Horse shoes, Flat fish and banging on the drum

[bigfish4me]

To say this weekend was a much needed get away is an understatement! A weekend with the boy's is always a great time....We threw some shoes.....the old guys can still drop them in and put it to the young bucks as usual.



Saturday morning Scottie and I hit the water at 5 am for opening day of flounder....we dropped a few good ones and had a few that were 17 and 15/16ths that almost went for a ride in the cooler....ended the morning at 11 with 4 in the box to about 20".....4" gulp new penny shrimp caught the keepers....about a 5-1 keeper to throw back ratio.


We carved up the fish and grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed for Cape May at 1 to hop on our annual drum trip aboard the Unreel. This is our 3rd year fishing with Capt John an the man is truly a pleasure to fish with. The ride out into the dirty ditch...aka the delaware bay was a beauty.




It did start tolook a little ugly....there was a chance of thunder storms forcasted but luckily they missed us.


Billy J was the first to break the ice....we had to do some moving around and the Capt really went out of his way to put us on te fish making 4 or 5 moves through out the night.


Hilly was next to hook up.....it is great that he could make this trip since his health has not been the greatest, man works his ass off to retire at a house on the water.....only to have a heart attack and then a few months later a collapsed lung. He was a gamer though and proved tobe the hot hand....handing off a few bites.


Finally I get on the board.....was starting to sweat it a bit since the bite was tough for sure.


That smile say's it all.....the sun going down on the bay an my Uncle happy....he went through hell watchig my aunt loose her battle with cancer and it really took its toll on him....it is nice to see him back in the swing of things.



And he gets on the board....4 down and 2 guys left to boat a fish yet.


Ricky is up next and puts a solid boomer on the deck.



Scottie finally gets on board and we all have a fish in the box....now we can relax a bit. The bite was much differernt than the last 2 trips you really had to let them chew and we missed our share of bites for sure.



Uncle bill puts another one in the box


Ricky gets it done again and were starting to have a decent pile of meat accumulating in the box.


Number 2 in the box for me......feeling good and living the dream.




Back at the dock around 11 pm.....one long day of fishing for sure but man whata day.....flat fish in the morning and fat fish in the evening. We did get to experiance a very cool thing....the drum are inthe bay to spawn and we could hear them and feel them drumming around the boat....very cool. Sunday morning fond Scottie and I chasing flat fish again although a bit beat up from the long day we had the day before....final tally for sundays outing was one keeper at 23" that Scottie putin the box, me I was the dedicated throw back catcher....someone has o keep the little fish away from Scotties baits right.

[liv2fish20]

Sweet! looks like a great time with friends & family

nice pile of meat too

[gottaflylee]

NOthing wrong with horse shooes, Flatdogs, and Black Drum. Congtsts, great pictures and a couple of action packed days. The Bammer woud have showed you all up...

[bigfish4me]

NOthing wrong with horse shooes, Flatdogs, and Black Drum. Congtsts, great pictures and a couple of action packed days. The Bammer woud have showed you all up...

Your probably Right Lee......she was not happy about missing a weekend down the shore but her time will come

[bigfish4me]

Some more pics from the weekend......the tanks were pumped dry and the carb rebuilt and were back in business....still idling a touch low and were not getting the rpms we use to.....pretty sure we need to tweak the fuel air ratio on the quadrajunk carb

A picture perfect sunset

And in the back ground of the 3rd pic....a 55 gallon drum full of drum

[bigfish4me]

oops wrong pic...this is a 55 gallon drum full of drum