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!

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.

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!

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!!

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'!!!!

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!!

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!!

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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!!

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

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

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)

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