Slingin' Bugs After Work

Have I mentioned lately how awesome my wife is? Yeah well, she is.  I pick up the kids on my way home... she calls. 

"Weather's so nice... you should go fishing."

Smile starts to curl.  Wheels start to turn. 

Awesome, right?  I freakin' love that woman.

So I get home and transfer the kids over to that awesome woman, then quickly venture down to the Choi-cave.  Still somewhat torn about where to go and what to target, I rummaged through the haystack of rods hoping one would jump out... begging to be used.  Under all my CBBT stuff, my TFO 6wt peeked through with a popper still on it from last time.  The hook was getting rusty and the white rubber legs were starting to change colors.  Bingo.  

Deep breathes... letting the soul soak up the goods.

I grabbed one more popper, stuck it in my pfd and rushed off to the James.  

It was a perfect evening.

Without changing the fly once, I had plenty of action for 2 hours.  

8"-10" smallies kept me on my toes and chuckling.  

Just as it was getting dark, I had one around 15"...

... but it got off on the first jump.

Oh well.  

Still an amazing evening not to be taken for granted.

Recent Critters

Very colorful Pigfish

Face like a dragon.  Sea Robin

Sea Robin

Chompers of a Pufferfish

Fish Taggin' Bender

Photo credit: Joseph Underwood

After receiving info on some of my tagged fish recaptures, I've been even more motivated to keep sticking it to 'em.  So much so that I went on a bit of a bender with Richie Bekolay.  On Saturday afternoon we went to Lynnhaven inlet and found the little red drum all over the place as well as a few small flounder and black sea bass.  We eagerly watched the radar knowing that a storm was on the way.  We got off just in time and waited it out in the parking lot.  After the longer than expected down time, we made our way over to HRBT and searched the light line for some stripers.  It took us a while, but we eventually found them.  Most were fairly small (16"-18") but we managed a few skinny ones that went 23.5" and 24.5".  I also jigged up a few itty bitty flounder and croaker.  We got off the water around midnight and got to passing out in the our cars around 1:30.

The 5 am rendezvous time for the CBBT came quick.  Joe Underwood was already there, amped up and ready to go.  The three of us made good time getting out to the spots and quickly found the spades. None of them were very big (7"-11"), but fun none the less.  After dropping fiddlers for a bit with no love, we moved on toward the 1st island and found the mother load of small flounder.  I was getting hits on every cast for a while and emptying out my tagging gun quickly.

Barely hooked

Eventually the bite slowed down and we switched to dropping fiddler crabs again.  Joe was the only one finding the bite and hooked up more than once to a big sheepshead.  Unfortunately, he couldn't seal the deal on any.  I was a good distance away when Richie tells me over the VHF radio that Joe was hooked up a third time to a big sheepie.  Then a few minutes later, the wind carried over a not-so-happy scream.  Dude was especially pissed.  Later on I found out he had it halfway in the  kayak and the leader popped.  I feel for him, but I'm sure he'll get one if not more before the season is over.


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Wild Little Chois

My stinker dinker kiddos

-June-July 2012-

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Hand Feeding Baby Pompano (Video)

Getting Bent on Hump Day

I had the rare occasion to get a day off while working with a client in the Virginia Beach area... on a Wednesday at that.  So Jay Brooks and I took the opportunity to bend the rods on some spades.  

Fun 14" spadefish

We had a blast messin' with the spades all morning.  The highlights were a couple of 14"s and a 15" with a few dropped sheepshead in the mix as well.

Boy do I make some goofy faces on the hook set

Gotta love those rod digging spade fights

15"er

And then I was like...

"Dude.

Time to go."