Flounder Tourney turned Cobia Mission

Went to capt meeting at Dare Marina for Flounder Bowl Fishing Tournament and from the wind that was present friday night I just knew it was going to be one rough wet ride across to the other side of the bay early in the morning. Stewwed on that thought for a few and finally conceded to trailering to Kiptopeake.

Smart move as it was calm on that side at first light. Just outside of the ramp are a bunch of ships from World War 2 that are made of..... wait for it....... CONCRETE!  Yes you heard right, they are completely concrete. They now server as a breakwater for the Kiptopeake State Park.

 Sorry, side stracked on history for a minute but the theory of concrete vessels is fascinating to me.

 So we jigged around the concrete ships with squid strips and Gulp grubs. This produced a few fish.... 3 flounderwith one keeper at 18 inches and a couple oyster toads. After feeling like we covered the area thoroughly, we ran to high rise and joined the 80 other boats out there for the Flounder Bowl. Couple oyster toads in 4 to 5 ft seas later we said to hell with it and tried some drifts in more sheltered water. No more flat fish despite trying until about 11:30....

Decided it was time to pull a rabbit out the hat and reached in the cooler and pulled out a bag of eels I snuck in there when no one was looking. crews eyes lit up and were instantly on board with some sight fishing. Did eliptical circles all the way from the high rise to the BMORE channel. despite being rough and trying to sling eels into the wind we managed to catch 2 keepers, 1 dink, and pulled a hook on a nailer. Had a few more attempts but we were having to flank around the fish to avoid pitching an eel into the wind and back in the boat from the tower. all in all we saw 15 and turned a disappointing flounder day into a fun cobia day.

Dinner for 4... and 2 halves

Last night me and the misses had some friends over for dinner so I decided to cook something delicious for our guests. I still had some fish left in the freezer so Blackened Fish Tacos was the decision made. I made two batches of meat, one was cobia and the other was a couple fillets of red drum and triggerfish. Both were excellent!

 

 

For fixing we used sour cream, shredded cheese, romaine lettuce, and fresh diced tomatoes but you can add all kinds of stuff to customize them to your specific taste.

 

 

They are very simple to make, super tasty, and guaranteed to please. I've posted the recipe under my recipes section of the blog.

Best of all Jackson and his buddy Trace got to have some playtime time while us parents got to catch up and have a few laughs. In my opinion that is what shared meals are all about... the bringing together of good friends for a great meal.

These two are going to be inseparable in a few years.

Fourth of July Fishing Fun - Spadefish, Triggerfish, and Red Drum

Went out early yesterday morning to try and beat all the boat traffic that is always present on 4th of July.  Me and my friend Buddy met our girlfriends ,Ashley and Nancy, at the ramp and were on the water and heading to our destination by 6:30am. Upon arriving we were surprised to see we were the only boat at YSL. We dropped a bag of clam chum over the side and gave a little coaching on what kind of rigs to tie and how to fish them. While i was still cutting clams into bait strips i hear drag screaming and look up just in time to see my girlfriend's line snap from rubbing on one of the pilings. That insighted urgency in everyone to get a line down and almost immediately we were all hooking into nice 3 to 5 lb spadefish.

 After about an hour I decided to cut a piece of bait off of a live spot that Buddy was about to throw back and dropped it down on a ball jig. a couple minutes later it was fish on with a nice keeper red drum. This continued for a couple hours and then we decided to go sight fishing for cobia. We pulled lines up and slow boated across the bay to the eastern shore, made a tack and headed back to our port. One the way back we threw a few eels at the floating channel markers for the York River channel and i managed to hook up on a just under keeper cobia. I passed the rod down to Ashley and she did get the fish all the way to the boat only to lose it at the last second. Still produced a smile so mission accomplished. Then we sotted a few more swimming together but just as we headed their way the cloud cover picked up and shut the sight fishing down. Headed back in, treaded a couple dozen clams and went in to have fish grilled spadefish and clams casino. Great day on the water with everyone catching and some good food to finish off the evening. Not much more you can ask for.