Author: ginnyinshanghai

We were supposed to leave this morning but since we have had such rainy weather and the fishing forecast looked promising for this weekend, we inquired about availability.  While we couldn’t stay in the same apartment, they did have another 1 bedroom apartment available and no one was currently staying in it.  As we packed up last night, we called the owner (Ben) and asked if we could put our fridge items into the new apartment.  He had already given Eric the door code………………..so he said yes.  Actually, we packed up whatever we didn’t need and moved a good deal of our stuff over Friday evening.

So while the photo below doesn’t look promising, the clouds provide a nice cover and keep the temps a bit cooler.  Looking at the weather radar, we should be able to fish most of the morning.

After my bagel breakfast, we got everything on the boat and headed to the Gulf.  We are taking one of our upstairs neighbors with us, 14-year-old Blayton.  Their family boat is not as long as ours and usually their dad only takes one person with them when they go fishing.  Blayton was interested in going with us and it was fine by me.  Eric told him to be ready to go by 7:30 am.  We had to set our alarm to be sure that we were awake and ready since we gave him a timeframe!

We easily got to Sarasota Bay and Blayton caught something his first cast – 18″ trout.  My second cast I caught a 20″ trout!  His next cast he caught a 18″bluefish.  We were on fire.  But then the fire died 😦  We didn’t catch any other keepers while we drifted this bay.  We headed down to the ‘middle grounds’ for several drifts.  We each caught at least 1 trout, but they were all shorts.  About this time we checked the radar and needed to head back.  Just then we got a text from Blayton’s dad giving us a heads up about the weather.  We should have left earlier.

Eric stopped at a marina to see about taking cover and they suggested a restaurant across the channel – we got there as quick as we could to tie up.  It’s nice having a young man with us so that he could help Eric.  I went inside the restaurant while they were getting the boat tied up before the storm truly hit us.

We barely made it and both of the guys got wet right at the end.  We were sitting inside when Eric remembered the GPS wasn’t protected.  Blayton ran down to give it some protection from the elements – what a good kid. 🙂

I wasn’t that hungry and got an appetizer that was hunks of chicken accompanied by a sweet chili sauce – delicious!  Eric ordered fish & chips.

 

The weather finally blew past us and we could get back on the boat and head home.  Of course, once there, we had to take photos.  One minor mishap before we got off the boat at the dock……….a treble hook lure got stuck (really stuck) into my shorts.  It took me 1/2 hour before I could get it separated.  My shorts aren’t too worse for wear and can still be worn.  Eric said he enjoyed having Blayton on board for a multitude of reasons, but one of the first things he mentioned was the fact that Blayton took off all of the fish that I caught that were not keepers – gave him more time to fish. 🙂

Since the storm was over (for the moment) we walked to the beach to check out the surf.  Eric had been hunting off and on all week for shark teeth.  Blayton found one within the first few minutes.

The surf was fairly quiet this afternoon, even though we could see more storms to the south of us.

Blayton brought some food with him, which was a good thing.  However, not  he or his dad had ever heard about the ‘banana thing’.  Never bring bananas onto a boat if you want to catch fish! We once had a fishing captain lecture us 10+ minutes before leaving the dock about bananas.  Eric already knew about that superstition before-hand and we have never brought any with us.  Blayton questioned the wisdom of the superstition since we had caught several fish today.  Eric’s response “Just think how many fish we could have caught!”.  Eric was sure to tell his dad that after the day was done, Blayton thanked him for bringing him on today’s fishing trip – a nice respectful young man.

 

Friday morning dawned bright and clear.  The wind has died down so we will be able to travel through the Gulf to head north, but first breakfast!  Eric made me something different this morning, a cheese omelette, with a side of bacon of course  :).

It took about 1/2 hour to get to Sarasota Bay.  We were probably a little bit later than we should have been to arrive, but we did get some fish.  I caught a keeper trout (with multiple short ones) and Eric got an good-size Jack Crevalle.  He also got a nice blue fish which he plans to smoke and use for fish dip.

When the bite stopped, we headed south, staying in the intercoastal waterway and came upon a pod of dolphins.  They’re just so hard to get a good photo.

We found another place to fish, the ‘middle grounds’, which looked decent.  We got several bites, but no keeper fish.  The tide’s wrong so we might be back at a different time this week before leaving to go home.  We located a place to eat where we can dock the boat.  It’s called Casey Key Fish House.  One of the Venice shopkeepers mentioned this place and it had good reviews.  But before we got there we had to go through one of Florida’s last swing bridges.  With our T-top, we only had inches to spare when going underneath.  We took the rods out of the holders, laying them down and also adjusted the antennae.  Good things the tide is going out and not high tide.  This is our second time going through it and we actually saw it in use for another vessel that was too tall.  Interesting to see it work.  The bridgekeeper comes out of the office, walks onto the middle of the bridge, then works the mechanism to get it to swing out – while they are in the middle.

Just past it is the Casey Key Fish House at Marker 32.

We both had sandwiches.  Eric got fried grouper (left) while I got a fried snapper (right) sandwich.  Both were good, along with the fries and the cole slaw.

There was a large group celebrating someone’s birthday and by 3pm they were feeling no pain (and being rather loud).

It was so nice to see the sun, I had to throw in another blue sky/white cloud photo.  Unfortunately, with all of this sun, I got a bit too much of it and have a sun burn.  Clouds are nice when they don’t have any rainstorms inside of them.

Since we ate lunch so late, there wasn’t really a need for dinner.  We snacked on munchies we had around the house and it was plenty to eat.  Eric still had to clean the fish we caught earlier in the day.

We tried our hand at surf fishing again as the tide was coming in.  Unfortunately it is a late tide so we didn’t go to the beach until after 8:30pm.  It got dark quickly.

 

We got to fish today!  While it is still very windy, there are no storms in sight and very little rain.  We woke to blue skies and white fluffy clouds.

Eric fixed my breakfast bagel (bacon, egg & cheese) and I enjoyed eating it on our covered porch.  Our upstairs friend, Blayton, was chatty as ever and joined us downstairs.  We went back to Blackburn Bay but even though we fished hard, we only came back with one trout that Eric caught.  He also got another Jack Crevalle and put it in our cooler.

By 11:30 am we were tired and hot and ready for lunch.  We wanted something different and pizza fit the bill.  Eric found a highly rated Italian restaurant in the downtown historic section of Venice and that became our destination.  We got there at 1pm and there was only one other table occupied.  We sat outside under cover and enjoyed the breeze that persisted even away from the water.  We started with a glass of wine as we enjoyed a tomato & olive oil dip with fresh bread.

I ordered a caesar salad and Eric got a cup of minestrone soup to start our lunch.  I still wanted pizza and they had several types available by the slice.  Eric ordered Eggplant Parmigiano.

His meal also came with dessert and we tried a limoncello cake – it was delicious and was dressed with a strawberry coulee.

We planned on fishing this afternoon, but it was just too hot.  Instead, we napped.  After all, we are on vacation.  🙂

Late afternoon we tried a different type of fishing for us – bridge fishing.  Our upstairs neighbors are well-versed in this type of fishing and having been doing it every day  AND have a large cooler full of mangrove snapper, black drum and a few redfish.  We weren’t really sure which bridge they were fishing from, but we headed south.  We tried one bridge and was turning around when we ran into them.  We followed them to a different bridge, observed their technique, made a few casts then headed back.  I got a good hit, but it bit off the line once it got close to the boat.  We decided that learning how to do this in the dark/dusk was a Darden recipe for disaster.

Dinner was a spicy seafood soup that Eric has made before on one of our other fishing trips.  He has been working on it for several days, adding bits and pieces of seafood that he has been gathering.  Along with shrimp there was crab meat (from the flame streak box crab) with the soup base being a fish stock using the Jack Crevalle he caught earlier.  On top of that was layered fennel, saffron and lemon juice.  It was very tasty and the artisanal bread from Publix was a nice accompaniment.  We spent the remainder of the evening on the back porch listening to country music and enjoying the quiet of Casey Key.

 

It is really windy today!  It was blowing 30 knots when we looked out the window in the morning.  It’s going to be too windy to fish, but we’ll find something else to do.  We walked to the beach first thing (after drinking my coffee)  and it looked like we were on the Atlantic side with the waves roaring in, not typical of the Gulf at all.  When we got back, Eric fixed me some French toast from our leftover baguette.  Since it was my birthday, he wanted to fix me something special.  🙂 We didn’t have any syrup but I had bought some strawberry-margarita jelly from the Farmer’s Market and after thinning it, it became a good syrup.  Quite good actually, we’ll have to remember that trick.

There are some big storms going to come ashore later this morning so our plans are changing and we’re going sight-seeing.  Since we’re so close to Sanibel Island on this trip, we’re driving down to check it out.  I went there many, many years ago on a trip with Tom & Beverly when we stayed on the island.  I think I may have driven on the island another time since I moved to Florida, but it was a long time ago.

By the time we got there, it was lunch time.  We found a place called ‘The Island Cow’ which had good reviews.  Thank goodness for the internet.  It’s so easy to find places to eat and also check out the reviews to read about others’ experiences at restaurants.  While many places on the island sounded interesting, we wanted a more ‘simple’ (read cheap) place to eat.

They had an extensive menu and all kinds of things you could order.  We started with fried pickles (Frickles).  They tasted great but we had WAY too many for the two of us.

We both wanted something different than seafood.  I ordered BBQ pulled pork and Eric ordered a cheeseburger.  Both were okay, but not anything that I would go back for.  It was mostly about the atmosphere.  They had a very ‘eclectic’ decorating style – perfect for an island beach vacation restaurant.

There was seating outside, but with the weather being so dicey we sat inside.  By the time we left, it had started raining and they pulled their plastic tarps down for protection.  Don’t know if that really protected them later (15+ minutes) as the rain and wind were blowing sideways and lightening & thunder were all around.

We drove almost to the end of the Captive Island (during the height of the storm) when it was coming ashore.  We got only so far and then finally turned around.   Really – no need to drive further in this driving rain.  We passed the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge so we thought we would wait out the storm and see their exhibits.  It was pretty interesting.  He was originally from Des Moine, IA and became a big conservationalist for his time in the 1930s.  H was a cartoonist for the Des Moine paper and many of his illustrations lamented the disappearing habitat for wildlife.  His major contribution was to create  a Duck stamp where sales went toward purchase and creation of wildlife areas for migratory duck.

On a former trip, I remembered going on a drive through their wildlife acerage and and as we left, we saw the entrance and decided to make the drive.  It won’t be anything that we have to do again.  Seeing Black Point drive near Titusville puts this to shame.

By the time we got back to Casey Key, the rain had stopped (but not the wind) and the sun was out.  We walked to the beach and picked up a few shells before heading back.  Lots of people were out walking since the rain had finally stopped.  Eric kept looking for shark teeth but couldn’t find any.  We needed Connor (2nd Godson) and his eagle eyes to find some.

 We also walked past some markers for turtle nests.  I didn’t realize they were in this area.  We always saw them on SGI and saw lots of communication about keeping lights off during the hatching season.

Most of the evening was spent sitting outside on our porch and talking to our neighbors youngest son (Blayton), a bright young kid.  Reminds me of Connor – very polite, respectful and entertaining.    His family is from Polk county and he is proud to share that he is the 5th generation that has been visiting this key.  His older brother (Hunter) is upstairs on the phone.  Their parents are fishing – crazy.  They didn’t leave the house until after 8pm and are still fishing when I went to bed at 11pm.  Eric showed me their cooler of fish the next morning – lots of snapper and another redfish.  Today was

 

We woke up to cloudy skies and rain around us, but was pretty sure that we could get some fishing in before noon.  Luckily, the place we’re fishing is really close to our rental.

We’re still fishing with shrimp and while we didn’t catch as many as yesterday, we did come back with some keeper fish.  I got a keeper trout (16″) and Eric kept a Jack crevalle.  He read that Andrew Zimmeren had convinced a fishing guide on his travel show to keep one and cook it, saying it was an unappreciated fish and quite tasty.  Eric had to try it for himself.  By the way……….fish selfies don’t really work.

Looking in the background of the photos – above and below – it’s still raining.  We got caught out in the rain just when we were thinking of coming in.  Good thing we’re so close to home!

Most of the day it was a nice, soaking rain and we need it.  Florida is in the middle of a drought, much like in 1998.  The really bad weather is north and south of us.  The hailing channel has a small boat advisory for all of the Gulf coast of Florida.

We went out for lunch again. This time Eric found a place that served Chicago-style dogs.  Once there he changed his mind and ordered a beef sandwich topped with green peppers & cheese, but I stuck with my original lunch plans – chili slaw dog.  Eric added an order of cheese fries.

Before heading back we drove through the historic downtown part of Venice.  We saw a ‘Florida Olive Oil’ shop which interested Eric and I went next door to a clothing store.  We both made purchases – ha!

Eric wants to cook the fish on the grill tonight.   The rental has a charcoal grill and Eric pulled it under the porch for some cover to get the fire going and keep himself dry.

He thought the Jack tasted great.  It’s nothing that I would request to eat again.  The trout fillet was much better.  He also made a nice, refreshing summer salad.  He ate something similar yesterday and this is his version.  It contains cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and the carrots we picked up at the Farmer’s market last Saturday.  It was very tasty and something we will repeat again.

So the next family that moved in yesterday, caught a crab and brought it back with them.  They didn’t want it, so Eric said he would cook it.  He did some research and found out it was a flamed-streaked box crab.  It has a special adaptation that allows it to spurt water out the top of his head – you can just barely see it below.  They’re not usually found and even the internet didn’t have a lot of info.  Seems like it is mostly a southern crab species.  He also read the claws were better than stone crabs to eat – he agreed.

Earlier today, I had flashbacks from Shanghai when my laptop wouldn’t work.  We had a few close lightening strikes and after multiple restarts of this computer, I guessed that we must have a problem with the router.  I couldn’t find it so Eric texted the rental guy.  Our router is in the nearby laundry room, who knew.  After shutting it off, I finally got connected – about 30 minutes later.  AArrgh, it’s frustrating.  Love it when technology works, not so much when it doesn’t.

Saturday:

Explored south of us, Dana Bay, cast a few times before coming back.

Sunday:

Mostly explored, in the morning went up to Sarasota Bay via the Gulf, few casts before coming back the intercoastal.  Scouted a few spots for future forays.

Monday:

Weather was mostly cloudy and overcast, minimal breeze.  Fished Blackburn Bay, being on the water by 8:30am, used live shrimp on circle hooks.

Ginny: 2 keeper trout (15+  & 16 3/4″) also shorts

Eric  3 keeper trout (sll 15+)  also shorts

Tuesday:

Weather was cloudy and overcast and a good breeze was blowing.  We fished Blackburn Bay, being on the water at 9:00 am.  Used live shrimp for bait on circle hooks.  Light rain got us off the water at 11:00am.

Ginny:  2 trout, 1 was a keeper (16″), sail-top cat fish (didn’t keep)

Eric:  short trout, 1 jack crevelle

Wednesday:

Rained and stormed most of the day – no fishing.

Thursday:

Very windy, but no rain to speak of, definitely no storms.  Still using shrimp as bait. Went to Blackburn Bay, then a bit further north.

Ginny: 1 blue fish, we let it go (read – lost it at the boat)

Eric: 1 keeper trout, 1 nice Jack Crevalle

Friday:

Sunny day with winds 5-6 mph.  We were able to head out into the Gulf going north towards Sarasota Bay.

Ginny: 1 keeper trout (16″), multiple short trout, gaft-top sail cats, hard head cats,

Eric: lady fish, blue fish (2, only kept 1), Jack Crevalle, short trout

Saturday:

Ginny:  1 keeper trout (20″) plus short trout

Eric:  1 trout chewed off

Blayton:  1 keeper troutXX” plus short trout, blue fish,

 

 

 

 

There are storms out in the middle of the Gulf but we believe we can get in a few hours of fishing this morning.  We’re going to Blackburn Bay, only a 10 minute boat ride away.

This fishing is different than our norm on the Gulf coast.  Places we fish are usually in the middle of nowhere, with nary a person or house in site.  Much different here.  With the weather being so dicey in the Gulf, we’re sticking with the intercoastal waterway and there are houses everywhere along the water.  We are also fishing with live shrimp and our norm is artificial soft baits. But that didn’t keep us from catching fish this morning!  We found an area that had good looking bottom (grass with sand patches) and once we found some baitfish, we were in luck.  We ended up with 5 keeper trout.  Eric caught 3 while I got 2 (mine were the biggest ones).

We kept hearing weather warnings on the radio channel so around 11am we headed back.  While Eric filleted the fish, I went to go check out the beach before bad weather hits.  We are 1 block away from the beach and have access through a narrow passageway across the street.

Not many people on the beach.  Yesterday there were people everywhere.

Today we’re treating ourselves to lunch at a local restaurant:  Captain Eddie’s Seafood Restaurant & Retail Market.

We sat outside at their tiki bar, even though it was raining.  Since we planned to have fish tonight, we made sure to order a different type of seafood.  I had fried shrimp while Eric ordered broiled Mangrove snapper.

Since the rains have settled in for the afternoon, we found some bait & tackle stores in the area and checked them out.  We also drove by a Tervis outlet and I picked up another Tervis mug.  My first one (SGI) is getting stained and it’s time for it to be replaced.

After having my original life vest for 16 years, I decided to invest in a newer one.  Eric said it was so old, it probably had no buoyancy anyway.  We did get a kick out of one of the ‘features’…………

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing.  Since we had so much for lunch, dinner was cheese, bread, meats and almonds.  Good first day of fishing.

 

 

 

The rain has finally come to Florida – just in time for our beach vacation.  Doesn’t matter, we will still get some fishing in and hopefully catch something to eat.  We enjoy the time together, time away from work and the time to be near and/or on the water.

We motored the boat half an hour north of us heading towards Sarasota Bay this morning (sunday).

We had checked the weather and radar before leaving and while we knew we would get chased from this area eventually, we were able to get some fishing time in before leaving.  Unfortunately, we didn’t catch anything. 😦  This snapshot of the weather radar eventually convinced us to head back south before it came on shore.

Going there we went out the nearby inlet and headed north in the Gulf since it wasn’t too rough.  Coming back we stayed in the intercostal waterway and scouted for trout fishing areas to hit later this week.  We found several that looked promising.

My breakfast bagel could only hold me so long and we were both getting hungry on the ride back.  Lunch was items that we picked up yesterday at a German market (Geiers).  Eric had heard about this place from friends and Disney chefs and he was VERY excited when we drove past it and after making a U-turn, we were there.

Items purchased included: bratwurst, frankfurters, sauerkraut, cucumber & dill salad, veal bologna, spicy bologna, goose liverwurst and German beer.  These turned into our lunch for today (not all of it and not the beer).

It was a lazy afternoon – after all, we are on vacation.  Eric napped while I read.  Later we did some exploring, checking out the jetty at the end of this key.  We made some stops, eventually ending up back at Publix for more groceries.  We passed by a fish market and while all of their fish looked fresh, we only came home with some smoked mullet fish dip.

To end the day, we did some surf fishing with Eric rigging up this special deal.  While we both got bites on our respective rods, no fish were brought to the beach.  However, we did see many things right off the surf:  dolphins, tarpon and a manatee.

 

 

We’re heading out for a week of fishing and relaxing.  I heard about this place from a guy at work and after pulling it up on the internet, it looked interesting.  We did a little checking around for places to stay and after putting in our desired dates…….we had a vacation planned.

Of course before heading out for any Darden vacation, there is lots of planning involved.  While Eric had been working on the boat through the week to get it clean AND we had been laying clothes/food to pack, we still had a few errands Saturday morning.  We stopped at the Winter Garden Farmer’s Market for some fresh produce.  We never get to stop by since it only runs on Saturdays and normally we work that day.  We found some interesting ‘rainbow’ carrots and golden ripe pineapples.

We had breakfast at the Winter Garden Restaurant which serves a traditional southern breakfast.  We haven’t eaten there in probably 8 years.

Eric ordered corn beef hash over hash browns & eggs while I got a waffle with eggs and bacon.

One more stop (I thought) on our way home was to a French bakery in Winter Garden.

But still……………………we had one more stop, for ice.  Can you ever have too much ice?

Finally got back home, hooked up the boat and we were on our way to Casey Key.  It’s  located on the Gulf coast, south of Sarasota and southwest of where we live.

Two and a half hours later, we were pulling into Casey Key.  The rental place we found was Harbor Lights Beach Resort.

Cute little place, four tiny apartments of which we have the bottom floor, facing the canal where we dock the boat.  The kitchen is non-descript but will suffice.  We joke that the worst the kitchen is, the better that Eric’s meals become.

The street is fairly narrow so luckily the guy renting the apartment to us suggested we launch the boat at a nearby boat ramp before coming to the rental.  Great idea!  I don’t think we could have gotten down the street and been able to turn around.  Eric already knew the trailer would have to be kept elsewhere.  We launched the boat, dropped the trailer in the nearby parking and I drove the truck to the rental.

After unpacking we explored the key, eventually getting back on the main land.  Eric found a tackle store where he wanted to purchase a fishing chart for this area.  Had a quick stop at Publix for a few forgotten items, then we were back at the rental.  Supper was spaghetti with the bread we purchased earlier in the day.

It was still light after eating so we took the boat into the intercoastal waterway for a bit of exploring.  We motored to Robert’s Bay and did some casting, but no bites hit either rod.  We headed home and settled in for the night.

Working 6 months in Shanghai gave me a chance to meet other Disney leaders from across the world.  My HOH partner in China heralded from Disneyland, CA – Adrienne.  This is actually her second visit to WDW since we came back to the states.  She came in the Spring for business but this trip was a vacation, with a half marathon thrown in.

She ran the Star Wars half marathon early Sunday morning and then we picked her up  with the intent of seeing Florida wildlife and nature on the East coast.  However, first on the agenda was lunch at Dixie Crossroads in Titusville.

We haven’t been there since I began to eat shrimp.  Through the years we have gone with family and friends to the restaurant, but I always ordered fish.

At the beginning you get a basket of fritters (covered in powdered sugar) and both Eric and Adrienne ordered a bowl of seafood gumbo.

Then came the shrimp!  Eric had a chance to order the ‘royal reds’ since they are being caught now while we both ordered the rock shrimp.  Adrienne got them broiled while I had mine fried (of course!).

 

We planned on driving through ‘Black Point Wildlife Drive’ however it was closed due to a burn that still had some hot spots – bummer.  We drove to the Haulover Canal boat ramp and a large group of manatees were putting on a show.  I can never get any good photos of manatees but I included a decent one.  Couldn’t resist a photo of the sign.  Really – who waters the manages.

Dinner was at the Crooked Can Brewery in downtown Winter Garden.  Beverly joined us and the four of us enjoyed some craft beers and pizza.

Plans were to go fishing on Monday at Crystal River, so Adrienne spent the night ensuring an early start.   We put in at Pete’s Pier and motored down the river and out the end of the channel.  Lately, we’ve been fishing near the power plant canal and have had some incredible luck.  While a bit chilly on the ride out, when the sun peeked out from the clouds we could shed our coats.  Adrienne did really well for never casting a rod but unfortunately didn’t get any fish.  Both Eric and I caught a mangrove snapper.

The ride going back in was a much different story.  The wind had definitely picked up and the ride back turned into a E-ticket ride, with both of us getting soaked.

Monday’s catch turned into dinner later in the week.

We met up with two of our other Shanghai group for dinner at ‘Jiko – the meeting place’, located at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge.

We started with the bread sampler of Africa.  The ladies ordered the filet mignon while the guys both ordered the short ribs.  We were too full for any dessert.

We finished the evening with a selfie in the hotel’s lobby.  The meal was enhanced by the company present.  It was a good evening with a re-telling of many of our Shanghai stories and memories.