Choice has such a high profile, we caught every gust of wind. What a mess! We caught NOTHING but a lot of rain on our clothes.

I will have to do my best to come back & post up some pictures of that weather.

The good news is that the weather may be clearing over the weekend. I'd love to get back out there again. Fishing has been slow for everyone, but I did hear one report of cobia a couple weeks back. Flounder are back in season, too. Black sea bass & vermillion are closed for several months for spawning season.

New legislation has been introduced into the Senate about insisting good science back all these closures that we keep fighting. We'll see if it even gets addressed before SAFMC will take another vote December 31st.

God bless! I'm still alive.
Robin

2011-10-22T16:09:00.002-05:00

What??? The seas are high AGAIN!!!! I'm in fishing withdrawls.

I think the Captain said it best....

2011-10-17T19:41:00.005-05:00

EXPLORING NEW SMYRNA BEACH
by Robin

I can' believe that we have lived here for nearly a decade and have not visited this beach!!! Shame on us!!!

First things we noticed is how much it resembles Key West. I can see why people love to visit here. They have beautiful old houses, small gift shops, art galleries and lots of good eateries.

They had many shops. This one caught our attention quickly. I have to say that I even brought home a little gift for my own "Robin's nest".

I love all the quaint shops with beach signs. The one about composting caught this gardener's attention.

As we walked further east, we saw this artist painting a HUGE underwater mural. I have to say that this is one of the best muralist I've seen around the area. He actually got the faces of the marine life in perfect proportions. I'll blog more on that later.

We walked a little futher and then.... we caught a glimpse of the beach. I loved this arch over the road. You can drive on the beach, too! Jack loved that part of it.

We went into Breakers for lunch. Here are my mateys. There is not a bad seat in the entire restaurant. Every seat lines the glass walls so you get a view from north to south of New Smyrna Beach's beaches (Did I say that right?)

So, here is my view as I sit in my stool. Oh..... the gentle breeze that blew perfect temps on my face. No humidity. No heat. But, it wasn't cool either. I seriously needed a hammock.

I cannot believe how close to the beach we were sitting. It was high tide, but it makes me wonder how far the water rises during hurricane water surges.

Not long after I was relaxed for a nap, food was served. Breakers is known for their award-winning burgers. They did have a veggie-garden burger for me, but who wants soy & carrots when you can have ahi tuna?? Not me.

You can better believe it that this was absolutely delicious. Jack bragged on his burger on the way home, too.

It was a quick drive home. We promised each other that we would be back to visit & explore this area more. NSB is also home to Ponce (de Leon) Inlet, which is another good inlet to fish out of. Trust me, we are seriously considering hauling the boat up that way for double-dipping on the cobia fall run.

Happy Fishing & exploring!
Robin

2011-10-10T17:22:00.003-05:00

FIRST CHOICE IS BACK HOME!!! (Grand applause!!!)
by Robin

As Jack said, "We have 'been there and done that' with the marina life. I can see where it would be very appealing to live out on your boat, in a marina, during good weather; however, having it stored in a shipyard wasn't working as much as we hoped it would.

I don't regret going to a marina for the spring mahi run, but by the end of summer, when the days were long, we began to regret not getting to stay out much longer. We're both very independant people and wanted to not live according to the hours of the guy who runs the forklift. (kwim?)

(see our new brakes??)

Plus, Jack didn't realize how much he was going to miss tinkering on her in the evening or on unfishable weekends. There were many things he would have seen about if we had had shade, a accessibility to tools and didn't have to make such a drive to the port. It was time to bring her home and do some winter maintenance

First, we made sure we had everything in working order. Second, we built the 3rd driveway for storage (see earlier post).

Then, after getting her home, we bought 30 ft of light PVC pipe and made a bit of a 'rib' or frame for keeping the tarp high. This was to keep the rain from making puddles, or pools, in the low parts of the boat.

Then, it took all 4 of us of pulling on this tarp to get it to cover the boat. Wow, it was much heavier than I expected.

The tarp is more than just an umbrella for the boat. It will keep the dead oak leaves from falling into the boat & littering it with debris between fishing trips. It will take some work, but not much once we get into the routine on how best to get it up there.

Happy Fishing. Maybe we can go next weekend, weather permitting.
Robin

2011-10-08T14:14:00.002-05:00

WE BE HAVIN' A STORM!!!
by Robin

The seas are 14 ft today and still at 7 ft by Monday. I don't think we'll be bringing the boat out fishing mateys. We'll be doing good just to get her onto the trailer and back home. Time to bring her home from the marina for the winter.

Time to cook & watch football!!
Robin

2011-10-07T10:56:00.003-05:00

NEW DRIVEWAY!!! (for the boat)
by Robin

It's amazing what you can do when inspiration & cash come together at the same time. We were *going* to run errands when we went past a lumber yard. They had just the right size & selection of railroad ties. Ordered and delivered about 3 hrs later.

They slide them right off of the flatbed.

Jack did most of the laying for the ties. I couldn't even begin to get one lifted.

On the way home from the lumber store, totally ditching our other errands, we side-tracked to the local mulch & gravel store. Ordered 5 cubic yards of granite, which was delivered about 30 minutes after the railroad ties. God gave us impeccable timing.

Then, you give everybody a shovel, including the neighbor kids. You have to promise them cash these days. They don't work for free anymore. Of course, be careful of the lightening. (photo-edited)

A couple/few hours later, it is all done!! I kept telling Jack that I totally get it why the Duggar family has 17 kids. Many hands make light work!

And that is our new space for the boat when it comes home in 2 days. We can't wait to have her back home. I am so happy to see what was a bit of an eye-sore of weeds & dirt become such an important piece of real estate.

Happy Fishing if you can get out with all this wind & spotty showers.
Robin

2011-10-07T10:47:00.002-05:00

BRAKES!!
by Robin

One of our weekends in September was spent putting new brakes on our towing vehicle (suburban). This is such a puzzle to me, but it makes an excellent project for Jack and our eldest to do together.

Mechanical talents run on both sides of our families so it is best to give the gift of fixing 'broke stuff' to your kids. If you're gonna own stuff, it's gonna break on you. LOL

The same weekend, we also had new brakes put on the boat trailer before we bring the boat home. They had seized up while sitting in the side yard for 6 months.

Have a blessed weekend,
Robin

2011-10-05T12:23:00.004-05:00

10/3/11 - OFFSHORE
by Robin

Well, it's that time of year when the temps are cooling off, the tropical winds & hurricanes are lessening and we can start back with fishing.

Jack took a couple coworkers out fishing. The plan, originally, was to dive for fish. However, NOAA didn't give them good feelings, so they decided to leave the tanks home and bring poles instead.

They trolled most the morning. Put lines out at 90 ft depth and continued east. They came across a large sargassum weed mat going north/south at a depth of 135 ft. Jack said he trolled that for close to 10 miles without a single fish in the box. He did get some knock-downs and baits torn. Later, he brought 3 barracuda to the boat & released them. But, that didn't seem to pan out, so they continued trolling eastward.

Jack says the ocean was gorgeous. Nice, gentle rolling waves with a long period between sets. Still nothing in the box.

One of his friends brings along a set of numbers to do some 'bottom-dropping' for fish off the bottom. The first place produced many large chocolate chip porgy. I believe Jack said it was like 13-ish, but they lost count. They kept the biggest to take home for dinner.

(Btw, I googled "Chocolate Chip Porgy" to find a picture for you and the only link that popped was MY blog from back in 2009... Bottom fishing - CC Porgies )

The guys came into the marina, just as they were closing. They cleaned fish and so I have no pictures for you. I'm trying to procure some from one of the coworkers, but I'm not sure what I'll get. No telling w/ a boat full of guys.

Tuesday, Jack's family rolled into town and we were glad to serve them a fresh Porgy fish fry for dinner. They were so delicious, I had to restrain myself.

I absolutely can't wait to get back out on the water next weekend. It's been about 6 wks for me.

Happy Fishing!!
Robin

2011-10-03T17:44:00.003-05:00

MIM's MULLET FESTIVAL
by Robin

Had such a good time traveling over to Mim's for their 3rd Annual Mullet Festival. If you're confused if I'm talking about the fish or the hair-do, let me explain. It's called that because the mullet fish make their run each fall. They harvest about 3,000 lbs of mullet for this festival. You can get it fried, smoked or in a dip. However, since a lot of people's minds go to straight to the 80's hair style, the designers combined the two into this funny logo.

First thing we notice was that there were many antique cars there, as well as kid jumpy houses.

On the corner was/is an old-fashioned church house. We popped in there and saw our friend, Micah, playing drums.

Secondly, we turned the corner and came up on a couple of my friends who combined their efforts and sold trendy clothing & fashionable folk jewelry under one tent. My one friend, Kricket, teaches violin, banjo, fiddle and other string intruments to the local homeschoolers. We came up on her giving a little warm-up. My other friend, Debbie, has a son that plays fiddle and guitar. Our sons are good friends, having been through my Civics class together.

I let them all catch-up on their summer & talk music while I snapped a few other funny shots.

I have no idea why the church donation bucket has a seat & lid.

I also had no idea why there was a white tiger for us to stare at. He was so HOT. Supposedly, there were 3 Siberian tigers on a farm, up the road, from where we were. She gave me a conservation talk but in my mind, I was freaking out thinking about what happens if a tiger escapes. (I watch too much tv.) I actually dreamed, er... nightmare, last night that I heard a tiger growl from within my garage.

We had a quick glimpse of Miss Mim's Mullet Festival going to her post inside.

I'm not sure if this is Miss Mim's Dad or if he won the trophy for having the best mullet wig that day. Hmmmm?

There was Mullet cornhole toss.

Mostly, the boys kept me entertained because they combined efforts and put a "band" together, on the spot.

They actually took in several $$ in tips. They were very good on a couple songs, but that's all they knew. They will have to learn a few more before the next festival.

About 1pm, the kids were more into the music than eating but I was starving. I didn't know which plate I would like, so I got one of each. 1 fried and 1 smoked.

I didn't even have a chance to decide and my youngest took the fried plate for himself. I guess it is good that the smoked mullet was pretty decent. I had had BAD mullet, years past, at another festival on the Gulf Coast and was convinced it was food that only 3rd world country people enjoyed. I stand corrected. If you stick with the thick shoulder meat, watch for bones and stay away from the stomach area, it is actually pretty good. Not much different than Jack's smoked kingfish. My friend Kricket's husband makes a very good dip out of smoked mullet.

Anyhow, during the heat of the day, I moved the kids under the shade of an old oak tree. They earned more money there. People are so kind and generous to children. It brings out the tender hearts to many folks that we would never otherwise connect with.

Thursday, the boys will attend their first official bluegrass practice session. If they do well, you will see them at the Barberville Jamboree in November.

God bless & Happy Fishing!

2011-09-24T10:12:00.002-05:00

TRAILER REPAIRS
by Robin

As you may or may not recall, in January, we had a fender-bender on the way to the docks for fishing. All that was fixed in short order and thankfully, nobody was hurt.

But, a couple months later, Jack moved our boat over to the marina because it was nearly cobia & mahi mahi season for fishing.

We had originally thought we would keep it there 2 months and bring her home, but as it turned out, we enjoyed not having to haul it around. I enjoyed not having to load and unload her at the ramps. We ended up keeping it there through the summer.

However, lately, we've been thinking about bringing her home for the winter. She needs some minor projects done on her. Jack hopes to add many LED lights. I want to sand & revarnish some of the teak that is beginning to silver again. It is hard to drag all your tools over to the marina. Plus, the marina's hours are shortening for the season and we decided we'd like to fish those rocks in the evening more often. So, it became an obvious & easy decision for us to bring First Choice home.

Now..... we have had a trailer sitting on the side of the yard for several months. Jack pulled it out but all 4 wheels were seized up. Actually, the brakes were, causing the wheels not to roll. Salt-water had taken it's toll on the metal.

Jack put part of it in the garage. He changed out those white slide sticks (see photo) to another material that will help the boat glide up and down those wooden bunks. Then, he began trying to unlock those wheels. We got 2 unlocked pretty fast. The back two.... not as easily. The disk brakes shattered and splintered on the floor.

Long story (that I will probably not get all the names & parts right) short, Jack sent the trailer the next day over to Bob K's Marine Supply & Trailer repair. It took him a few hours and a blow torch to do the job! (Link to Bob K's store ) Thank you Bob K!!

I am so glad that Jack didn't have to do that job. He could have, but instead, he focused his energy on doing front & back brakes on our suburban. Thank you sweetie (Jack) for my new brakes.

So, now we're running safely and ready to pick up the boat in October. Yeah!!

Other than that, it's been raining, storming or hurricanes passing by the past 30 days of no fishing. This is very typical for the late summer. Fishing should be getting better with each passing month. We're also waiting on the fall cobia & mahi migration runs.

We also got a smoker for making smoked kingfish meat and other yummy stuff in the fall/winter.

God bless America and Happy Fishing,
Robin

2011-08-31T12:11:00.003-05:00

ROMANCE in the AIR
by Robin

It can't always be about fishing, right? Some nights, it is about setting the mood with a little 40's swing music. Dancing around in low light. Mesquite smoking some mahi caught in the spring.

Enjoying a fantastic meal with the family and then, taking your love for a late night swim in the pool.

It sure is a good way to beat the heat when the fish aren't biting.

God bless,
Robin

2011-08-26T14:00:00.002-05:00

IRENE
by Robin

I had to take the morning off to grab a few photos of the waves after the weatherman said they were 9 ft high.

Well, they weren't exactly 9 ft, but 5-6 ft which is still wonderful for the surfers.

The beaches were closed, but that didn't stop a lot of folks.

We had such a great 20 minutes, diverting from our errands.

Our prayers go out to those who are in the path of Hurricane Irene.
Robin

2011-08-24T11:41:00.002-05:00

TROLLING SKUNKINGS - 8/14 and 8/23
by Robin

(Sounds like a grammatical nightmare)

FYI - When we go out to fish but come home empty-handed, we call that 'getting skunked' or 'skunking'.

So, last week was a beautiful full moon and many boats went out to see if they could get the mangrove snapper to bite. We were not so ambitious with Jack having come off a tough week at work. We knew that it would be hard to buy a bite in the morning, but we figured eventually the fish would start biting.

In short, here is the report.... churched Sat night, so God did not find it offensive for us to fish on Sunday. In hindsight, maybe God still found that offensive. I can never come home w/ fish on a Sunday. Hmmmm......

Here is our sunrise as we headed over the causeway to the marina. Everything seemed in order.

We had a slight wind-wave in the morning, which smoothed out early afternoon. We started trolling. I had put together this bucket of trolling goodies for Jack to have fast access as he was rigging up the poles.

We went up & down, up & down 8A reef with nothing. We did see one other person land a kingfish, but we were empty-handed. Saw others diving and some bottom fishing. Jack decides to get the other poles out for a little bottom fishing and we came up with only black sea bass. Nothing else was biting and the current was ripping.

We ran over to Democles & Lead wrecks and dropped some live bait down there, too, and NOTHING. I'm telling ya, it was lock-jaw city!! I check the weights and they were warm, so it wasn't like the thermocline was still here.

We came back in because we promised the kids that we'd only be out for a half-day of fishing and then spend time with them the rest of the day. (They had a new birthday toy.)

Yesterday, Jack took a day off of work for a couple of reasons. One of them was that he wanted to run the boat prior to Hurricane Irene coming up the coast and dirtying (sp?) up the waters. We bought a pack of frozen ballyhoo, only using one of them the entire day.

Just out of the inlet, I noticed lots of bait right off the beaches. I suggested to Jack that we troll in that location because where there is bait, there should be predators. He set out 2 silver spoons w/ big hooks.

While I'm driving & photographing bait pods or bait balls, Jack is rigging the ballyhoo and putting some special skirt on it. I'm sure he added a little lipstick & mascara to attract the biggest & best kingfish in the area. At one point, I saw a tarpon roll, barely out of the water. It gave me a lot of hope for a good day, inspite getting out there at 10am (late).

We went past Cocoa Beach and back up to the pier. Bait fish were EVERYWHERE, splashing the top of the water. The birds are having a great feast. Where are the predators?

Our next option was to troll to the buoys. Did that. Then, we pulled in lines and headed out for slightly deeper water. We stopped at 47 ft, approx 8 miles out. Jack put the lines in.

That is his new orange pirate 'rag' to protect his head from sunburn & prevent sweat dripping into his eyes. Love my pirate! As you can see from the photo, the water was blue, clean and FLAT. Can you see the clouds building up, early!!

I became bored with waiting on a knockdown so I went to the front of the boat & took pictures. There were BIG pink jellyfish with big bells and very little stingers. I could see some of them 20 ft down. I took 3 pictures of jellyfish and this one I had to share. The sun reflected perfectly in the glass ocean surface, looking like it was right next to the jelly, deep in the ocean column.

As we puttered around, we came across flying fish and a school of some other baitfish. We circled around a couple times waiting for a hit. Saw a pod of dolphin playing & feeding. I have to blog one day about offshore dolphin behaviors. I've been noticing a pattern.

Anyhow, here are two of them coming by to look at me.

Then, one of them decides he is going to ride the bow for a second. Literally. There was no time to take 2 pictures. He was gone in a flash.

I also took a picture of the school of bait but it is hard to visualize the baitfish. Let me work on the contrast there.

At some point, we decided to troll back westward as the clouds were building. We did call into the marina and they said there was only 1 storm to our south. That's funny........ within 15 minutes, there was this big storm to our north.

Jack felt so awful for me, not catching a fish the past couple trips out. He set what he thought was a sure-fire hit. We ran 2 trolling baits right next to a buoy that had barracuda on it. I watched the lines go right past the buoy and anticipated the zing of the reel, but I got nothing. NOTHING.

We pulled in the lines, put up the side-eisenglas windows and secure all our poles & lures. It was going to be a wet entry at 12:45.

I don't mind rain and that's all this was coming down the buoy line. However, we had a long ride from the rocks to the marina in a no-wake zone. A t-storm was building just west of the marina. Worry from calculating if we would beat lightening to the marina first, burned a good 1,000 calories. Jack nailed the landing at the dock. The brave guys were waiting with a forklift and we all sought shelter.

Jack and I enjoyed a nice lunch at Rusty's - shrimp & flounder baskets. The boys were home, schooling & enjoying their peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. We went back later to the marina to flush the engine with fresh water & secure her down with straps. Hurricane Irene was going to be heading up the coast in less than 48 hrs.

Well, no fish, but the boat ran well. Our engine repair has nearly a 100 hrs on it since the overhaul in January. The new waterpump & throttle/shift cables work beautifully.

I'm sure fishing will get better as these temps decrease & the hurricanes stir the water. It can only get better, right?

God bless,
Robin

Stay safe on shore this week everyone!! Happy Hurricane parties!
Robin

2011-08-06T13:42:00.002-05:00

WORDLESS SATURDAY -
(pictures from Wednesday's trip to the locks at sunset)

by Robin

2011-08-04T12:41:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder........

Love that theme song, "Show me your teeth!"

2011-08-01T14:14:00.001-05:00

Oldie, but goodie. Picture of my eldest from 2004. My baby is holding a baby bonnet-hammerhead.

2011-07-29T22:42:00.002-05:00

SHARK WEEK
by Robin

Thank you Kurt Jones for the original photo. I played with it to captivate my love for Shark Week on Discovery Channel.

Jack bought me a big flat screen to satisfy my need to see sharks larger than life!

Happy Fishing,
Robin

2011-07-27T08:52:00.002-05:00

HOOK, LINE and DINNER - Review
by Robin

First off, I am very glad there is a show that shows the process of going from the ocean to the dinner plate. Last night's show was on sea urchin and sardines. These items have definitely never been on our dinner menu, for which I am glad. I have tried smoked mullet and that's the last time I care to eat bait fish for my dinner.

My only disappointment was that the show was only 30 minutes and that the man takes somebody else's catch to another restaurant. I was hoping he's be more like us and take his own catch to his own kitchen for a meal. It's still good, don't get me wrong. I would have enjoyed seeing more of the "how-to-cook" recipes and not skimp on the ocean part.

I guess we are in no danger of being copied by a major network show.... at least, not yet. ha ha.

God bless,
Robin

2011-07-26T20:18:00.007-05:00

HOOK, LINE and DINNER

by Robin

The new Cooking Channel has a new show called Hook, Line and Dinner.

I just want to say, for the record, that we are the original ones who brought you from the Hook, to the Line,

(Jack and Chuck w/ their 30 lb mahi caught in May.)

to the Dinner plate.

(Mahi tacos - right)

And we will continue to bring you more pictures of our adventures from the ocean to our catches, cooked in kitchen.

Stay tuned, I have to go watch the show and then give it some sort of review.

I'm sure it will be wonderful.

Happy Fishing everyone!!!

P.S. We finally got our throttle/shift cables fixed this past weekend, so we're back in business to fish again off our own boat.

2011-07-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

My NEXT VACATION
by Robin

Would be ....

In the Indian Ocean

2011-07-13T10:43:00.003-05:00

LIVING WATER
by Robin

Another picture remake from the day we took the kids fishing at the Jetty Rocks at Port Canaveral. I tell ya, I got a lot of really nice photos as the sun was setting.

Jack's sister will be here in two days and then I'll have more material to photograph & play with. She wants to do some fishing when she gets here. We have so many great fish, even in the summer months. Tarpon, kingfish, some mahi & wahoo.... The full moon is almost here and Mangrove fishing would be awesome!!

Happy Fishing,
Robin

2011-07-12T10:46:00.001-05:00

Mola (Sunfish)
by Robin

I took this shot back in June when we caught the mahi and wahoo. I don't think I ever took the time to share it with you.

The ocean is so cool!!!!

Happy Fishing!
Robin

2011-07-10T17:56:00.002-05:00

MAINTENANCE
by Robin

You can't fish every weekend. Some weekends, you have to fix all the things that salt air corrodes & breaks. You have to give your boat a good look under the hatches & cowling.

Three of the six lights on the boat were needing new fuses, bulbs or some sanding on the corrosion spots. I'm happy to report that all are in good working order for the next time that we want to go out for an evening cruise. We have begun doing some research on LED lights to replace all these other lights in the near future. I would love some colorful running lights for moonlight mangrove snapper fishing during the summer.

Jack repaired a broken door latch. I tightened down some screws that had worked their way back out with the vibrations of the engine.

Maintenance day is also good for discovering issues before you get out onto the water. While we were running the engine to flush out the saltwater (after being dunked in the water to fill with fuel), we saw that our water pump was giving out. Sure enough, it died right before our eyes. Jack will have to go back tomorrow to fix that before his sister gets here this weekend.

In the back hatch, I noticed some cables were looking very bad. Jack said that it was a very serious issue that would have to be addressed quickly. It is always better to find these things now and not have something go wrong when you're offshore.

God is good and I am thankful for His provision over our family hobby.
Happy Fishing,
Robin
PS: Be sure to return next week to see what fish we catch with Aunt Sandi.

2011-07-09T06:45:00.002-05:00

SHUTTLE REPORT
by Robin

What a bittersweet moment. My neighbors and I stood together and watched the launch, talking about how sad we were to see the program ending, what it would do to our local economy and what the future may hold for Space Exploration. It was very hard to not cry while taking these photos.

After the shuttle was long gone from our eyes, we could hear and feel the rumble. Instead of rushing the moment, I closed my eyes and just took in the last rumble that I will ever feel like that. I thank God for the 30 years of wonderful service to our country & to scientific advancements that NASA, USA, Boeing and many other contractors have made to our lives.

Happy Fishing!

2011-07-07T22:38:00.002-05:00

EXPLORING NEW TOYS
by Robin

I took some ridiculously amazing sunset photos on July 3rd. (Excuse my self-praise)

We rarely get the opportunity to stay on the boat past dark.

The lighting just changes everything for the photographer in me.

Combine great photos with inspiration from my nieces' creativity & suggestions & lessons, I was able to create these visual treats for you.

I can't decide which version of this one I like more..... The top is more realistic, but the bottom is more of a tribute to our Space Coast's last shuttle mission going off tomorrow.

God bless & God bless the shuttle Atlantis & crew for a safe journey to the ISS and back home.

2011-07-05T06:33:00.003-05:00

JULY 3, 2011 NORTH JETTY ROCKS
by Robin

Details:
We started at low tide, so it was incoming while we were out there. The moon was just a sliver past New Moon. Fished from 3:30pm until 7:45 pm on 6 dozen live shrimp.

We're always greeted by one of these...

They make into awesome patties served with mashed potatoes. LOL. Just kidding.

Here is first fish of the day - an undersized Red Fish (1 spot, covered), released to grow up.

Then, same kid - keeper Mangrove Snapper, 2nd fish.

See the cruise ship in the background. I nearly sucked all the water out and pulled our boat into the rocks in a split second. Talk about SCRAMBLING!! I have a whole blog I can write up on that.

Anyhow, I think Jack brought in several small Mangroves that were released. I brought in the next keeper Mangrove that was slightly larger than my eldest's.

I also caught & released these two interesting fish.

Skate, which is a first for our boat.

Jack Crevelle, not to be confused with my Jack. Nice fight, but terrible table food.

At some point, I had a revelation....I figured out that I had too much drag on my line and the bigger fish were rocking up before I could get them coming to the boat. Once I changed that.... it was game on. Below is a Black Drum, but I also had a similar size Sheepshead. As Jack said, I was pissing off the guys in the two boats around us. I outfished them. I never got a picture of my large Sheepshead.

Little man, here, didn't participate for much the day until we convinced him that these were fish he could handle. He no sooner put the shrimp in the water and this came up. It is a Sheepshead, which had to be released due to regulations. Sheepshead are very soft bait-biters, so when our son pulled him in, it was joyous for us. They can be tricky to catch and he did very well. (I love their convict stripes. Mine had that too.)

Jack had his share of fish to catch. Most of them were released except for two black margates. He even got a baby barracuda. The colors on him were very cool.

I took this photo as the sun was setting and glowing on his face. He was so proud of me for catching all those fish. On the 19th, it will have been 19 yrs since our first date. This photo captures his personality very well.

Company is coming in for the last shuttle launch. Must run & clean house.

Happy Fishing!! The seas have been wonderful here. Lots of mahi, sailfish, wahoo, grouper have been caught this holiday weekend.

2011-07-04T17:13:00.004-05:00

HAPPY 4th of JULY EVERYONE!!!!

Here is a picture that I took last night with a little Piknik overlay of the fireworks. We did see fireworks, but just not over this boat like it looks. BUT, the moon slice is real (but hard to see to the left of the left outrigger).

By the way, we fished July 3rd, and pictures forthcoming this week. Be patient with me, company is coming, so I'm prepping for that as well.

Happy Fishing,

Robin

2011-06-30T21:08:00.004-05:00

SEXISM in FISHING ADVERTISING, SHOWS & MAGAZINES
by Robin

Let me preface my comments by saying that I am not some left-wing, feminist woman sitting behind a desk in NYC on a daily rant about sexism right after turning in my N.O.W. dues for the year. I am a conservative, country girl who loves the outdoors. All my life, I've been around horses, dogs, livestock, agricultural colleges, fishing, hunting and even survived a course in meat packaging. I am not squeamish about much, including blood, guts, castration or cauterization burning. About the only thing that makes me weak is broken bones.

On the other hand, I clean up pretty good. I love wearing dresses to church, buying nice shoes, purses & jewelry and painting my toenails. I am not against bikinis, tankinis or one-piece suits, if tastefully worn. I'm all for being sexy to the one you love. But what I want to do is have a full rant on the crap I see when trying to enjoy fishing & immerse myself in the sport. Enough is enough!!!

First, I have bought different fishing magazines for my husband at various holidays. I tolerated the string bikini-clad women in the back who stood next to various pieces of equipment in order to sell a product. I tolerated it because it was in the back of the magazine and sometimes I got away with using a Sharpie to draw on some shorts and a tank. (Jack didn't appreciate this as much as I found it humorous.) However, it seems that more and more companies are headed in this direction as they seem more desperate in this economy to sell their product. If your product is so junky that you have to put a half-naked woman on the ad to sell it, maybe you should make your product better.

Secondly, for years, Florida's SUN Channel (Ch 422 on satellite) has kept a Thursday night line-up of fishing shows to spark the interest in every fishermen for the upcoming weekend. Florida Insider Fishing Reports is wonderful for having area-specific fishing tips & information given by guides. Love that. Love the special themes they give each week for what's hot & migrating through Florida. What I don't love is that I noticed that some of the hot spots have been sponsored by various alcoholic beverage companies. Was there nobody else they could call to get to sponsor each region?? I tolerated that the first time I noticed it.

Tonight, I watched their programming and the theme for the week was "Kids & Fishing". Awesome. I have kids. We fish. Great theme. Yep, and then I got to the end of the show and I guess they have a tradition of taking a Jaegermeister shot. Toni, the female co-host, said that she didn't feel right about chugging the shot on a kids' show, but the guys talked her into it. Nice fellas. So, you've got kids all in the pictures, video and live at the IGFA museum, who have DVR'd this show to see themselves and we're subtly pushing alcohol endorsements AND drinking?? Why Florida Insider have you stooped so low?? Were your ratings so low that you had to add a female co-host, put her in 4" spiked heels, painted on jeans and then have her take shots at the end? Could you not find a serious fishing woman in the entire state who could represent the fast-growing part of the fishing community - WOMEN???? I don't know Toni. She seems nice enough, but what you've done is painted her up as a bar bimbo. Toni, if you're reading this, I would suggest you renegotiate your contract & job requirements. You look like an ornament and not a fisherwoman.

Here's the thing.... I can look totally hot, spiked heels & painted jeans, too. BUT, when I fish, the hair is pinned up, I put on my Columbia shirt, khaki shorts and essentially, I look like Dave & Rick, but better. I know when to use each type of look. Florida Insider, you're catering to men and not to all fishing people, including kids, which your show was suppose to be all about. I'm so disappointed that I may just skip your show entirely from here on out.

Last, but not least, the magazines. Like I mentioned earlier, I have ordered fishing magazines for years. In the summer, there are always plenty of girls holding fish while wearing bathing suits. Some are more tasteful than others. I'm a tolerant person, really. I recognize that sometimes we fish in Heat Index of 100+ degrees and so a bathing suit is appropriate attire. However, we've received some free copies of Salt Water Sportsman and was disappointed, shocked and even out-raged that they were to blatently sexist to have a Babe of the Month contest. I know that women get to win fishing gear and sometimes a trip but at what cost? We do a lot to raise self-awareness & self-esteem in young girls so they don't get caught in the traps of using their body to get attention. Salt Water editors, you're just reverting women back in time when they had to use their bodies to get ahead in life and you're doing it for your own selfish gratification (i.e. sexual, monetary, pride). Shame on you. Would you be proud of your daughters if they advertised their bodies like this? What century are we living in?? You will never have my $$ to purchase a copy of your magazine. NEVER.

I am very thankful to my husband who helps protect me & our marriage by encouraging me NOT to show off my body to strangers and post up photos to win contests (or get blog hits, for that matter). I have been very proud at keeping this blog G-rated for photos. Of course, this particular blog may be PG-13 for content reasons. LOL.

If any of the people that work for these companies, tv shows or magazines read this, please let me know. I would love to give you a serious dialogue about the direction you are taking the sport of fishing. I'll tell you all about my 2 boys and how we're trying to keep them away from your products and teach them to respect women. Heaven knows, I don't want them to end up like some of your clientele. Maybe I'm disillusioned to think I can raise a man better than that, but I'm certainly going to try.

Thanks and have a blessed 4th of July. Stay safe on the water & wear life vests. Don't drink & drive your boat, either.

Robin

2011-06-30T10:43:00.000-05:00

One-eyed (Cycloptic) Bull Shark fetus
by Robin

You won't believe it.....

http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/2011/06/bizarre-looking-shark-caught-in-sea-of-cortez-baffles-scientists.html

2011-06-28T13:30:00.002-05:00

WAHOO STEAKS
by Robin

I haven't tried googling this but I wonder how many folks out there will tell you about how delicious Wahoo steaks are. For the most part, it is commonly understood that wahoo is a dry meat. It needs a sauce. It may be gamey or oily. Not so....

I'm going to take you step by step through our process & how to cook it. This is definitely not the be all, end all story; however, it was a beautiful beginning to a new relationship with eating wahoo.

First off, catch you any decent size wahoo. Ours was 18 lbs. I suppose one could cheat and buy wahoo steaks at a fish market if you don't want to invest thousands in boats & fishing gear.

He is shown here without ice, but right after I took this photo, Jack and I made a slushy ice/water bath to cool down the meat. (It was mid to upper 90's this day, off Port Canaveral.)

Jack took off the head, tail and gutted the body of the fish from the entrails. Make sure you rinse this area out well before moving onto the fileting part.

Most fish are fileted along the length of the body, taking entire side off and then removing the skin, like this..

Not Wahoo.... they are made into steaks at our house. And sometimes it takes a small hacksaw to cut through the vertebrae bone.

Jack fileted the wahoo into steaks approximately 1" thick. You can do more or less, but this seems to be a full portion for an adult. I ate one and it was PLENTY! (almost too much, really) We vacuum-packed two steaks to a bag until we got down to the back-end and then did a few small ones together.

Fast-forward a couple weeks, Jack quick-thawed the steaks in a pot of room temperature water. Not long afterwards, they were thawed enough to begin seasoning. I used 1 steak for me and 1 went into the frig for later this week. I'm guessing that Jack has used the usual & customary seasoning suspects (i.e. salt, pepper, garlic powder, old bay after rubbing EVOO on the steak).

While my dinner was absorbing the spices, Jack was preparing a grill for his ribs, as well. My guys love babyback ribs.

Last night, Jack used a gas grill, but he would have preferred a charcoal one if he didn't need a bigger space for all the food. I do believe he threw in some mesquite chips for a slight smoke flavoring.

He grilled the wahoo a couple/few minutes for each side of the steak. You'll have to be the judge of how long your steaks need cooking. You want it white, flaky but not raw inside. Save the raw for tuna. With that said, do NOT overcook your wahoo steaks either or else you will be eating dry fish.

Then, I like to put some great side dishes together. Squash is a grilling favorite here, along with red potatoes. I used Smart Balance to complete my dairy-free meal.

I should also tell you that Jack suggested I make a nice sauce for the wahoo. I went to the garden and all my dill was gone (I make a mean dill-tartar sauce), so I came up with a fantastic substitute. I used plenty of thyme, 2 sage leaves - chopped them up. Add them to a couple tablespoons of Smart Balance, 1 small onion from my garden, 3 garlic cloves, a couple dashes of lemon juice and warm on the stove.

Pour over your steak liberally, and if you have extra, pour over your potatoes. You will not regret it. I felt guilty for eating so well while the guys were having ribs. I had died and gone to a 4-star restaurant in my own kitchen.

Mmmm, mmmm, good.

(Oh, I may need to add a warning: do NOT eat the outer skin, be careful of the upper spines that may be leading from the spinal column to the dorsal fin area, AND don't eat that skin in the belly area. )

If you try this dish, please come back and comment to let me know how you liked it (or not, ....but you will).

Happy fishing everybody and enjoy a good fish meal if you can't get out.
Robin

2011-06-21T13:55:00.002-05:00

6/20/11 FISHING JETTIES
by Robin

Plan A: We had intended to go tripletail hunting on flat seas, but NOAA got it wrong. They were correct in saying there were no waves BUT the wind wave was kicking white-caps. Plus, the wind was not from the west or the SW. It was a total summer "Noreaster" as Jack and I joked.

Jellyfish were EVERYWHERE and so it was difficult to check under every "brown spot" to see if it was jelly or triple. (forgot to grab that jellfish photo, but I'll show you tomorrow.)

So, motoring off the beach, looking for triples was out.

Plan B: Head to the buoys and see if anybody was home. Lots of baitfish and sometimes up to 7 barracuda lurking on top. I caught one tiny black sea bass as we went from can to can. Of course, this is at 3pm so that may have something to do with it.

Plan C: Head to the N. Jetty rocks at Port Canaveral

We anchored up so Jack could fish as well. It put the back end of the boat right in front of the rocks. AWESOME anchoring job Capt Jack!!

We had 3 dozen live shrimp in the livewell. And we went through a good dozen of them just trying to figure out the right size hooks, weights and knowing when to set the hook. But, once we started to get the hang of it and avoiding the underwater rocks that stole some lead & line from us, we were in business.

I pulled in the first barely legal mangrove snapper. Yeah!! Not long afterwards, Jack gets a small, but decent enough flounder. Yeah!! Now, we're starting to think fish fry!

We were interrupted by a pair of lovebirds... or is that love-manatees. Honestly, go get a room. Can you not do that anywhere else besides next to the boat??

I got rocked up by something very, very nice. Wish I knew what it was. Fought hard and then hid in the rock until we had to break line. Oh well, that's fishing. Then, Jack brings in this nicer-sized Mangrove snapper to go with the other. We've definitely got a good dinner going.

To end it all, I caught this great, young red fish, which measured 17". So, technically, that's a catch AND release because they have to be 18" to be legal. Jack said there might be a rule about oceanic reds vs river red fish. Either way, we're safe because he's alive & well ,back in the water.

We motored back home. Spent about $20 to have more fun than a barrel full of monkeys. ha ha.

God bless and Happy Father's Day to my sweetie, who deserved a fun day like this (compared to Sunday where he worked his butt off under the sink playing plumber).
Robin

2011-06-17T12:37:00.002-05:00

6.13.11 - Mahi & Wahoo Trolling!!
by Robin

I don't have time to give the full story, but wanted to share with you some details & a picture we took on Monday.

In short, we trolled an hour with only 1 24" mahi to show for it. Went to the weather buoy, north of it, then started south of it. Somewhere a couple miles south of the weather buoy in 139 ft of water, about to give up and do some bottom fishing, we were hit by a nice 15-18 lb bull. As Jack was reeling, we had a 2nd hit on another line. I reeled on that a little bit but had to put it back in the rod holder while I helped Jack land his bull.

Then, we had 3 mahi in the boat and were gasping for oxygen in 101 heat index. (all smiles though) I let out the one line I had brought in when we thought we were going to leave. Set the boat to 6-7 knots and we got some water to cool down. Before Jack could even rig another ballyhoo, that line was hit. Line peeled off and it skimmed the water surface. Jack thought shark based on its actions. Then, it saw the boat, did a 180 and went down.

Reel, reel, reel...... it tried to break off in the prop (my bad for not getting the boat turned fast enough). I saw silver and thought big king! Nope, Jack is next to scream "WAHOO!!!!"

I took the pole, he sunk the gaff and it was an ice bath for Mr. Wahoo. Yeah!

He hit a yellow hoo-head with red weight with a pink skirt in front of it, off the surface (82 deg). Amazing. Usually you have to use a downrigger for wahoo.

So, there's the short story.

Happy Fishing.
Robin

2011-06-03T20:00:00.000-05:00

LESSONS FROM A TREASURE BOAT
by Robin

One day, we were filling our boat up with gas and Jack signals to me to go down the dock some and look at what was behind us. Wow!! One of (the late) Mel Fisher's treasure boats. (www.melfisher.com) Super cool!

They sell their gold coin jewelry in the gift shop at the Marina. Plus, I think they were up from the keys for other business. One of the crew asked me about the upcoming shuttle launch and I got to talk to him about what he does. Check out the link. They are famous treasure hunters.

But, it also reminds me of a well-known Scripture about treasure. I suppose gold, wealth and fame are nice; but, we should never make that our focus in life.

Treasures in Heaven

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. "
(Matthew 6:19-21)

It is so true. When we began tithing and giving gifts to missionaries, our focus changed from things of this world to things of eternal value. It changed my prayer life. It changed my view of life and the values I wanted to pass to my children. Sure, England, Spain & France wanted new land to create new fortune, but most people came here for religious freedom. That is what thrived in this great country. The gold went to the bottom of the sea.

I can truly say that while I was interested in photography this boat, I never once felt envious of the people on this boat. My treasure is in heaven and nobody can take that from me.

Happy Fishing & God bless,
Robin

2011-06-02T17:23:00.003-05:00

LESSONS FROM A FLOUNDER
by Robin

Ok, I'm on a roll. Two blogs in a row, with a similar theme. ha ha.

Jack and Chuck caught several flounder the other week. Their (the flounder, not Jack & Chuck ha ha) faces are captivating to me because they physiologically start off like normal baby fish. Then, one day, they choose to lay on their side for the duration of their life. The eye on the bottom-side rotates to the topside. Once their eyes move, they're stuck like this forever. They can never choose to swim & hunt like other fish again.

Anyhow, it reminds me of the choices we have as we live our lives. We can choose right or wrong. We can live for Jesus or not. Once we have chosen Him as Savior and He changes us from the inside-out. No matter how hard we try, we could not become new creatures on our own.

I've been studying Ecclesiastes with some homeschool moms this past month. Anyhow, there is a verse that goes well with the flounder analogy.

"Even though a person sins and gets by with it hundreds of times throughout a long life, I'm still convinced that the good life is reserved for the person who fears God, who lives reverently in his presence, and that the evil person will not experience a "good" life. No matter how many days he lives, they'll all be as flat and colorless as a shadow—because he doesn't fear God." Ecc 8:12

BUT!!!! There is hope!! Rom 7:24-25

"I've tried everything and nothing helps. I am at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acts to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different."

Friend, if you feel like a flounder and you're stuck in a path that you can't get out of, call on Jesus to save you from this lifestyle. He will right the wrongs and put you on a new path.

Happy Fishing and God bless,
Robin

2011-06-02T16:54:00.004-05:00

LESSONS FROM A PUFFER FISH
by Robin

Did you ever meet somebody who was very puffed up & filled with pride in themselves? Sure you have. We all have known or seen somebody like this. I think of people like this every time we catch a puffer fish.

They're absolutely worthless to eat. Not much to look at. Steal your bait intended for something else. And then, they waddle away as if to gloat in their pride. Sometimes they refuse to leave the net or hook and they *know* you don't want to touch them. They're filled with poison in their spines & in their meat.

There is a guy in the Bible much like that. His name is Adonijah. He was totally spoiled and ended up being King.... for a while. Fortunately for this fish, he ended up free whereas Adonijah didn't. His pride & selfishness ended up being the death of him.

1 Kings 1:5,6

At this time Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith, puffed himself up saying, "I'm the next king!" He made quite a splash, with chariots and riders and fifty men to run ahead of him. His father had spoiled him rotten as a child, never once reprimanding him. Besides that, he was very good-looking and the next in line after Absalom.

1 Kings 2:25

King Solomon dispatched Benaiah son of Jehoiada; he struck Adonijah and he died.

So, the lesson here is not to puff yourself full of hot air and useless to those around you. You may just end up toxic, if not dead.

God bless & Happy Fishing

2011-05-20T14:31:00.003-05:00

THURS TROLLING
by Robin

Jack and Jeff trolled all day with skirted, feathered, naked, weighted, you-name-it ballyhoo, including some down on a planer and they couldn't buy a bite.

Guys on the radio were frustrated. I know one charter guy who caught 2 mahi.

So, it was a bust. Today turned out to be less than perfect for tripletail fishing, so I postponed my trip until Monday.

Sunday is the day for Superboat races. Yeah. We'll probably be there for that.

Happy Fishing!
Robin

2011-05-19T11:43:00.002-05:00

DIVING & TROLLING
by Robin

On Tues, 5/17/11, Jack and his coworker Chuck and Chuck's son, Adam decided to play in the ocean. Jack used to dive a LOT years ago but has given that up due to his sinuses not cooperating. About once a year, Chuck joins us on our boat for a fishing trip and we always do well.

Of course, it didn't hurt that they were wanting to hunt flounder and it is a fine white meat. It's up there in my top 5 or so list of fish to eat.

Jack headed out early and they first stopped at Damacles wreck. Chuck and Adam dove in. Vis was 10-15 ft. They shot 2 flounder on the first drop.

While they were resting, Jack rode out to 130 ft and set his first trolling line out. He didn't even get a 2nd line in the water when the first line screamed. Apparently, this bull made 6-10 ft leaps out of the water and crashed hard on its side. It went bonkers. After Jack reeled him back in a 3rd time, Chuck went to gaff and missed (it happens....) and the bull took off a 4th time. Nuts. The 2nd gaff was the charm and he went on the deck floor. (It ended up weighing 30 lbs at the dock scale.)

Now, here lies the problem. They brought the small cooler to stack flounder in. I told him at 5:45 am that he should bring the big cooler. I'm sure he was kicking himself without me saying, "I told you so." LOL. Oh and not to mention, this is the cooler with the broken lid.

With much arrangement of fish & ice, Jack manages to contort the mahi into the cooler and Adam ties the lid to the base with the dock lines. I'm sure it looked funny. I think this is why Jack doesn't take a camera on his fishing trips.

Ok, so they continue trolling another hour and get nothing. Back to diving.

They head to the Lead Wreck. As Chuck says, "It was a perfect drop right onto the wreck." Vis was closer to 20 ft in spots. Thermocline was still there. Adam shot one flounder that was sitting on another flounder (stacked like pancakes). It caused my underwater excitement as they tried to string them up without the lower one swimming away. Jack said he saw lots of air bubbles and next, a bag of air holding 4 flounder comes to the surface. How cool is that??

So, it was a great day for the guys. Even after splitting the meat, we froze back several bags of fish dinners, plus had yummy flounder sandwiches on Wednesday.

While cleaning fish at the fish tables (at marina), they would throw over bones & skin. Here is a picture of a sea turtle that grabbed the tail of the mahi.

Jack is offshore today with Jeff. They were going back for more mahi in 130 ft. I believe he said something about a nice bunch of weeds developing out there.

I think my turn comes on Friday, if Jack has any energy leftover. I want to do some easy tripletail hunting since the water is suppose to be flat. I'd love to get up at the crack of dawn and look for rolling tarpon, but I don't think Jack will be so easy to wake after all day offshore today. ha ha.

God bless & Happy Fishing,
Robin

2011-05-16T19:11:00.003-05:00

SHUTTLE LAUNCH & FLOUNDER
by Robin

This morning, we went into the river to watch Endeavour launch for its final time. For the full story, please check over at Raising Fishermen blog for more pictures & the full story. www.raisingfishermen.blogspot.com

Also, tomorrow, Jack and some friends are going diving for flounder. I can't wait to report back what all they saw & caught.

2011-05-10T10:34:00.002-05:00

MOTHER'S DAY in the RIVER
by Robin

We thought we may have a nice day in the river, catching crabs for a low-country crab boil. Boy, were we wrong. Not a single crab!!

But, Jack saved the day with this very delicious spotted seatrout. Seatrout have to be between 15-20", but you can keep 1 over 20". I think this one was approx 17". Nice little fight, as it went towards those pilings.

The boys kept working their nets and pulling in these mini-conchs. When they first told me they were catching conch, I screamed, "Keep it!" because I desperately wanted to try my conch recipe again. Then, it was shown to me and Jack explained something about regulations. Oh well. A girl can think big, right?

We brought in 4 puffer fish (& released).

And we got to see wonderful displays of dolphin in this small cove. I just missed the jump here.

The mamas seem to enjoy raising their babies here.

The dolphin & pelican have a cool symbiotic relationship and follow each other around. The dolphins will drive the mullet to the surface to jump and the pelicans eat without much work.

I think that sometimes the dolphin don't get as much out of the relationship as the pelicans.

Then, we headed back through the locks towards our new marina 'home'.

Here's a little bit of free information for you if you go through the locks. Don't tie your boat up tight to the side railings. The water level changes!!! Let's say that God provides us challenges as learning opportunities. ha ha.

Anyhow, I always keep my camera handy for the locks because we always see something cool swimming through there with us. We had multiple manatees the first time. Nothing on the way back home. Oh!! except for one when we first were pulling up and I was working the back lines. One popped up 3 feet from my nose and scared the bejeebers out of me. It was like Jurassic Park of the toothless, slow & fat variety. Everybody got a good kick out of my scare. I'm glad nobody had a camera on me!

Happy Fishing! On Saturday, Jack starts his long vacation where we'll be fishing as often as our energy holds out. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

2011-05-07T11:47:00.003-05:00

96 Rock and Ladies Tournament
by Robin

Port Canaveral is having 2 tournaments on the same day. One is a very small one to honor ladies on Mother's Day weekend and the other is a jungle of men charged with lots of testosterone and horsepower. (Think Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor w/ fishing as his hobby)

The Ladies have to pay entry fees for registering the boat; but, for the men, theirs is free. Does anybody else see the irony of this on a Mother's Day weekend??

Jack and I, along with our good friends who have a nice sportfishing boat, are all registered and ready to go for the tournaments. May God bless the best fishermen!

Happy Fishing! Beautiful weather lately.

2011-05-07T11:34:00.003-05:00

5/1/11 NEW HOME!!!
by Robin

Most the time, our boat stays at our house and is parked in the yard; but, it is near time for vacation (AKA Mahi season) and more frequent boating. Jack thought it would be great to treat ourselves to a couple months of keeping the boat at the marina.

Quite honestly, every since we were in the accident, hauling the boat to the marina, I've been scared to tow it. I think Jack knows that although he's never made me feel bad for it.

See her in the channel??

Plus, like he said, while we've got lots of vacation time this month, it is nicer to not have the burden of loading & unloading the thing. The marina we picked out is convenient, reasonably price and they put in an inground pool last week. While we're at the marina, the boys can jump in the pool to quickly refresh after the day's heat. I'm liking that idea too. Being in the salty environment can make you feel so dirty...er... salty.

(Coming down the center)

Jack is trying to talk me into keeping the boat out there permanently, but we'll how good he is of convincing me on that!

2011-04-12T09:16:00.004-05:00

NEAR SHORE - 4.11.11 Part 2
by Robin

I left off this morning saying we were approx 7-10 miles north of the Port Canaveral entrance and headed south, looking for manta rays or free-swimming cobia.

I was so excited to see this beauty no long after we turned south.

She wasn't extemely large for a manta but she was just sunbathing herself with no where to go. Unfortunately for us cobia hunters, there were NO cobia on her back.

We no sooner began to head south again and we spotted a free swimmer. Nice size cobia. BUT, this guy was not hungry no matter what we threw at him. Pink jigs, yellow jigs, squid, live shrimp.....

He pretty much tortured us by swimming right next to the boat and moving along without a care in the world. (See him, right by my youngest's right elbow?)

My eldest son suggested we just gaff him, which sounds good in theory but probably would not work on a green fish. Later that night, I suggested that Jack buy a harpoon so we won't miss on great fish like this. "Ahhh. NO." Was his answer.

We came up over a shoal (it jumps from like 20-25 ft to 6 ft). I loved the light color water as I looked for cobes. I think Jack feared more running aground. Anyhow, I could see thousands of fish that appeared & disappeared like ghosts. I thought they were blues but insisted Jack let the kids cast a shrimp to them. We took a turn playing with little blues. (Gotta keep the kids interested.)

From there, we were very close approximity to a set of buoys. We looked over there but nothing was hanging around the top. However, we noticed that to the east of them, there was a fleet of boats. So, before we barely got that way, we came across approx 6 free swimming cobia all by themselves. Woo hoo!

Jack's 1st cast. Not good. Jack's 2nd cast pulled one off from the group. He was hungry but caught a glimpse of the boat and took off. Next thing I know, these gentlemen speed over to us, cast and hook up.

That was so nice of them, wasn't it? Jack yelled at them, which in turn my 11 yr old yelled the same thing. Quality family bonding.

I took this picture and then guy without a shirt turns around to us, yelling, "You overshot the fish." Not exactly true. We drifted away and were going to reposition. It happens all the time.

Well, it was a great Christian challenge to not think murderous thoughts and hate this man as we watched him gaff his cobia and then high-tail it back to shore. I was preaching to the choir when I was telling the kids not to worry and we'd find our own fish.

The next 30 minutes, there are no pics because I had a pole in hand and took several casts at a bait pod. I could see it was holding predators but couldn't make out much of anything. At one point, I'm pretty certain I saw a tarpon roll. I didn't care if I caught a tarpon because it is on my list of species I haven't caught yet.

So, I'm jigging a bit off the bait pod and I saw a 25-30 lb cobia grab my jig and run with it. Yahoo! Game on. Then, 15 seconds later, game over. That's how fishing goes. I was on a light pole and didn't get the hook set in his mouth. Jack said that he saw the silver flash about that same time, so who knows what happened below. I know I saw a cobia take my yellow & red jig at the surface.

Anyhow, we saw a few more cobia (10 all day) but they were very spooked by 5pm and a crowd of boats around them.

So, overall, very good day with keeping the kids interested in fishing and seeing cool stuff. Yet, I pout over the ones that got away. I wish I wasn't that way, but honestly, I am.

Last night, Jack fixed us one very expensive dinner of mahi fish stix. We'll catch a freezer full next time.
Happy Fishing,
Robin

2011-04-12T06:20:00.004-05:00

OFFSHORE 4.11.11 - Part 1

We did not get up pre-dawn and trip over ourselves to get out there early. I'm thinking this is about 7:30 when we were getting bait from Fisherman's World. Then, we bought gas (non-ethanol) at Cape Marina before heading offshore.

Very quickly, we came across scum lines forming. I'm not an expert but I'm going to guess that a lot of this is some type of algea bloom or something similar getting stuck between 2 bodies of water, that form what we call, a "rip".

It's smart to look over the rip for signs of life.

As we motored around, we saw something odd in the distance. Upon arrival to see what it was, we realized it was 2 sea turtles.... making eggs. Ah-hem... a little privacy here, please!!!

We saw tons and tons of turtles. This is another one who spooked very quickly.

Jack set out trolling lines about 125 ft. Water cleaned up nice about 115 ft, saw flying fish and some scattered weeds.

134 ft, game on. That didn't take long. I had seen a big mahi underwater earlier and then saw a littler one chasing a remora. Of course, it wasn't the big one that bit.

This is a perfect size one for our eldest to reel in.

On the ice, it goes. Not big, but it makes for dinner.

We continued trolling at saw another turtle - different species. I'm thinking this is a loggerhead but it's hard for me to tell w/ all the barnacles.

We saw a large 6 ft shark. I left this picture uncropped because I want you to note the vast empty sea. No bait on top. Very little to go by for finding fish.

We decided to cut our losses early and head back towards shore for some cobia & manta ray hunting. Approx 78 ft of water, still pretty north of the port, we came across a nice little weedline. Our first patch of weeds has small mahi on it. We call them peanuts.

Look at him jump!

Double-hook-up. Not a keeper in the bunch. All of them were 18-19 inches, but it sure was fun for the kids.

Keeping Dad busy.

I even got to catch a couple. Gotta get some casting practice in.

From here, we ran fast into the northside of the cape. That will have to be in the next post. (Time for breakfast.)

We have cobia & manta ray pictures!
Happy Fishing,
Robin

2011-04-08T09:04:00.002-05:00

MANTA RAY VIDEO and PICTURES

Brought to you by Robin

We haven't been out fishing in a couple weeks, as Jack is recovering from being close to having pneumonia. So, we are living vicariously through other folks fishing trips this spring. We have planned to take lots of vacation in May to fish.

This all works well for me since the kids and I are in our final month of schooling and we do our nationalize testing at the end of the month.

Below, is a picture of manta ray breaching the water. Rays love to do sommersaults and flips. The photo was taken by Tim Altman, who is a very successful Captain for Fin Freak Offshore Charters. http://www.finfreak.com/

Next is a cool video off the Port Canaveral waters from a fisherman who came across a large school of manta rays. They were successful in catching several cobia that swam with the rays.

Today, the seas are picture perfect. I expect a lot of good fishing reports over the weekend. We will be busy with a couple things. Our son's AWANA Grand Prix derby car runs Sunday afternoon. Maybe Monday, if the weather holds, we'll get out and grab a cobia for ourselves.

Happy Fishing!!

2011-04-01T17:39:00.002-05:00

TIME FLIES BY!!
by Robin

I thought it would be cool to see what we were catching last year at this time. Was it cobia or mahi?

It was cobia!! Do you see the cobia on the right side of the bait pod?

Two years ago, at this time, we were still searching for cobia this day, but got skunked.

Three years ago, at this time, we went offshore on Mike & Helen's boat and I picked up a nice mahi. We were just talking about this fish last week on their boat. This is the one that went into the cooler and then jumped out and released himself into the sea. Funny and not funny! Hope you enjoyed this little review of the years.

Sunday will be a beautiful day on the water, but the seas are blown up on Monday. I'm not sure what we will do.

Happy Fishing,
Robin

2011-03-28T14:24:00.003-05:00

3.27.11 - OFFSHORE with MIKE & HELEN by Robin

This will be fairly quick, but wanted to make sure that it made it onto the blog.

We were very excited that the weather was going to finally cooperate with Jack's planned 3 day weekend. He's been very busy with working his past 2 weekends and we needed some R & R. Our friends invited us onto their boat. It originally was suppose to be 3 couples, no kids, a little cobia hunting right off the beach. But, life never quite happens as we dream it up.

The other couple never did receive the invitation to fish until our drive back home from the port. Mike received some tips from folks the night before on where some fish were on Saturday. So, instead of keeping with our plans, we ran over fish to go find fish. That pretty much sums it up.

The seas were close to 5 ft rollers offshore. We put lines in at 160 ft and trolled out to 600 ft depth with only 1 knockdown and 1 phin for our efforts. Helen and I stayed green (seasick) all morning. We tried to troll back in but caught so many scattered weeds that we pulled lines and ran back in to another area around 1:30 pm . Mike wanted to try a couple weedlines that were building and we got nothing. Ran back in further to green water to try for Kings. Saw some bait pods getting picked on and put in lines there. Got nothing except for when we went past a buoy and I think that was a short strike from a barracuda. Never pierced the skin for a hook-up. (They have a lot of bone!)

Picked up those lines and headed back over the Hetzel shoals area around 3:30 pm. By this time, I could pick my head back up and was in the tower. I did spot one small manta ray holding cobia. Winds were picking up again and so the boat was hard to hold in position. Jack made a perfect cast in front of the ray, but the boat drifted behind the ray. The lure ended up hooking the ray instead. The ray sounded down and line was broke off with the lure still in the ray. What a shame. That ray had some big cobes on it. I saw the shadow of what I believe was probably a 70-100 lb cobia stalled out behind the manta ray. I kid you not. Looked vaguely like a large nurse shark to make a comparison. I'm glad Mike was in the tower with me at this point (driving the boat) and he saw it too.

Unfortunately, all my pictures from the day were lost. I don't know why or how. I'm heart-broken since I had a nice one of the mahi in the water. I had one of the monster cobia. Shoot. The only thing left on the camera was a terible video (took 4 originally) I took of the bait pod at the one stop and a shrimp boat tied to a dock inside the port.

We stopped by the Wally*Beach*Mart on the ride home and found some crab nets. They don't stock them by our house. We planned on having a big family day in the river catching blue crabs for a low-country boil tonight. As it turned out, the much-needed rain showed up and gave us an all-day soaking. So, here I sit. No pictures. Only a story. A much different start to our Spring Break week than expected. I'll post up the video of the bait fish but don't get your hopes up. Half of the video is of the sky! (I'm a pitiful videographer.)

Offshore bait crash 3.27.11 from Robins Reports on Vimeo.

2011-03-25T08:00:00.001-05:00

HANG TIGHT!!!!
by Robin

We have a 3-day weekend coming up AND we have cooperative seas!!! Cobia and Mahi are both around our area. So, it looks like we may have a great opportunity to fish & fill the cooler. I'll take lots of pictures with my *new* batteries.

I told Jack not to come home from work until he had 2 new spinners from Bass Pro Shop with him. ha ha. I have no idea why in the world we only have 2 spinners at this point in our lives.

God bless and pray safety for us!
Robin

2011-03-24T10:46:00.002-05:00

GREAT WHITE SHARKS at PORT CANAVERAL, FL

Go to the Spanish Fly website (below)

http://www.spanishflytv.com/raw-cuts/cobia-fishing-great-white-shark-port-canaveral-florida//

You will see the above picture of the cobia on the front page. Then, from there, go through the slide show until close to the end. You will see the Great White Sharks that have been in our Tropical waters. Who said they only like cold water was wrong.

(Be forewarned, there are a couple of bikini babes in the slide before it.)

2011-03-15T11:41:00.002-05:00

YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID, EVEN WITH a BIG BOAT & TRIPLE 300 hp ENGINES
- a venting of fishing etiquette when cobia hunting

by Robin

We went out Monday (14th) for just a couple of hours of sunlight to see if we could find some cobia for the freezer. Jack is working the next couple Sat & Sun, so Monday was our only opportunity for fishing fun.

We were greeted by beautiful, nearly flat seas. (1 pm?)

We saw plenty of bait fish and dolphin feeding on them.

Once we got to the south end of Patrick Air Force base, in approx 40 ft of water, we started searching around. Of course, it was obvious we were in the right area because we found the motherload of boats. We did our best to stay away from the crowds once we saw a ray do a backflip and the guys who rushed to it were a bit too intense & aggressive for us. So, we moved a bit closer to the beach in search of our own manta ray. We found one!! It had 3 cobia on it. 1 that appeared short and 2 with meaty shoulders. I know it is very hard to see the ray in the next 2 pictures but you have to trust me on it.

Not that I'm making excuses but I will say that losing these cobe were definitely our mistake. Jack forgot to purchase a new pair of sunglasses and he couldn't see the ray & cobes, so he was blind casting. I did my best to guide him. Anyhow, we he shut off power on the boat, we had too much forward momentum and drifted a bit too far past the fish & ray. Jack cast twice, but it was just too far of a distance before they sounded and dove down. We never did see her resurface.

Next, we came across several sea turtles all clumped together. I'm not sure if they were competing for breeding or what.

We headed north, slowly while looking for fish or rays. We never spotted any free-swimmers. I guess a ray had surfaced temporarily and the guy on the left was there first and the guy on the right came up on him. We watched it unfold and I took pics as we cruised past them.

You can clearly see the guy on the left tower is casting. The boat on the right is coming over to get in on the other boat's action. THIS IS RUDE! If somebody is already on a ray & casting for cobia, BACK OFF.

Well, we enjoyed the good weather, tried not to get worked up about dudes who think they're entitled to every fish and watched this C-130 do touch & go's at the Air Force Base.

Now, before I set up the next picture, let me set the scene. We're slow cruising while looking. The guys from that boat on the right were "running & gunning", which is basically run to the next spot, cast, run again, stop & cast, run again.... So, for the next couple miles, this boat runs past us, casts to something we never ever saw, then we'd motor past them and he'd run up past us again. It was like he was just doing everything he could to beat us to the next bit of fresh ocean. It was idiotic & rude, at best and I won't say the worst.

Jack decided to run a bit faster to the north to get away from him. I spotted a beautiful manta ray holding 2 monster cobes on her back. The bigger one, guessing 50+ was slightly trailing her and broke the water surface a couple times. The smaller one was near 40-50 lbs and slightly ahead. Jack made his first cast and it landed next to the bigger one in the back. No deal. Not interested. He cast again and I think the wind took that one wide. I had no idea that I would end up photographing the sequence on this boat & "the jerks" actions. At first, I was merely doing my best to get a pic of a cobia on the back of a ray.

Here, Jack is on his 3rd cast. I don't recall much on it because I noticed a jig coming from another direction from the other boat. Sigh. Thankfully, he overshot everything.

Jack's fourth cast, he put it right in front of the cobe in the front of the ray. It slightly spooked but then took a glance at the jig. He wasn't aggressive or hungry. The guy from the other boat made another cast and they ray "sounded" and headed for the bottom. That was it for us finding any fish for the cooler.

I had put my camera down but left it on to continue snapping a couple more shots as he rolled by us. I was so proud of Jack keeping cool inspite of this boater's rudeness. The boat's name is "The Other Office". I'd hate to do business with a guy like this even if he's behind a desk. He seems a bit self-serving to me. We've been approached by other boats before but almost every one of them has been kind enough to observe and not encroach on our find. Infact, we've hooked up before and you can hear other boats holler happily on our behalf. We gave celebratory hollers twice yesterday when we saw boats land their cobia.

I must tell you, I was slightly sad to be going home w/ no fish in the cooler but I put myself in time-out on the cuddy because of my frustration with people like this. I didn't want to talk or smile. I kept replaying it over and over again on how in the world could somebody be so boldly rude.

God did give me a little something to cheer me up. Some dolphin came over and swam our bow for a brief second. Here they are on the approach. I always like when that happens. Jack had a positive attitude. He reminded me how well the new engine repair job worked. I am thankful for that. We watched the birds work bait balls, too, as the sun lowered in the sky.

It was a good day inspite of its challenges. The cobes are still south of our port, so we'll have more opportunities to bring one home. Plus, any day you come home from the sea is a good day.

Happy Fishing!
Robin

2011-03-03T12:58:00.002-05:00

THE WHALE

If you read a recent front page story of the San
Francisco Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback
whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and
lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that
caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of
yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a
line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside
the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help.
Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so
bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her.
They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like
joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a
time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around as she was thanking
them.

Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their
lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were
following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be
surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things
that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving and
receiving gratitude.

2011-03-01T21:47:00.003-05:00

OUR ACCIDENT with our BOAT
by Robin

Whew, it hurts just typing that up. Just to let you know up front that everyone involved is ok. The accident impaction was minimal on us, but our "toys" took some hits and of course, the man we hit was sore but amazingly walked it off. I called him today and he was working in the yard, which blessed me to hear. He was our biggest concern.

So, let me give you a brief run-down on what happened. We decided to go cobia hunting on Sunday (27th) afternoon. We had been sick all week, got some tips on where the fish were, and couldn't resist the temptation to enjoy a sunny afternoon since being around crowds wasn't an option. (Btw, the kids stayed home since we were only going to be gone a couple hrs and stay close to shore. Later, that would prove to be great, not just because of the accident, but because we still had one more kid to start fevering by 3pm.)

We were headed down US 1, merging onto the Beeline, heading east for the Port. This picture give you a general idea. The blue line shows us merging in with the Beeline traffic. Jack was getting clearance as he changed lanes and I remember thinking, "Where did all this traffic come from?" It's bad on a good day, but it seemed worse that day. We were just starting for the little bridge when everybody slammed to a halt when seeing all the emergency vehicles just past the little bridge (crossing a waterway). I screamed, "Stop!" Jack hit the brakes hard.... and we were on that slow slide. The "o"s are where emergency vehicles were. People saw flashing lights and freaked up, hitting their brakes. The "x" is where we pulled over and took the photos.

Since we all had just merged together, there wasn't much spacing yet between the cars and we only had a car length between us and the white Dodge. Still, my mind played out some thoughts in that nano-second. Unfortunately, that thought that we were going to hit, certainly did happen. What I didn't comprehend was that we'd slide into him and then do it again by the shear force of the boat's momentum still taking us forward. There was a 2nd boom. I was so confused. Did we shove him into the car in front of him? Were we hit from behind? What? Later, we'd find out that the nose bar on the trailer had collapsed under force, shoving us back into the same car.

We pulled over to the side of the road, after passing the little bridge, and were greeted by EMT personnel who were already on the original scene (primary accident). They had cleared the Beeline for Life-flight touch down.

I went to the boat, grabbed my camera and immediately began taking pics of the damage for insurance purposes.

Here is where a bolt dug into the V of the hull. Thankfully, there was not a full hole and we did not hit the cross-beam (shown).

Here is the nose beam which toppled over. There was a small scratch on the hull there too.

Here is a bigger picture to show you that the verticle "bar" moved forward a few inches and then collapsed forward, allowing the boat to jump forward about 3-4 ft in its bunks. Again, the after-thoughts of what might have been are more scary than the accident itself. We could have had a 6,000 lbs boat flying into our suburban or worse, airborne.

Here is the front of our suv.

Here is the other car. AMAZING! He and I talked today and agreed that his hitch definitely saved his plastic bumper. God lined up our further-most point with his hitch and saved his car.

From here, we dropped the boat off at a marina and put it on a dry rack for the week. Jack brought the trailer home to have repair work done on it.

This is what we could see the next morning, once the boat was removed.

Metal was torn like paper. In the photo below, there are cracks at points A & C. Point B is curved whereas that is suppose to be a straight piece of metal. I am so thankful that the accident happened with the new trailer vs the old one. New, strong metal & good brakes must have helped us out. Unfortunately, nothing stops the force of being 7x bigger than the car you hit.

Again, here is the same piece from the port side. Ripping at Point A, Slide forward (B).

We bought a brand new nose "bar/beam" for the trailer, plus new u-bar joints. Then, we took to the salvage yards to find a used grill & bumper for our suv. This was quite an adventure. Salvage yards are not pretty places. I would have felt much better had we brought a concealed weapon with us.

It took no time for Jack to begin ripping off the damaged parts and start putting on the used ones. It looks like God has blessed us immensely through this horrific ordeal. I wouldn't wish an accident on anybody.

As for the person who was suppose to be life-flighted, we never saw anybody get into the helicopter that caused all the fuss. The officers check on us and asked if we wanted to call ambulance and none was called. We all drove away and then traffic was allowed back on the road.

I had checked and checked the news websites but can't find anything on the primary accident. We did see crime scene tape put up and detectives walking around an abandoned truck. They were wearing gloves and combing the ground. I wish I knew what happened there. I'm guessing it didn't fare well for the person who almost needed an emergency flight to the hospital.

Be safe when heading out to the fishing grounds!
Robin

2011-02-19T13:08:00.003-05:00

CONFUSED YET???

by Robin

Legislation is always wordy & confusing at best. But thankfully, I have a friend who is a lawyer who reads all this stuff for us and explains it in fisherman talk. ha ha. So, here it here is the scoreboard for all of you who are going out this weekend. It is a beautiful weekend!!

SCOREBOARD

Red Snapper - closed
Grouper - closed 'til April
Vermillion closed 'til March
Seabass - closed 'til June
Warsaw grouper - closed indefinitely
Snowy grouper - 1 per boat (although I read it was closed along w/ warsaw)
Cobia - 1 - state waters, 2 - federal waters per person, BUT they trying to make it closed to 1/boat no matter where you caught it.
98' - 240' bottom fishing - back open; closure proposals are permanently killed!! Yeah.
Catch- Share funding - DEAD!

2011-02-19T12:47:00.004-05:00

GOOD NEWS!!!
(Who says we can't get anything done in a bi-partisan fashion in Congress?)

Enjoy the read. I cut/paste it for you. - Happy Fishing, Robin

http://www.savingseafood.org/washington/jones-amendment-passes-house-of-representatives-3.html

WASHINGTON - Feb. 19, 2011 (Saving Seafood) - Amendment #548 to H.R. 1 sponsored by Walter Jones (R-North Carolina) and cosponsored by Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) and Frank Pallone (D-New Jersey) passed the United States House of Representatives on a recorded vote of 259-159 at 1:43 a.m.

The Amendment would prevent funds from being expended by NOAA to enact new limited access fishing programs. The Amendment, if H.R. 1 is passed by the Senate and signed into law, would prevent spending on new catch shares programs.

51 Democrats joined 208 Republicans voting in favor of the Amendment.

Amendment No. 548 to H.R. 1 would ensure that no funds made available in the continuing resolution may be used to develop or approve new limited access privilege programs for any fishery under the jurisdiction of the South Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, New England or Gulf of Mexico Fishery Managment Councils.

This would prevent further spending on new "Catch Shares" programs, a heavily-promoted fisheries policy of the Obama Administration under Dr. Jane Lubchenco's leadership at NOAA. The policy, backed by several environmental groups, has been controversial. The Catch Shares policy has faced widespread opposition by East Coast fishermen.

The Amendment does not affect fishing programs on the West Coast or Alaska.

Woohoo!! Happy Dance. Barney Frank, I may not agree with you on much, but I THANK YOU for listening to your constituents and voting against your party lines to be a voice for the fishermen.

2011-02-17T11:56:00.003-05:00

CATCH SHARES & FEDERAL FISH QUOTAS MEET HEAVY RESISTANCE

These following articles only prove my point in my last blog that the government has a agenda. Please take the time to call your Representative today. Please support Amendment #548 to block funding for catch shares.

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/RFA-Alert--Preservationist-Propaganda-Campaign-Meets-Legislative-Resistance.html?soid=1102181706823&aid=y9QMUipebQw

http://www.app.com/article/20110216/NJNEWS10/102160372/Federal-fish-quota-plan-catches-criticism-by-anglers

Video:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7356343n

2011-02-16T12:55:00.004-05:00

RED SNAPPER TAGGING & the STORM (out of Ponce Inlet, FL)
by DBNews Journal & Jordan Kahn
Feb 11, 2011

Thank you Jordan for producing such a video and thank you to the Fish & Wildlife Institute for collecting all the research & tagging.

Great, short video on how to tag & vent your red snapper. Also, this video speaks volumes to the SAFMC's claim that snapper are overfished & fishing needs to be closed down AT LEAST until 2013 when it will come up for review again. If you tell a lie long enough, loud enough and often enough, you can convince the public it is true. I had friends who watched the video, read the articles and still question the validity of our quest for comments & signatures for petitions.

This is ridiculous!!

Taken from the deep-blue-sea website, John writes:

"A SAFMC staffer told me they were surprised by the sparse turnout [at the last meeting]. Well, the answer seems clear based on the comments submitted and the many emails that I have received. People are extremely interested, but they are tired of taking time off work, driving for hours and being ignored. One person told me it is like arguing with a tombstone. They have figured out that the only way the current system is going to hear them is through either congress or the courts, and that is well under way.

We need to keep our voices heard in the SAFMC and take every opportunity to support the interest of science based/data rich fisheries management. It is dubious fellows who work within the shadow of the unknowns and we need to turn the light of science and data on to see clearly how best to manage our treasures under the sea. Given the current financial situation with the feds, things could actually get worse, especially if they decide to turn our fishery resources into commodities. Our elected officials will need to hear a loud continuous sound that we will not accept anything less than a fair and competent fisheries management system."

I don't know if many of you have paid attention to the food industry the past few decades but sometimes I think fishing parallels it, only we're still in the slow death process. The govt shuts fishing down or overregulates it. Puts the little guy out of business with their charter business or mom/pop bait & tackle store. Then, the big industry moves in to save the day, further pushing out the rest of the competition. Big industry WILL move in because you have to keep feeding the monster with revenue and the naive public will demand their healthy fish. Then, industry & govt are in bed together and there is NOTHING left for the average Joe. Do you know they're already training farm-raised fish to eat corn??

Wake up America. I only want a fair share of my rights to fish in a small edge of the ocean. The oceans cover 335,258,000 sq km of the planet, which is 70.9% of the surface area. I'm only asking for the first 30 miles outside my port. I promise not to keep the little ones. I promise not to keep the large breeders. I promise not to keep too many. I promise to follow fair regulations and to stay away from endangered whales. REALLY. But, what I will not is act like a dead fish washed up on the shore while the government & it's long arm overreaches into my kid's future and steals all our potential memories away while shutting down the oceans for their financial gain under the guise of some environmental safety. (Not to mention, every longliner from foreign countries continue to rape the ocean itself. Not just the fish but sharks & turtles.)

Poo on you SAFMC for treating us like ignorant barbarians who don't love the ocean and all its contents as much, if not more than you do. In the end, I pray that our voices will be justified and you see, scientifically, that there are more red snapper down there than you can shake a stick (er... a rod) at.

God bless America & her Oceans!
Happy Fishing,
Robin

2011-02-15T15:57:00.002-05:00

REASSEMBLING THE POWERHEAD -
For our 225hp Merc OptiMax (outboard)
by Robin

First, let me preface this blog post with the fact that I am not a mechanic, although I did assist through most of this process with my hubby. He is the brilliant mind behind all our repair work. I do not claim to remember all the names of lubes, solvents, grease, epoxies, & specific pieces BUT, I think I do a really good job for a wife. I know way more about mechanical things than I ever thought I would when I got married. But enough of me.... onto the real star of the blog.

Here are the upper & lower cases of the powerhead. Everything has been disassembled, any glues or gasket fragments were removed and Jack sprayed some special degreaser to clean any gunk or debris out of the engine. This is a very important step that should not be skipped. After sitting, Jack hosed it down to wash off the debris.

It's is sparkling clean. Those 6 main grooves are where the pistons & their arms will fit through to attach to the crankshaft (removed at this point).

If you look very carefully at the black side of the powerhead, you will see little "spickets" where it looks like something is attached to the metal part. Those are for the oil lines. Jack took the time to make sure each one of those lines was free & clear of debris. We did this with a high-pressure air compressor attachment.

Then, Jack put it lots of grease into all the little areas between the pairs of pistons.
There are holes that he is filling.

This is the lubricant that he used.

Next, we prepared the table with tools to begin the insertion of the pistons. If I remember right, Jack also took this time to replace a couple of the o-rings that go in on the upper end of the crankshaft, which were boogers to get out. BUT, we did it. So, at this point, we have pistons which need new rings assembled onto the end of them. I probably should have taken a picture of that. There are 2 of them. It was my job to remove the old so that explains why there are no pictures of it.

While I did that, Jack took the new rings that he ordered and according to specs, tried to fit them the best with each of the cylinder sleeves. It's an imperfect world out there, so you want to stay in a special range of a gap at the ends of the rings. (Rings have a break-point. I'm not explaining myself very well.)

If you look below where the arrow is, the ring is being checked in this sleeve and if the gap is too much, he has to find a bigger ring. Comprende'?

After the rings were matched to pistons, we put them on. Then Jack used this ring compression tool to hold them down (because they're a bit springy), then the piston is carefully slid up into position. Then, you remove the blue ring compressor and the rings spring to make a tight fit into the cylinder. The better the fit, the better the pressure, hence better the rpms & horsepower being made by the engine. Are you still with me??

Jack is greasing the needle bearings and putting them into their "thing". There are two of these things and they fit on the inside of the arm of the piston that rotates round and round the crankshaft. I was dreading this part of the job most of all, but it turns out, it wasn't so bad. I did the other 5 of them. The grease keeps everything moving easily initially until the engine gets the oil flowing freely. BUT, the "ace in the hole" for the grease is that it keeps those stinkin' bearings from falling out. Think pliable glue. LOVE IT. This way, we didn't have to worry about them falling down into the deep recesses of the engine before Jack could tighten everything down. Whew!

Here is the lower case with the crankshaft inserted & the pistons all attached to it. Yipee. We were almost done for the night at this point. Now, we had to attach the uppercase to the lower case.

Forgive me for lack of info, but the red "goo" is a special epoxy that makes a gasket-type seal between the top & bottom of the cases. It's put on liberally and sealed down with long bolts & nuts.

After this, we high-5'd each other, covered it up for the night and fell into a deep coma. Next morning, Jack added the parts that you see on top of the powerhead in the pic below. Then, he threw it on the hoist and I walked outside from doing breakfast dishes. I only had to assist in lining up a couple holes with bolts and throw on nuts. Here Jack is tightening everything down.

I'm thinking I wasn't too useful this day because I don't have a lot of pictures. Jack continued to add parts and oil lines. It's hard to see in the pic below but he used color-coded tie-wraps for securing lines. He would have to tell you the code because he gave it to me, I threw it in the vault and forgot it. Oops.

The next day, I believe he finished up with the lower foot (I did help a little bit of that.), matching up the intake pipe to it's 'home' and he put the electrical harness back into place.

More later....
Happy Fishing if the winds ever die down.

2011-02-11T13:50:00.002-05:00

RIVER TRIAL - 2/8/11
by Robin

Our repair job on the 225 Merc OptiMax Outboard engine was successful!!! She is making 5600 rpms and going over 32 mph now. What a relief!!!

We had to run her for approximately 2 hrs while she was having her engine being broke back in. Jack had me run the throttles (at home the day before), 5x forward after turning the key. This makes the engine run double-oil for the next 100 minutes or so (??). So, after she passed her initial run down the channel of the Indian River, we took her for a slow cruise through the "Cut" which heads out towards the locks & Atlantic Ocean. We have a favorite celebratory Marina restaurant we can pull in dock-side and eat fish tacos.

I absolutely love the slow ride over there because we always see fish jump, manatees, dolphin, beautiful water birds and hawks. I'll have more pictures to share another day of that ride.

We ate our Fish tacos at Harbortown Marina and then headed back home. High-5's all-around!! Looks like we are back in business, so-to-speak, and can head out to look for cobia at the next opportunity.

Happy Fishing!
Robin

2011-02-03T15:21:00.002-05:00

NEW REGULATIONS - Deep Water Closing

As of Jan 31, 2011, SAFMC has prohibited the harvest and possession of speckled hind and warsaw grouper.

I'm holding up a pretty, young warsaw grouper from back in March of 2009.

Snowy grouper bag limit is limited to 1 per vessel.

Fishing for, possession, and retention of deepwater species (snowy grouper, blueline tilefish, yellowedge grouper, misty grouper, queen snapper and silk snapper) seaward of a 240 ft depth is prohibited in S Atlantic federal waters.

There were also some changes to Golden tilefish but that doesn't affect us since we don't fish for them.

2011-01-29T20:16:00.002-05:00

HOW TO HONE YOUR CYLINDERS
by Robin

Our Merc Outboard (Opti-Max) left us 20 miles offshore last month. In short (see previous posts), we determined that we needed to replace the crankshaft on our engine; BUT, before putting all the parts back together, we need to hone our 6 cylinders.

Hopefully, you can see the diamond-shaped etchings inside the cylinder sleeve. These "scratches" were put there intentionally and their purposes is to hold oil so that the pistons stay well-lubricated as they pump up & down to make horsepower.

We want to clean up the inside and put fresh "scratch" marks inside the cylinder sleever. (Disclaimer: I am not a mechanic. I'm just married to one and take lots of pictures.) Anyhow, we take this tool (sorry - no name) and insert it into the sleeve.

It can move until you tighten it down. It will measure the exact diameter of the cylinder.

Then, Jack laid the first tool down and measured it with another devise. This told him exactly how big (down to thousanths) the cylinder is. This measurement will help him get the correct fitting for some rings that go around the piston but also to remeasure afterwards to make sure he isn't shaving away too much metal.

This is a honing tool on the end of Jack's drill. Those 3 pieces have very hard etching surfaces and they can be spring loaded into the cylinder and then turn on the drill.

Here is Jack using the honing tool.

Here are two completely honed cylinders. The one on the left still needs to be honed.

Be sure to keep your tool centered and don't take off too much on one side.

Jack was kind enough to allow me to video him honing the cylinders. Enjoy.

Untitled from Robins Reports on Vimeo.

2011-01-15T15:29:00.001-05:00

TWINS
by Robin

On the left is the new, used engine that we bought on Thursday. On the right is our original engine. Time to pull parts and build up one good engine.

2011-01-14T12:55:00.002-05:00

ENGINE OFF & STRIPPED
by Robin

Many times, my blog is found via googling so I'm going to throw out some basic facts first. This is our 225 hp Mercury Opti-Max Outboard engine that we have takien the cowling and harness off of.

Rear view. (We take pictures of all our disassembling so we can use them for referencing upon reassembling.) For the non-mechanic, those 6 round holes are the 6 piston openings.

Left view. Taking pic of the oil casing, etc.

Label, label, label. Make painter's tape your best friend. Here Jack is examining the front side. The big silver thing is the air intake compartment.

Here is a view from the top. These are flywheels, belts and compressors. Even engines accessorize, ladies.

The next night, we found a friend with an engine hoist and pulled the engine off the boat. The guys are looking at what is are the reeds comparment, which were under that air intake case. (If I have my bearings right.)

What they were trying to do when I got home from church last Wed was to remove that section and expose the crankshaft and pistons (& housing). Like always, we had one stinkin' bolt that was stripped and so Jack drilled down the center of it, increasing bit size until it was finally able to be worked out of the hole.

Here, the engine is on it's side (if you're a boat). This is the more appropriate sitting for an engine when it is in a car. Can you visualize it??

My guys have popped off the upper case and are looking down into the crankshaft area. Pistons are still attached at this point in the picture, but not any more. As it turned out, the 6th piston had its needle bearing at the crank side shaved down and they were most likely pooped out the exhaust. We couldn't find them anywhere. The piston-side needle bearing were still intact.

This same night, Jack's car had a burning smell and it was parked until the weekend. The air on my tire was leaking. I was hitting my breaking point of things breaking down on us. God kept giving me the same Scripture over and over and comfort us that we were in the midst of a trial. When God disciplines you like that, the best place to be is in His Word and on your knees in prayer.

Sunday morning, I received Heb 12: 1-11 again. Sunday afternoon, I worked with Jack on fixing his car and got all greasy. (His AC compressor is shot and so we put on a belt that by-passed the compressor, for the meantime. A 2nd belt was in the process of shredding, so God was good in getting Jack home before it all let loose.)

As part of my Project 365, I thought it poignant to take a picture of the grease under my fingernails as I put my finger on Heb 12:11. "Now no chastising for the present seems joyous but grievous; nevertheless, afterwards, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."

No, I don't love working on engines any more than Jack does. Yes, I know a lot more about engines than I should; but, I'm raising boys with excellent mechanical abilities. Being disciplined by God and with God by my side, standing through this trial with my hubby..... priceless.

And, God has provided the sacrificial 'lamb' during this trial. Yesterday, we bought another used powerhead off of somebody else to use as spare parts for rebuilding one good powerhead. Yeah! God is good, don't ever doubt that. He's good ALL THE TIME. This one has a good crank shaft that we can replace our bad one with.

Happy Fishing!
Robin

2011-01-06T16:23:00.003-05:00

DECEMBER FISHING
by Robin

Where do I even begin after being off of here for so long???

We had a very, very rough month. Everything from grieving two lost ones, to ER visits to preparing for a vacation which changed on a daily basis, seemed to consume our entire month. It seems to me like on the 18th, we were invited out on Mike & Helen's boat. We were just coming off a full moon, current was nil for the longest time and storms were predicted, but Mike had radar to help us avoid the worst of them.

So, we headed offshore with a cooler full of bait. Passed by many other sea regulars like this shrimp boat.

We found our ledge quite easily and as Helen and I began tossing squid over the side, we were bringing up fish after fish.

As it turned out, Helen brought in the most and I caught the biggest trigger. A whopping 7 lbs!

(Ladies, don't be jealous of my seafarer's vogue look.)

We split the catch up and went home for the day. Cleaned a lot of fish the next day though.

Then, we went on vacation for a while and came back home in time to fish again on the 29th. Many folks were out trying to get their limit of grouper before the season closed Jan - April.

Not us, we headed back to the ledge. Only small black sea bass were biting. Oh, I should also state that we were on our own boat this time, but Mike & Helen were out there on their boat as well. I did not bring my camera with me this trip. What a shame since on the way to our 2nd spot, we saw beautiful manta rays gone airborne. We tried to track a couple down and did happen to see some cobia on their backs but they sounded down to the bottom as soon as we caught up to them.

So, off to the 2nd spot and that's when we heard ker-plunk. Our engine was dead. So, we did the appropriate calls for friends to come join us in our misery, then a call to be towed and then a long anchor wait while waiting for the rescue tow boat. That was 1.5 hrs alone; however, we were good with food, fair weather and entertainment. A big thanks to Mike & Helen who never left our sight while we were "dead" in the water.

We pulled in croaker after croaker. It was fun and something to do. They were fat and we figured they ate about as good as whiting from the beach.

We celebrated the New Year by doing our best to stay awake 'til midnight. That Sunday, we celebrated our 18th anniversary. Enjoyed a nice date eating seafood at Rusty's, then danced a little to some live music.

BUT, the next week would end up creating lots of work for Jack each evening as he did his best to diagnose what was wrong with our engine.

We are amazingly blessed that Jack is a brilliant mechanic on top of his other job. Yesterday, the powerhead of the engine was on a table in the garage and the crank-shaft & pistons were exposed. Amazing and scary all at the same time.

I suppose the saga will continue as we pull it all apart and start replacing what broke. I know many people's faith is tested through health and finance issues. For me, it is when I see hundreds of pieces of engine parts in my garage and keep believing that God has given Jack the ability to fix and put it all back together.

I'm sure there will be more pictures and stories in the future. Unfortunately, there will be less fishing through the winter months; but that is ok. There is very little in the way of fishing that is still open season and biting. Now is as good as any time to overhaul our engine.

Blessings & Happy Fishing,
Robin

2010-11-30T08:00:00.001-05:00

REDFISH SKUNKING #2
11/27/10
by Robin

I don't remember a year when I was skunked 3x in a row. I've not been very particular about checking weather, tides, fishing reports, etc to pick my days right for fishing so it serves me right.

It was few days after Thanksgiving and I didn't have much shopping this year, so we were hanging out at the house on Saturday while Daddy pulled holidays shifts. I have a girlfriend, "T", who is notorious for outfishing me with the inshore species, so when I saw she was heading out with bait & pole, I begged for her to let me tag along.

Thankfully, she let me before I got to tears. LOL

I'm not sure how to describe her little (somewhat secret) area. I don't want to give away her exact location, but let's just say, it was good backwater country. Down here, that means Gator Country.

Not one time did I not feel safe, but I did keep my eyes peeled back for gator bubbles or marks or body armor. Seriously, I felt more cautious about all the bubbas than I did gators.

The wind was kicking hard and temps drop 7 degrees from morning to noon. She caught 1 catfish, the other 3 poles in the water caught nothing. When the catfish are biting pack it in and traded that weather for hot cocoa.

Maybe next time, we'll pick a day when the redfish are tailin' in front of us AND BITING. (How frustrating!)

Like "T", my friend and prayer partner said to her own son, "No fish is more important than friends." And that's what fishermen... um... fisherwomen.... have to focus on when we have skunking days like this.

I probably won't post up for a while again because the winds are high all week and school is back in session. Before I know it, we'll be off to visit the relatives!!

God bless & Happy Fishing!

2010-11-28T23:07:00.002-05:00

HAPPY CLAMS!!!
11/21/10
by Robin

Happy cows may come from California, but happy clams are from Cedar Key and cooked at my house!!!

When Jack and I get homesick for the ocean, we treat ourselves to a couple pounds of shrimp and couple dozen middle-neck clams.

Look at this one sizzling in it's own juices (Renee, don't barf.)

Chef Jack mesquite smokin' up a storm.

Our cherished Kingsford (Shameless product endorsement!) mini-grill for such an occasion.

Happy Clam #1 - well, he wishes he had a pound of everything for himself

He prefers to smother everything in Crystal's Hot Sauce & fake butter.

Happy Clam #2 - learning how to appreciate seafood this past year

Happy Seafood Eating!!

Support Commercial fishermen and eat seafood for Christmas holiday snacks!!! If you're local, stop by Atlantic Seafood for the freshest fish & shellfish.

2010-11-28T22:11:00.002-05:00

SURF SKUNKING
11/22/10
by Robin

I'm a bit behind on blogs, so I'll date them.

Between bad weather, bad timing, bad regulations and saving money for vacation, we decided to head out for some surf fishing. Jack had been stuck in the house all weekend with a fever, too.

As you can see, we arrived just after a storm left. Seas were high. Lots of water churning and no fish biting.

So, instead of having lemons, I made some lemonade of the outing. Here are my handsome boys.

They're really the best catch in the ocean anyhow.

Happy Fishing!

2010-10-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

PORTFEST 2010
by Robin

Last weekend, we sold our suv and were going to go looking at a couple used ones on a car lot. We ended up taking a detour when seeing a roadside sign.

I'm glad I brought my camera with me. They had a peeling shrimp contest to raise money & awareness for breast cancer.

A dozen or more folks entered the peel (& NOT eat shrimp because of choking liabilities) shrimp contest.

This man was the winner. He sure was quick. I think he's done this before.

Afterward, we were heading to the car when we ran into our friends who fished at the Middle Grounds. We chatted a while longer and then headed home.

The next day, we found a good beater SUV to haul the boat to the port. Yeah!!

Happy Fishing & be sure to get a Mammogram Lady Anglers!!

2010-10-30T14:28:00.004-05:00

KINGFISH DIP
by Robin

It's such a beautiful day outside that I decided to get in the pool to clean it AND I fired up the smoker, filling it with mesquite yummy smells. I have a couple packs of Kingfish meat in the freezer that are thawed and smoking as I type this.

Yum!!

Here is a link to the last time we smoked Kingfish in July.
How we make dip from scratch

Here are my favorite recipes:
Kingfish dip recipes

Happy smokin'!!!!

2010-10-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

MORE DELICIOUS FISH DINNERS!!
by Robin

I've lost track of what was on my camera. I'm thinking these are Red Grouper filets. Whatever they were, they were delicious!!

And we harvested a bunch of jalapenos from my garden, filled them with cream cheese and wrapped them with bacon. Oh my heavens!!!!! Threw those on the grill....... (I'll have you know I suffered a fibromyalgia -joint attack because I was so tempted to eat one of these dairy-filled treats.)

I made a big garden salad and put it all together.

Sometimes I feel so incredibly guilty for eating so good and being so blessed by generous friends that give us fish & lobster. Jack also has another friend that has been supplying me with free avacados. Mmmm......

Blessings!!

2010-10-29T08:00:00.000-05:00

BEST LUNCHES!!!
by Robin

I cannot remember what date we ate these, but our good friends made a trip out to the Middle Grounds last week (or so) and picked up a few hundred pounds of fish for their coolers. The Middle grounds is in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 80 miles from shore. It is a true test of endurance to run out there, fish, barely sleep, fish and then make the run back in.

I decided to look for a video on UTube to see if I could find something that brings this story to life. I do NOT know these folks, but you can get a 7 min experience of what it is like to be fishing the Middle Grounds like our friends did. It is the land of the giant fish.

Anyhow, we were extremely blessed to receive frozen packages of Red Grouper and Mangrove Snapper. Below is the Mangrove Snapper which were in the 5 -6 lb range. HUGE.

Jack wasted no time in cooking the Mangrove up for us (probably a Monday).

Jack opted out of the gas grill and went straight to charcoal for the sake of the unique flavoring it gives the fish. Oh, it was so worth the wait on the coals.

Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is.

Anyhow, you can find tons of Middle Ground fishing videos on the UTube. I see yellowfin, blackfin, Kingfish, Snapper, Grouper, Amberjack... everything!

Happy Fishing! And good eats!!

2010-10-28T08:00:00.001-05:00

FINALLY FISHING AGAIN!!!
by Robin

On Oct 10th, God calmed the seas, created nice weather and gave us a chance to get out and fish!!!

I don't have the pictures ready, but the short of it was that we did not get up at the crack of dawn. I think we may have gotten out to Pelican Flats about 9:30am, pulling right up to the ledge that we like to fish for a variety of reef fish. The anchor goes down, stinky dead shrimp go on the hook and everything goes down to the bottom.

Nibble, nibble.... pull.... reel, reel, reel and up comes a very nice Trigger fish that goes right into the cooler on the first drop.

Send everything back down with another stinky shrimp. Nibble, nibble,.... pull..... tug.... reel, reel, reel and up comes a nice Red Porgy, but it goes back to the ocean because it didn't meet the requirements, by law, for the cooler. Beautiful little guy.

(Sorry no pictures because I was catching everything.) By this time, my eldest has his rig ready and he sends down a stinky dead shrimp. Nibble, yank, pull, yank, wiggle, wiggle, yank... up com a huge red snapper, which is now illegal to keep. Vent & send it back down. We're all high-5-ing each other because we're in 78 ft of water. This means that the snapper population must be thriving with the 10 month closure.

Next couple drops produce a chocolate chip porgy and black sea bass. All very nice edible fish.

We decided to pull anchor and go to another spot, as to not overfish this one ledge.

We head east a little bit until we come across our known Grouper 'hump. We've pulled 25, 35, 40 lb Warsaw Grouper & a 62 lb Cobia off this area in the past. We've got high hopes.

Nibble, nibble, pull, reel, reel, reel screaming as line is peeled off. Oh, I'm so excited that I've got something nice on. Reel, reel, reel and....... it's a 4 ft shark. Infact, we all took turns pulling in 4 ft sharks.

Sadly, the rest of the day produced no other edible fish. We did see an incredible pod? school? gathering? flock? of jellyfish. AMAZING. Literally, there were hundreds, if not thousands in the area we were fishing for grouper. That may be why we never caught anything but sharks off the bottom.

We headed back home by 4pm and cleaned fish. We enjoyed a nice dinner of fried Porgy & Triggerfish, suggested by our youngest. He loves my version of Long Jonz Slivers. LOL.

Happy Fishing!! Pictures to come eventually on that day.

2010-10-27T11:32:00.002-05:00

BANANA RIVER CRUISE - 9/26/10
by Robin

It's been way too long since I've updated here, but we've actually had several cool things going on with our lives, relating to the ocean. So, all week, I will attempt to keep everyone updated on our seafood meals & fishing. Please check back daily to see what's new.

The weekend of the 19th, I had a massive cornea infection, cracking the entire bottom part of my iris. At the same time, I had a gall bladder attack through the night. So, I immediately went into fasting in order to do a cleansing on that organ a couple days later. (passing stones)

It was a miserable few days where I hallucinated somewhere between wanting death and having my eyeball removed so I could look like a pirate. I had to stay in the darkness, as I was light sensitive. I had multiple visits to doctors & specialists and all is well now. (It really helps to have a correct diagnosis on my eye issues.)

So, the next weekend, Jack and I were needing some sun and relaxation. After church, we readied the boat for the river and put her through her paces. The boys were happy about getting to stay home, too.

I cannot tell you how good it felt to bask in the sun's rays and be thankful to God for better health. God delivered a splendor of blue & puffy white clouds - all for me.

The camera simply does not do the rippling effect any justice. It was majestic.

It was a quick hour or so, but the winds picked up. The engine had been exercised. We headed back to the local ramp that is known for many engine-less, wind-powered rentals. Many locals like this area because it is shallow, virtually boat-free and seems to attract much wind.

I caught this photo with my zoom lens of a wind surfer as we were in the slow zone. I put an impressionist touch photoshopped onto it.

It's hard to believe that was a month already.

Blessings!

2010-09-29T14:48:00.002-05:00

9/26/10 - RIDE ON THE RIVER
by Robin

Jack and I enjoyed a most beautiful Sunday afternoon ride down the Indian River. I took some cloud pictures that I'll post up later.

Our poor boat needed to be 'exercised' as Jack put it, but the ocean was all churned up. I had to knock off several spiders & webs.

Happy Fishing!

2010-09-24T13:21:00.002-05:00

MORE of the SAME
by Robin

Yep, heat, hurricanes and now health issues have prevented us from fishing this month. Thank God I am on the mend, so be looking for us to be fishing in October.

2010-09-10T09:34:00.002-05:00

HURRICANES & HEAT
by Robin

Typically, this is when the blog goes dead, much like the waters during the heat of the summer. It's too hot for pelagic fish to feed on the surface. Deep-water fisher are further offshore. Winter fishing should fire up pretty soon. Migrating mahi will come back down through our area, as well as better bottom bites for reef fish.

Our other typical fishing deterrant is hurricanes. Some days, it is pretty decent, but last week, they were rolling by Florida one after another. Next week, it looks like Ivan may pass by.

I'm not sure what Jack plans on doing in the near future, but we both have the itch to get offshore sometime soon. Look for a blog post in September.

2010-08-31T10:07:00.004-05:00

SUPER-BOAT RACES!!

by Robin

I can't believe I totally left you all hanging after going to the Super-Boat races on the 22nd. I took a couple hundred photos and haven't shared a single one. There's no better way to efficiently get so many photos up here at once, than through a slideshow.

2010-08-17T08:27:00.003-05:00

OUR CATCH from LAST MONTH
by Robin

I keep meaning to post up these pictures of my tarpon pictures from tarpon fishing the other day.

Oh wait.... that's not a tarpon, it's a bonnethead shark.

Oh right.... we only caught 1 shark that morning. BUT, I did see 2 tarpon jump on their own not far from me. One tarpon even was chasing a fish into the air. It was spectacular.

2010-08-14T10:49:00.002-05:00

WHO's RIGHT and WHO's WRONG
by Robin

A couple weeks ago, Jack and I were peacefully fishing for tarpon off the Cape Canaveral shores. We bought some blue crabs before dawn. Enjoyed light sprinkles as the sun rose and gave way to beautiful sky.

We did not see big schools of tarpon stacked up, so we decided to bring the fish to us. We anchored up 200-300 yds off the beach, freelining some crabs under a bobber for bait. I had a shark playing on the end of my line but he couldn't seem to get that big crab down his gullet.

About that time, we see a team of life guard trainees jogging out of the dunes and running north of the beach. Whew, for a minute, I thought they were going to swim out to us. I'm distracted by the bobber and eventually look for the trainees again, only to find them swimming out as far as our boat is anchored out.

I hear the captain say, "Swim around the boat and go back in."

That's when I snapped this picture.

You can clearly see we're in blue water, out past the last set of breakers, water is calm..... it's a beautiful morning except we now have over a dozen people swimming over to us.

I did not take more picture for fear of upsetting folks, but I wish I had now. The captain of the team stops swimming boatside, removes his goggles and asks me how I'm doing. Hmmm?? How am I doing? I'm fine. I'm in a boat. The question really should have been, "What in the world are you doing swimming out here with sharks? "

He then proceeds to shock me by telling me we were in violation of anchoring closer than 400 yds to the beach. I laughed and told him he was joking. He quite seriously insisted that was the law and if Coast Guard caught us, they could fine us.

Stop the record here....... this is where my mind flashbacked to 2 NOAA-NMFS officers coming to my door to investigate us for being too close to a N. Right Whale. The last thing we want to do is break any more laws out on the water.

Back to story: Well, the team of swimmers proceeded to swim over, under and through my line. One even hit the bobber and another probably came close to snagging the hooked crab. I yelled, "Watch out for the line!" Honestly, it was bad enough to have Capt Mark come out and reprimand me, but then to also mess with my freeline, it was downright insulting. That Captain intentionally came over to show his muscle and interfere with our fishing.

Being the angry Italian woman I can be, (it's rare, but happens when idiots pursue me) I decided to verify the law or regulation. I took it up with a fishing forum with a section for asking the law questions.

I had multiple humorous replies, but one struck me interesting. Florida hunters have harassment laws on the books since 1990. Here is the gist of it:

28 FLA Stat. ch. 372.705
(a) Interfere with or attempt to prevent the lawful taking of fish, game or nongame animals by another.
(b) Attemp to disturb fish, game or nongame animals or attempt to affect their behavior with the intent to prevent their lawful taking by another.

Another person emailed FWC and their response (can't cut/paste onto blogspot any more) was "unless there are designated swimming or restricted vessel areas, there are no state laws that restrict distance. Some counties have ordinances that apply but that is on a county by county basis."

Another asked 2 lifeguards in Duval Co (Jacksonville) who both agreed it was 100 yds offshore.

I guess my next step would be to ask the specifics for Brevard Co FWC. But the originally discussed 400 yds does seem awfully far away from a beach. That's 1200 ft or a couple tenths of a mile. That's considerably far off the beach and I see that violation ALL THE TIME. Those are good fishing grounds for many species. Coast guard patrols around here frequently and I've never heard of people ticketed for anchoring off the jetty rocks which are less than a 100 feet from Jetty park beach, much less further down the coast.

So, the pursuit of the truth continues.

Who is right and who is wrong?

Comment with your thoughts on the issue.

Happy Fishing,
Robin

2010-08-14T10:45:00.002-05:00

SUPER BOAT GRAND PRIX
by Robin

They are going to be at our port next weekend. This isn't something that I'm exactly drawn to, but Jack's coworkers are going to take their boats and anchor up together to watch the races. Sunday is our only day to do this, so I guess I know how I'm spending my afternoon already. ha ha.

www.superboat.com

2010-07-28T18:29:00.002-05:00

TARPON FISHING - 7/27/10
by Robin

Up at 4:30am, in the car at 5:30 am, leaving the docks at 6:20 with sprinkles of rain on our heads. Jack had to use his boat lights, which seemed so nice.

We cleared the mouth of the port just in time to watch the sun rise over the horizon. Unfortunately, a big rain cloud blocked our view. Well, I say unfortunately, but it turned out to be a good thing because the rain stopped quickly and left us with cool air.

To our west, the moon was still hanging in the sky. It hadn't return to it's slumber yet.

We searched the "Bight", north of the port for a mile or so and saw no bait or big fish. We did a 180 and headed south.

Southeast, there was more rain with some lightening. Oh, it was gorgeous. Dark rain at the bottom with a burst of morning light at the top.

A few minutes later, I saw a beautiful mirror of sky and sea behind me. So, I snapped this picture. Again, rain below and glory above!

An hour later, the sun was still stuck behind the clouds but the rain was far, far off in the distance. I swore I could see one cloud cast a shadow on another cloud. I could have reached out and touched the finger of God with landscape views like this!!

I've got to run, but tomorrow, I'll post up the fishing part of our morning.
God bless America and YOU!
Happy Fishing,
Robin

2010-07-26T08:29:00.004-05:00

TARPON fishing!
by Robin

It looks like we may get our first opportunity to go Tarpon fishing Tuesday. I'm very excited. You don't keep Tarpon, but they are an exciting gamefish. They're the aerobatic giants of the shallows or inshore water.

A few years back, we happened upon a school of tarpon but didn't know a thing about catching them. It was quite a site to see large fish rolling & boiling up the waters around you. Every since that day, it has been one of those fish I'd like to check off my to-do list.

There is a good chance of catching sharks as well. I've heard they're plentiful in the same waters we're heading to. They're probably feeding off the same bait.

Anyhow, Tomorrow has a west wind, 5 knots, seas 1-2 ft with a dominant period of 10 seconds. This should make some awesome tarpon fishing waters!

(Images provided by Google search engine.)

As you can see from the image on the right, lady anglers can also enjoy the sport from this giants. Fly-fishermen find them to be great action on their fly rods as well. I'm guessing the fish on the right is well over 100 lbs.

Happy Fishing!!

2010-07-22T14:00:00.003-05:00

WHALE WATCHER GET A CRASH VISIT!!
by Robin

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100722/od_yblog_upshot/whale-watchers-recount-bizarre-yacht-jump

From The Today Show:

I can totally sympathize with this story. (Forgive the awful quality scan)

We had been observing a whale, drifted too close (illegally close - don't do this!!) and then she came over to see us and gave me a harrowing minute, myself. There's nothing you can do but hope the whale doesn't spook and it goes away without causing damage to you, them or the boat.

Legal Disclaimer: The whale in the National story is a S. Right whale. The whale in our story is a N. Right whale, which is a protected, endangered species. The law states that you must stay 500 yds AWAY from them. If not, you can expect a visit from NOAA-NMFS like we did. Penalty for this ranges from $20K - $50K.

God bless!
Robin

2010-07-16T15:23:00.006-05:00

JOB's SURE KNOWLEDGE

Sept 10, 1876

by Charles Spurgeon

I've been studying the Book of Job this past month and I'm in Chapter 19 when I came across this very old sermon by the great Charles Spurgeon. What a great analogy to go on this Christian fisherman's blog.

"There may be some rough water to be crossed between here and the fair havens of eternal felicity, but all is right there for ever and ever.

There may be losses and crosses, there may be tossings and shipwrecks, but all is right for ever with all who are in Christ Jesus. "Some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship,"—but all who are in Christ Jesus shall escape "safe to land."

There are uncertainties innumerable, but there is this one certainty: "Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end." Spring on this rock, man!

If you are struggling in the sea, just now, and waves of sin and doubt beat over you, leap on to this rock, Jesus lives.

FULL SERMON HERE

2010-07-13T12:07:00.001-05:00

John 7:38

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

(Our new pool toy)

2010-07-13T11:24:00.002-05:00

KINGFISH DIP!!!
by Robin

It's that time of year again! If you're looking for great recipes, feel free to try the links at the bottom right corner of my page. Our recipe is similar, but different. It's secret because it's so good, we may just have to market this.

First off, we were blessed to get all this kingfish meat from a friend. As you can tell from the regular size scissors, it was one huge king. I'm guessing there is 25 lbs of meat in the below picture.

Set aside an entire day to slow-smoke your fish. One day, we hope to have a big daddy-type smoker, but for now, this one works. Our biggest downfall was that we had to do the process multiple times to get all the fish smoked. By bedtime, all the fish was done, bagged & cooling down in the frig for day 2.

Look how it puffed up! That's Mesquite smoke. Heat about 150-225 deg.

When it looks this great, take it off.

Here's Chef Jack (not a trained chef, but one at heart) with the tray of meat that we deboned together.

Not only is this a lot of meat (2 bowls worth), but LOOK at those ribs. Do you see those 4 spikes in the lower, center part of the picture? I can truly imagine that a long-time ago, Indians used these for something.

Here are some.... most (?) of the ingredients. Some things we didn't use. The spices & secret ingredients are not shown. We bought in mass quantities which made the grocery store folks laugh.

Skipping a few steps, but you can see the master at work.

White meat is gently folded into the mix.

We filled 17 small containers with dip.

Jack took bunches to work and the report is that it was inhaled before noon. He also took boxes of crackers with him.

This morning, I realized that we never smoked the 1 smaller pkg of meat, so we will be repeating all of this again soon.

Actually, we enjoy doing all this work. We love cooking together. The work goes by much quicker when we have each other's company. It is a big reward to gift people too.

Happy Fishing!
Robin

2010-07-13T11:12:00.002-05:00

7/10/10 - S. PELICAN FLATS
by Robin

I'll keep this short & sweet since it being done through lunch. Jack took Saturday off from work because the weather was so beautiful. We were up at 5am, down to the port by 7am after filling up gas for a long while. I had forgotten how long the ramp lines were on the weekends, plus one ramp was damaged so nobody was using it.

We borrowed a friend's ledge - coordinates and anchored up perfect the 3rd try. Stayed out there 'til 1:50pm when we decided to pack it up because the heat was unbearable. We did use a chum bag for the first time. The jury is still out on how useful it was. We did ok fish-wise, but we also had 1 large shark at first, a good dozen remoras consistently off the back of the boat and 1 cobia that we couldn't catch because the remoras were eating bait before we could feed it to him. Our eldest hooked him up for a short while but he never did get the hook sunk perfectly. So sad.

Nice cooler shot.

Below is an image I grabbed off the internet. I caught a red porgy that was shy of the size limit so we threw it back. It was a first for us. I took pictures of our day but lost them all in a camera formatting issue (about to kill my camera). The only picture saved from that day was the cooler shot that I sent my mom & sister. Too bad.

Nice, smooth ride in. Saw a school of dozens of brown sting rays. Loaded up the boat easily considering the wind that was picking up.

2010-07-06T13:17:00.002-05:00

6/29/10 - SURF FISHING at PLAYALINDA Beach
by Robin

I forced the boys out of bed at 7 am and out the door by 7:30. We took my grandfather's surf pole with us, along with various beach toys.

We arrived at the beach only to find very heavy haze, practically fog. Eeerie but absolutely cool. It was coming up on high tide with supposed 1-2 ft waves (more like a solid 2 ft+) and 87 deg temps, which felt more like 70 degs. The thermocline is hitting offshore and I believe it was showing itself on the Canaveral Nat'l Seashore this morning.

We made our way through the turtle nesting areas to a place where the boys could run around. Our church's playgroup was going to be joining us at 10:30am.

Here was my view, looking northbound.

I fished for hours with nary a bite. I used clams, fake crab, frozen & live sandfleas, frozen shrimp,... you name it. I got NOTHING.

But the boys...... they found a nice size crab to catch & observe.

After the friends all started to show up, I put up the pole until after many of them left again. The boys borrowed some boogie boards to ride in the surf.

This is NOT a beach to simply relax and not watch your kids. It is steep at high tide, so we waited until it was almost level at low tide before doing this.

We buried our friends, one by one.

By 3pm, we were one of the last 2 families there. Time to go home & cook dinner & get baths.

Look how the water color & clarity changed by afternoon!!!! Gorgeous day.

The view South at the top of the Barrier Ridge. Those are 2 of the launch pads for the shuttles.

Such an odd thing right in the middle of the Wildlife Refuge & beach.

Blog 2 down....... Hmmm.....

I think I'm going surf fishing on Friday again. Hopefully I'll catch a stinkin' fish this month. LOL

Happy Fishing!

2010-07-06T13:01:00.002-05:00

6/14/10 - 8A Reef & HETZEL SHOALS
by Robin

Inspite the fact that nobody reads this and I'm totally uninspired by that, I'm still going to blog up our last 2 trips with poles in hand.

On June 14th, we headed offshore rather early, but not dawn. We brought the umbrella which only resulted in one poked face.

Caught bait on the 3rd buoy that we came upon. All buoys were holding barracuda which is normal for summer. You'd better get your bait in the boat fast before they come to eat it.

While running out to 8A, we ran past a bait pod that seemed a good acre in size. Hindsight was that we probably should have trolled the edges to see what was boiling them up to the surface. Probably would have caught some kingfish there, but didn't stick with it.

Found some nice rips & scattered weeds on 8A. Saw a couple small mahi mahi that didn't bite.

Spent a couple hours with only 1 knockdown, resulting in ZERO fish.

Motored to a new spot, called Hetzel Shoals. Supposedly it was holding cobia fish there. And it is STILL holding fat cobia there, but we didn't stick it out since it was new grounds. I know this looks like a picture of blue nothing, but we really could see slight formations on the bottom. According to other fishermen, you can see forms of large fish swimming around. That's when you drop the hook w/ bait down. Next time we go out, we'll probably head back and try it again. Dozens of fish are coming off of this area. One had a tag on it from Louisiana.

We went back to 8A and after some unsuccessful trolling, tried bottom fishing. We've never done that there before. A few black sea bass and a nice dolphin show was all we got.

The kids were so happy to hear we were headed back home by 2:30pm. Too much heat. No fish action. VBS that night. Sometimes you just need to cut your losses.

One down, one to go....

2010-06-25T17:46:00.002-05:00

DEPRESSED
by Robin

Last week, the vote went through to close fishing in a specially boxed off area (98 ft - 240 ft water depth, from Port Canaveral to Savannah). No boat is allowed to verticle fish (bottom fishing) in thousands of square feet of ocean. Trolling is allowed. You can't even travel through the "boxed" area unless your bottom fishing poles are stowed away. Supposedly, the coast guard is watching you on radar and your boat will then be inspected upon entering the port to make sure you didn't catch any fish off the bottom. THIS IS RIDICULOUS!! The Carolinas were included in this box as well, but their representatives fought the SAFMC recommendations with a promise to not enforce any of their regulations and so their area was removed. Florida representatives sold us out.... for what??

This is not a hoax y'all. This is the passage of Amendments 17A & 17B from the South Atlantic Fisheries Mgmt Council.

People from my coast are now heading over to the Gulf of Mexico to catch what they can before the oil hits over there. Scallop season was opened 2 wks early so people could harvest before the oil hits beds. Eventually, there will be little to no fishing on the West Coast. Friends going to the Keys for Mini-Lobster season in early August have said the rooms are not booked and they're offering 50% discounts for divers that will book & come down.

Florida's fishing & diving economy is officially sunk.

What is the fate of this blog?? Our family's favorite hobby?? Florida lifestyle on a boat??

I'm not trying to be mean but since nobody has read my blog in weeks, I can let my hair down and speak my mind. If liberals take over this world, we'd be sitting in the middle of knee-high grass (no gas for your car or lawnmowers), with tons of mosquitos surrounding us, stinky because we shouldn't use bug sprays nor certain bars of soap, unable to afford power & AC for our homes because the prices would necessarily skyrocket, unable to fish because the ocean is closed off to us, unable to hunt because they're taken away our guns and unable to go to our beaches since they're covered in oil. I'll be sickly because my doctors will have quit their practices, meds will be unaffordable because I'm taxed up to my eyeballs & my insurance company will have dissolved and Jack may not have a job because all of those evil-capitalists will be run out of their businesses.

Where in the world have all our freedoms gone? Where in the world is the America I grew up with??? Sheesh people, I just want to be able to fish. Don't mess with my fishing. It does weird things to me.

2010-06-24T10:51:00.001-05:00

Hey all!!

I really have fished recently. I just haven't posted up anything yet. Pictures coming soon!!

2010-06-10T21:24:00.002-05:00

Tourney Results
by Robin

Tourny 1
Dolphin1. Rigatoni, 29.5, Matt Ring2. Dirty Hooker, 27.4, Jason Shimpnaugh3. Sea Hopper, 26.75, Harold Cook

Tourny 2
Dolphin1. Watusi, 31.90, Bradley McGuire2. In The Salt, 31.85, Eric Johnson3. Triple 7's, 23.70, Ralph Turner4. Slam Time, 26.50, Jeff Brown

Why do I bother mentioning this??? Top tourny weights of dolphin were 31.9 lbs and 29.5 lbs. Those are very low weights in a fish that can easily top 70 lbs. Jacksonville is having large mahi and south of us are seeing large mahi.

I believe this heavy freeze, late spring run and now intense heat have done something so weird to the migration patterns. Fish that stayed with normal migration times, continued in the Gulf Stream until the inshore waters warmed up enough for them to cross over. That means they bypassed us. Fish that were late in migration stayed south and eventually hung there in the deeper waters off those shores.

Anyhow, that is my guess to such weird tourny results. Btw, no wahoo were caught in either tournament. Also strange.

Happy Fishing,
Robin

2010-06-10T20:56:00.003-05:00

SNAPPER/GROUPER DECISION
by Robin

All this week SAFMC is meeting to discuss certain closures on different species each day. Yesterday was the day for Snapper/Grouper talks. Talks went late and today, the news is that the decision was 9-4 vote to close Snapper & Grouper fishing. They were still hammering out exactly where fishing was closed off. They have a box, but the sides of the box keep changing. If you catch the fish outside the box, it is rumored that the Coast Guard (your tax dollars at work) are going to watch you on radar to make sure you don't stop in that boxed area while coming in to port.

This is so crazy. What if you catch snapper outside the box and then find a school of mahi and stop to get one of them?? What if spearfishing is allowed in this area but you still have a rod & reel on your boat? How do they enforce that? Will it end up looking a bit like our open borders? Will they get lax and eventually 12 million red snapper will enter the country illegally?

I have no answers to any of my questions. Infact, the more I try to get informed on the issue, the more questions I have.

Happy Fishing, if they let us.......