I wanted to break the blog monotony of fishing and craft brews……….at least for a little while………..and get back to my roots (pun intended).

There’s a task we do every week while getting ready for the work week…………walk the yard gathering cut flowers.  I pull together whatever I can find blooming, throw them in a glass jar and voila – I have flowers for my desk.  Some weeks are better than others, while during various times of the year, it gets tough – and summer is one of those times.

Whaaatt?  We live in Florida, everything grows here, what do you mean?  Sometimes it’s just too dang hot for flowers to flourish, especially when we have daily rains and plant rot takes over.  More things have gotten thrown away these last 4 weeks, due to rot, than in the previous 4 months.  Such is the life of a plant in Central Florida’s summer.

Regardless, here’s what blooming in the Darden Garden in August.

Pink vitex – small bush, attractive to local bees, this is our second blooming after a hard cut early summer.

After blooming the flower spikes have these berries which can also be used.

Blue porterweed – butterfly attractor, small bush, lots of flower spikes.  Truth be told…………while this started out as a single plant 5+ years ago, this growth sprouted up about 3 feet from the original planting

Hard to get this bumble bee to hold still for my photos.

Orange bauhinia – tall bush, summer bloomer, long weeping branches give it a layering look.

Close up of the flower is below while the seed pods are easier to see above.  These pods ‘explode’ once mature and seeds travel 10+feet to disperse.  That’s their mechanism for plant survival.

True story……….working outside a couple years ago on my plants, I heard some faint  popping noises.  Saw a seed hit the side of our house, more than once.  Yep, the seeds were dispersing.

White fragipani – sensitive to cold temps, easy to propogate, received a cutting from our neighbor and I’ve kept them alive and grown more cuttings to give to others.

Purple passionflower vine – attracts gulf fritillary butterflies, they’re so hungry the larve usually eat all of the leaves on a vine, practically destroying the plant.  Yep, you can see below, we have not been visited by a fritillary butterfly since we have all of the leaves.

If the flower is pollinated, this passion fruit develops.

Clematis vine – given to us by one of Eric’s leaders a number of years ago, now is the season for the white fragrant blooms, the plant was cut back severely last winter after the loss of water caused a good portion of the plant to die.

It does much better when left alone to climb amongst neighboring plants than on the trellis above..

Firebush – great to use in bouquets, tends to become a pesky weed.  We had another bush in a different corner of the yard and 5+ years later, it’s still sprouting up no matter what I do to kill it.

The flowers are great, as are the berries found afterward.

Purple vitex – also attracts native insects, second blooming after being cut this summer.

We have two different insect boxes that invite native insects to live and lay eggs.  Eric made the one on the right and it was at least a year before bees started using it.  I guesss it just had to ‘weather’.

We have a few other pieces of  ‘whimsy’ around our flower beds.  This guy has been bleached white by the sun.

I’m closing this out by ending with this week’s bouquet I took to work.

By the end of the week, the flowers still look good, so I started leaving them in the nearby ladies (cast) restroom backstage and OMG……………..I have gotten multiple post-it notes left on my door, thanking me.  Such a simple thing and it has totally made a major impact – who could have guessed.

Ginny 

 

 

Some work weeks are good, some work weeks are better, but once in awhile, there’s a ‘yucky’ work week that messes everything up.  Yes, recently there’s been one of those ‘yucky’ weeks – btw, that’s a highly technical term – just saying.  🙂

Hmmmmmm?  What to do?  What to do?  Spend some time on the water, of course!  Who can complain about this view?

Very few people around, very few boats, calm breezes, blue skies and just a few fluffy clouds.  Man – we’ve got to start playing the lottery and win, not just win, but win big.

These birds were enjoying the peaceful morning as they dug in the bottom for their breakfast .

While it wasn’t that early, the sun was peeking through the trees in the Crystal River Preserve.

But let’s start at the beginning.  We booked a room at the Plantation Inn at Crystal River.  We love getting one of the rooms along the canal – to keep an eye on the boat.  That’s our room, third awning from the left.

The goal is always to go fishing, but at this time of the year, scalloping is also on the agenda, at least for some (meaning – not me).  I’m fine enjoying the time on the boat while others snorkel……………until it’s time to get the rods out.

We knew this season that scallops were pretty scarce and/or in deep water so our expectations were not high – good thing as their total scallop catch was 6.  That’s not a typo – probably our worst scallop trip ever.  But the photo doesn’t lie.  We also caught a bluefish, a mackerel and a silver trout.

No matter, an hour after we got back on land, we were eating at one of our top local picks…….Seafood Seller Café.

A fantastic way to start our meal is with the ‘tomato chips’.  Okay, okay, they don’t look like much, but these quartered and fried tomato slices are little tasty bits of heaven.

I ordered something different for me, grilled flounder, accompanied by fries and cole slaw – yum!  It totally hit the spot.  It had the right about of smokey flavor and grilled char on the fish.

Naturally, Eric ordered the crawfish – which is pretty standard for him.  Four pounds arrived on this tray.

Fried okra and red beans & rice rounded out his meal.  Adrienne couldn’t stay the  night and headed home after dinner – sorry about that. 😦   I wanted something ‘more’ to top off the night.  Ice cream answered the call.  Google search found a local ice cream shop within a few miles of our hotel.  We headed out for this treat.

I’ve become a fan of coffee ice cream and theirs was mighty tasty.  Eric stuck with his normal – butter pecan (kind of boring…………..).

We wanted to get on the water fairly early Monday morning and drove a short distance to this Greek restaurant.  It’s nothing fancy, but filling.

Funniest thing is several spots are ‘saved’ for the locals at this restaurant.  We planned on sitting at the counter instead of a table but were told those (empty) seats were taken.  Oh well, we found another spot.  Raisin bread French toast (my pick) and an omelette for Eric.

Monday on the water, we were greeted with this idyllic scene.

While I’ve never been on a sailboat, they’re great to look at.

This one brought a chuckle.

Motoring around King’s Bay, we go past multiple ‘tour’ boats.  Everyone wants to see the manatees.  The best time is in the winter when there are hundreds and hundreds of manatees seeking the relatively warm spring water (a balmy 72 degrees F).  Sometime I’ll share the story how a manatee ‘attacked’ my husband’s kayak.

Before heading out to the Gulf, we first need live shrimp from Pete’s Pier for bait.  Lo and behold, there’s a shrimp boat at Pete’s Pier.

We weren’t the only ones looking for shrimp………………see the white bird, he was looking for the perfect opportunity to grab a bite to eat.

Got our shrimp – √

Enough gas in the boat – √

A man and his dog – whaaattt?

You just never know what you’re going to see on the water – paddle boarding no less.

Ultimately, local storms chased us off the water.  We were only on the water less than 2 hours and didn’t target our ‘normal’ species, but…………….we got quite a catch!

• Top – mackarel
• Left side, top to bottom – grunts (2), mangrove snapper, silver trout.
• Right side, top to bottom – porgies (2), black sea bass (2), silver trout.

Eric made fun of the herbs that I used in the photo, but I think it adds an artistic flair.  And that’s the end of this story.

Ginny

 

 

 

 

 

There was a photo and article in our local paper that definitely caught my eye.

Why you may ask?  The soup dumplings turned into my comfort food during my 6 months in Shanghai.  I miss them – really, really miss them.  I had a (small, actually tiny) chance to get them last year when I flew to CA, but alas, it was not to be.  Once in a while we hear a place in Central Florida has them, we go, we order and then never need to go back.

This this article came out and Hawkers was the place to go!

Kind of cool how they used woks in their décor for lighting.

But then you see these……………….

We’re in the right place seeing the bamboo steamers.  🙂  Drinks were ordered as we ponder their weekend brunch menu.  Eric’s bloody mary is on the left, Adrienne’s beer on the right and my coke in the middle – someone has to drive.

We found the soup dumplings on the menu.  Two orders please.

We got a few other things to round out the meal.

Finally, the food came.

We ate Chinese style – which is to say family style.  It took me only a short time in China to really enjoy this aspect when going out to eat.  Then the dumplings arrived. YUM!

I’m definitely out of practice eating them.  We will have to rectify that – with more practice.  We will be back!

A sunday outing isn’t complete with out hitting a few local breweries to get our ‘stamps’ for our ale trail map.  While we had visited Dead Lizard Brewing Company in the past, we needed the stamp for our current map.  Besides, its a great name – just saying.

Next brewery was a new one for us …………..Castle Church Brewing.

Yep, its also a church.

While not really hungry, there’s always room for a ‘snack’ when you’re sharing amongst three, especially when you see a food truck at a brewery.

Some edamame with garlic and sea salt sounds good – and they were!  Simple but mighty tasty.

The place had an interesting interior – shipping containers.  They had been used so well, it took a while to notice the décor was a collection of these containers……..intriguing.

That’s the extent of our breweries on this excursion.  After heading home, then relaxing for a few hours………….this tray of cheeses, meats and fruit was all we needed to end our day.

Cheers!

 

Ginny

 

 

 

 

Yes, yes, yes, finally sat down to finish the SGI trip.  Writing about it means acknowledging the trip was over – which it is.  But………………there was a great ending.  Yep, you’ve got to wait until you reach the bottom of this post.

Earlier during the trip, I mentioned we had rainy weather, which gave us the opportunity to drive into Apalach.  Another day it was really windy (and I mean really windy) and not the best to get on the water.  You can’t be on the island without throwing out a line.  Rich threw some casts from our dock.

Rich fished while I sat on their wooden swing on their dock – loved that swing.  Several days I napped out here in the afternoon.  I want a swing……..

So you think, wait, that water looks calm, what’s the deal.  Our rental was near the back of a finger canal and we had plenty of protection from the gusts.  Hence the deceptive calm waters – not so much out in the bay.

The wind seemed to lessen late afternoon (at least enough for 2 brave souls).  Rich and Connor took a chance and fished from the protection of the SGI bridge island.  The ride back was something that I would have not wanted.  If I had been on the boat, that ride could have possibly been my last.  At least it had some payoff……..Gaft-top Sail cats, delicious but lots and lots of ‘snot’ along the outside for protection.  Another (very) appropriate name………..snot cats.

You’ve got to be careful with handling these fish, before and after you get them to the boat.  They have barbs on their fins which are poisonous and you need to be careful with any subsequent cuts on your hands when handling them.

 

I felt it was only fair to include a photo of Rich fileting his catch.  On an earlier post he was in the background-looking on-while Eric did the work.

Let me jump to a new topic and share info about our neighbor.  One side there was an empty lot, no house but plenty of parking and a nice dock with two boats.  Turned out it was a local fishing captain’s meeting spot.  Our first day she walked over to introduce herself.  Yes, that is not a typo – Captain Krista.

As you can read in the photo above, she is a 5th generation fisherman.  She has at least 20 boat captains working for her to handle all of her booked fishing tours.  She has a great website (stgeorgeislandcharters.com).  Definitely check it out!  Her family has fished these waters since the 1800s and she continues her honoring Creek Indian heritage of living off the land.

I also want to give a shout-out to a new brewery we (and by that I really mean me) found – Eastpoint Beer Company. We drove right past it to get to SGI, but somehow missed the sign.

It has a great open-air location along US98 and out the back garage door, is the intercoastal waterway.  Eventually they will have boat dockage at a back pier.  There is lots of potential here.  With Oyster City Brewing being relatively near, we were told that several Tallahassee Beer Bus Tours have stopped by, which is always good for the brewing business.

They had good beers………………..

……and these really cool containers for their beer flights, resembling an oyster boat.

Jumping again……….close to our rental, I came across some interesting ‘yard art’.  Karen and I stopped to snap a few photos.  Trust me, they had waaaaaay more art.

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Another morning, Rich and I walked along the beach.  Sounds like a good plan and looks like it should be a good plan.

Nope.  Notice that storm in the background in the photo below?  We thought this guy was crazy for fishing when we first walked past him, until the storm got to us and we were soaked before getting to the car.  I don’t mean wet, I mean soaked, like you could ring water out of our clothes.  Guess the joke was on us.  But I did get a nice photo of the boardwalk over the sand dunes when we got to the car.

Friday morning we made one last trip on the water.  Fishing was tough, but I caught what turned out to be the biggest fish of the week.  Wait for it………… wait for it………yep, you’ve got to wait for the photo.  The photo below was our last group fishing photo.  Notice all of that safety protection: hats, fishing shades, rashguard/shirts and buffs.  ‘Safe-D’ begins with us.  Sorry – inside joke.  🙂

We finally got everyone to the beach our last night on the island.

While its sad to leave, everyone gathered on the dock around the swing for one last group photo (my favorite spot again) signaling our final morning together at the rental.

Okay, the time has come to share my photo. Yep, that fish is big.  We estimated this seatrout was 24″in length.

There’s no immediate trip on our horizon or a calendar date to return, but we can’t stay away for long.  We’ll be planning something soon.  This was a Great trip with great friends.

Ginny

 

And you would expect the story to end there.  Trust me, I wish it had.  We’re within 30 miles of home, still on the turnpike  and Eric says  ‘We have a problem with the boat/trailer.  The tire on the trailer is coming apart’.  Aaaarrrrggghhh.

We seem to have a history with fishing trips and boat/trailer incidents.  On a SGI trip last year, our boat trailer broke an axel within sight of a marina – pretty darn lucky.  This situaiton occurred  within a mile of a turnpike reststop – more luck.  We were able to pull off and find a decent place to swap tires with our spare – safe and shady!

He got the  new tire on, walked to wash his hands and who do we come across?  A boy scout troupe.  Eric joked with them and asked if they have a badge for changing tires.  The troupe master said yes.  They would have helped us and gotten a badge for ‘Auto Repair’.  Wish they had pulled in 20 minutes earlier.  Now, that’s the end of our SGI story.  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

My last post mentioned cooking while on vacation.  Most would think that is a chore, but not my husband!  Cooking is his hobby and a way to relax – crazy I know.  But for him, the cooking is a key part of the entire week’s experience. Let’s just say when we’re looking for a place to rent (anywhere) the kitchen is the first photo he brings up.  Enough of that, let’s start where my last post left off – crabs.

He’s in the process of picking out the meat from the cooked crabs.  He was giving lessons to our friends.  Well, maybe not so much lessons, as advice.  It got very quiet in the kitchen while this was happening.  Can you feel the intense concentration just from the photo?

The steps being:

• Pull off legs & claws.
• Remove top shell from caripace
• Pull out/discard lungs and digestive tract.
• Break in half and begin picking out the crab meat.
• Pick meat off claws – some consider that the best and sweetest meat of all, hopefully it goes into the container, but just as often, it gets eaten now.

Those leftover pieces & parts…………………utilized to make a stock, adding in ‘aromatics’ such as onions, shallots and celery.  Now would be a great time to pour in some leftover white wine – just saying.  Why are we making stock……crab bisque!

The stock was an integral part of this.  The bisque being comprised of the ‘homemade stock’ and a blonde roux (flour & butter), seasoned to taste.    The crab meat was placed into the bowls with the bisque poured over it.

I’m not the biggest fan of bisque, unless I dunk some bread into the broth – oops, that’s my bread in the above photo..  🙂

We also used the crab meat to make crab cakes – much more my style.  Man – look at all of that meat!!!

Early in the week, we caught some mackerel.  Those fish were grilled before served, Mediterran style with olive oil, lemons, salt & pepper.  Love their platter – just saying.

The seatrout caught throughout the week, was served three different ways.  Initially it was panfried, then served over arugula, topped with almonds.

Another night it was served with a lemon butter sauce topped with capers.

But I got to tell you…………for many years and years and years, it was always served fried.  That’s hard to beat!  Yes, yes, the photo below is fried shrimp, but the fish nuggets were fried afterwards, I promise.

Let’s now talk shrimp.  While we occasionally fry the shrimp, truly the best way I like the shrimp is poached, then de-veined with the shell removed.  Rich does an awesome job with that task.

One evening all the guys were involved with our meal.  Connor was in charge of the cubic fried potatoes, while the other two cooked the fish.

What did the girls do?  Primarily the clean-up, which is no easy feat where my husband is concerned.  Just ask Karen.  I’m used to it, but he sure does use a lot of pans!  But, I also got a chance to sneak in this photo.

Oh yeah, that watermelon we picked up during our drive here – very tasty.

One more SGI post is coming.  I got a bit behind when Eric unexpectedly left town and work at home consumed my time.

Ginny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It began with kayaks…………graduated to a boat……………..and now all this extra stuff!  I couldn’t not have guessed in 2001 that going with Eric to Haulover Canal, while borrowing a friend’s kayak would have turned into this.  There are still people at work that upon meeting me can’t believe this part of my life, especially when I show them the epic fish I caught our last day at SGI.  Okay, maybe ‘epic’ is a bit of a stretch, but it was big.  Yes, this is a teaser for a post to come (3rd wave of SGI fishing).  But before that gets posted, the items in the title have become a common and daily occurrance on these SGI trips.

 

A key aspect of fishing is the bait – no surprise there.  When I first started fishing, it was all about hard baits with treble hooks, then we moved up to soft plastics.  Lately, we seem to be primarily using live bait when we can and that takes extra work – hence pinfish traps.

They don’t come with those ‘bars’.  That is an adaptation that Eric added – bars of rebar to stabilize the traps.  One of the first times we used the traps, there was a storm.  The next morning we had a (very) difficult time locating the traps since the waves rolled them from our ‘X’ on the Garmin screen.  One of our godsons had eagle eyes and found the small, brown float we first used, but not any longer.  Notice above, that first float has turned into a larger, white float – much easier to see.

If you’re lucky, this is what you find inside the traps – a pinfish.

It is a process.  After you select your trap, the next step it to find a location to place it.  Generally you look for thick grass, with a slight current 4-12 feet in depth.  Areas near bridge pilings, structures or boat docks are choice.  You can see our buoy along the right side of the photo (it’s that white dot!).

Next step is baiting.  Number 1 choice is raw fish, 2-5 lbs of dead bait.  Fish carcasses are great or if bait is bought, menhaden is a good bet since it is cheap and smelly.  Fish have a strong sense of smell, so the smellier the better – who knew?

Now, you’re ready to deploy your trap.  Hang on, this is exciting.

Put the long part in the direction of the current flow, making it easy for the bait to swim inside.  Don’t (!) check the trap every few hours – 12 to 24 is preferred.  When enough time has elapsed, check your trap.  Eric used a gaff to grab the buoy and trap while our friend Dennis checked out what was caught.

Pretty much we checked the traps in the morning as we were heading out, gathering the pinfish into the livewell.  We baited the traps at the end of the day with our fish carcasses – provided we caught something.  Next up, another bait.

A bait we occasionally use is shrimp.  These we don’t trap, but drive down to the local bait store and pick up (several) dozens.  We put them into another livewell and use them throughout the morning, until we run out.  😦  Oops, sometimes we don’t buy enough.

Speaking of shrimp………………..Gulp Baits are very popular and we used them throughout the week.  Brown (new penny), natural and nuclear chicken being the color of choice.  ‘What has brown done for you?”  is a catchy slogan on TV and yes, we used it thoughout the week.  Brown seemed to be a favorite color our caught fish enjoyed.

Of course, now this made my curious, what are Gulp Baits?  While there is waaaaay too much info on the internet, I boiled it down to a few factoids.

• Company started in 1945 by Berkley Bedell, who had been making flies since 1937, when he was 16 years old in Iowa.
• The company’s first breakthrough was the innovative Trilene in 1959.
• He started making soft plastic baits in the 1980s with his first ‘scented’ bait product in 1985.  Actually the soft baits are not truly plastic, but a water-based resin, mostly biodegradable.
• While the ‘scent’ is a trade secret, the company’s scientists analyzed the chemical make of what fish like to munch and integrated that into the resin formula.

That’s a pretty simple explanation for a highly technical process.  One key thing their website mentions is their continued commitment to research and development.

The last thing mentioned in my title……..Crab traps.  We brought two and the rental has one at the dock.  Our target crab is the Blue crab – considered by many to be the sweetest and best tasting of all.

Crab traps are a bit different than our pinfish traps – square versus round is the obvious difference.  Both require being baited for the targeted species.  A crab trap has the bait (fish carcasses) placed in the center.  Crabs walk around the cage, searching for ways to get to the bait, find the ‘secret’ entranceway and don’t (usually) get out.

The red wire (above photo) seen in the middle is where you stick the bait (fish carcasses).  You want crabs  to get inside the trap to reach the bait and not be able to snack on it from the outside or……………..no crabs!  This guy took the bait.

After you’ve massed enough for a crab boil, you assemble the essential items.  Eric is a fan of Zatarain’s, but there are others.

And yes, you have to have more ‘stuff’ such as this cooker.  I will say that cooking the crabs outside is an excellent decision.  When cooking in the kitchen, the spices get into the air and can get caught in your throat.  Now this means you have to ensure your propane tank is full…………..another oops, sorry guys, now the world knows.

After the water is boiling the crabs go into the pot.  If you don’t want to watch the video, skip past it – sorry Karen.

After a certain amount of time, they are dumped out and ready for the ‘picking of the meat’.

This is one (possible) end result – very tasty!

Next up, cooking and smoking our catches.

Ginny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We fished pretty hard the beginning of the week since mid-week the weather is turning against us.  There’s prep work getting the rods ready……….

And hopefully finding some pinfish in the traps………..

We went back to our favorite spots:  marsh island, youth camp and pelican reef.  We brought home a decent haul of fish.  🙂  on this trip.

The top fish is a different species – a bluefish, very tasty when smoked.

We didn’t get home any too soon.  I got a shot of the guys fileting the fish while it was raining.

We took advantage of the down time and drove to the Piggly Wiggly for a few more necessities.  Man – what a wine selection for a small town!

Sometimes there’s a lot of action on the boat, sometimes there’s not.

Sometimes we catch keepers and other times we don’t.

Connor is my buddy and we usually end up sitting on the cooler & cushion in front of the console.  Yep, we’ve got our life vests on.   Safety first!

However, if the ride back is too rough, I head for the seats in the back and hold on.  Sorry Connor.

Eric cropped one of the photos and while I gave him a lot of grief, it’s a really good photo.  Here are ‘The Guys from SGI”.

 

While this post is fairly short, there’s one more wave of fishing coming AND a few other SGI posts.  Patience.

Ginny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow!  It rains and EVERYBODY drives to Apalachicola!  It was a bear to park and we took two vehicles – guys & girls- which only added to the parking mess.

I’m going to start with one of my favorite shops (which came back after an absence of years) Betsy’s Sunflower.  Karen and I were shopping  at her original location 20+ years ago.  Then one visit, they were gone. 😦  I found out later that she moved to Maine and has only recently come back to Apalachicola.  I LOVE this store.

We actually ran into Betsy while we were shopping and she shared that last year’s hurricane (Michael) did $50K damage to her first store and they moved to this location in the High Cotton Marketplace building – which stayed dry during the hurricane.  Its a bit smaller than her other store, but she still has some interesting things – at least for me.

Yep, I made some purchases.  Something I did every time I walked into her store, at her first location and once she came back!

Another favorite is Riverlily.  Eric doesn’t love the place since one focus is lotions & soaps and yes, as soon as you open the door it assails your senses.  For years, I always purchased earrings here – that was before Karen and I made them.

Grady Market is a fun place.  I typically found (newer style) t-shirts from Life is Good.  This time I refrained.  There are a number of small vendors that have clusters of merchandise inside the building – some waaaay too expensive for my wallet.

They have some cute garden features out back (sorry Karen I couldn’t resist).

There are a several streets that have storefronts with a variety of merchandise.  Today we didn’t add to their economy, but we have in the past.

Peddlers Alley is a fun place to shop.  They have lots of garden items that add a touch of whimsey.  There are so many nooks and crannies that you could come back again and find something you missed earlier.

Go Fish is a place fun to shop and look, but very seldom have I purchased items.  They have some interesting clothing, but too casual for my work.

There was one cool place we stopped The Tin Shed.  It had lots of nautical items that could be incorporated into a beach-side décor.  Past purchases are sitting in our Florida room at home.

While we were shopping, the guys stopped at Oyster City Brewing Conpany.  Loved their sign out front.

Before we left town, we ate at a new restaurant.  Good food, but the kitchen is still finding their way.  Unfortunately we had been there an hour before the gumbo arrived.

This is near the place that held our boat in storage last year when the boat trailer was getting refabricated.

Eric started with a cup (literally) of gumbo followed by a  (whole) fried flounder and I ordered chicken strips (yep, tired of seafood).

So ends a day of shopping and eating at Apalachicola when rain thwarts fishing plans.

Ginny  

 

 

 

 

 

 

We left Karen (in peace and quiet) while heading east to fish the bay.

We’re motoring to known fishing spots that we’ve all been in the past, usually on kayaks, then beyond those areas.  I’ve heard about Pelican Reef, Marsh Island,  pilot harbor,  East End, Goose Island, Youth Camp oyster bars and the ‘highway of life’ for many years.  Dennis fished them while he lived in Tallahassee.  Eric fished them when visiting Dennis.  Myself and Rich fished some of these points when we joined the ‘kayak fishing  club’.  But it starts with getting onto the island.  This bridge brings us to SGI.

We’re fishing with (1) live bait and (2) soft plastic artificial lures – more on that in a future post.  We have 11 rods between the five of us (trust me, that’s not hardly enough).  Eighty pounds of ice between the drink cooler and the fish cooler.

As in life, nothing is guaranteed and that’s more with fishing that one would hope.  However………………….this first trip we were successful!  Others had put fish in the cooler before me, but this is my first keeper seatrout.

Eric caught this shark………..and released him.

Eventually we were chased off the water by this.

And this, which kind of surprised us as it came from the coastline.  Let me tell you, rain hurts on the boat!  Not the boat – but when those rain drops hit you and you’re going 42 mph, droplets pack quite a punch.

This was a nice Father’s day photo with Rich and Connor.

But overall, this excursion netted us 10 fish and we all put keeper fish in the cooler.  Fish count was 5 seatrout and 5 mackerel.

There’s another key step involved with catching fish……….cleaning and filleting the fish.  Eric is the master (sorry guys, I’m married to him).  His filet competition is Audrey, but she’s not here.  😦  Nor is her brother, Warner.  Not sure if Connor was aware he photo-bombed this shot.

Eric drew a crowd – of the feathered kind.  As he was cleaning the fish, these pelicans (and some seagulls) waited for the fish guts.

Later that day, three of us went back out on the water.  The weather looked dicey later in the week and we want to rack up as many hours fishing while the weather was good. We had another good trip.  That flat fish seen at the bottom of the photo……..It’s a flounder.  We could thank Connor for that one!  It’s my favorite and an elusive fish since we don’t specifically target them.

Swimming in the morning, dinner that night.  That’s the goal for any fish we catch.  The mackerel turned into sushi.

The seatrout turned into Trout Almondine.  Since Eric couldn’t find the slivered almonds he packed, we used  marcona almonds.  OMG!  Those were Italian almonds and I don’t think we can go back to using anything else.

While we didn’t catch these shrimp ourselves, they were locally caught – and very delicious I might add.  Having homemade remoualade and cocktail enhanced their flavor – thanks hon. Love the platter and bowl!

While I can’t take credit for this sunset photo (thanks Karen!) it’s a fitting way to end this post.

Ginny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah!!!  We headed to St. George Island for a week of fun, fishing, eating, shopping and exploring.

Pulling the boat, we try to stay off the interstates as much as possible. The little bit we did was crazy!  Too many cars and semis were on the road.  I assume they were all heading up North after a week at Disney and/or the beach.

We had a goal for a roadside watermelon stand and once off the interstate our chances were definitely going to increase.  But what is important to us is that we get one that is seeded.  Success!

Why, you may ask……………..they taste better! While the seedless ones have been the rage for a number of years,  I would rather do without then eat one of those.

But before going on, I’m sharing a few watermelon factoids:

• Florida has a great climate for growing watermelons and is a leading producer for the state (North Florida).
• While considered a summer fruit, growers in Florida can plant it as a winter crop.
• Florida is the only state in the country that produces this fruit December to April.

We’re a little too early to check-in to our rental AND we were hungry so we’re meeting our friend Dennis at Aplachicola’s Hole in The Wall Seafood – a family owned restaurant and oyster bar.

It’s nothing fancy, just good (fried) seafood.  The owner and his wife are practical and no nonsense folks.  It’s not an extensive menu, not much seating, some communal tables and unfortunately no Apalachicola oysters.  The day we were there they were closing early at 3pm to watch sports.  They locked the door with us inside and no one else was served.  There were people trying to get in, but no such luck (for them).   Fried grouper fingers and fried shrimp were our seafood choices this day.

The décor is eclectic – neon beer signs and baseball caps line the walls.

Finally the time came for check-in (4pm).  Man – it was also a zoo at the rental company.  We parked along the side of the road to stay out of the mess. Of course it doesn’t help that we’re extra long with the boat.  🙂

Everyone names their houses and this was no different.  We are staying at Canal-a-Bye.  It doesn’t look like much from the outside………….

But hey, it suits our needs and primarily we are here for the fishing, not luxury accommodations.  Three bedrooms, 3 baths, a porch and most importantly a dock.

And let’s not forget the ‘man cave’.  The guys are keeping a bunch of their stuff in this room next to the garage.

We were able to launch the boat the day of check-in and get it to our dock.

Eric finally gets to use this ‘special’ buoy he got for Christmas.  He has such a good wife.  🙂

The first night is about settling in, getting the fishing ‘stuff’ ready and planning our time on the water. Hang tight – more to come!

Ginny