Creek Fishin'

Joe's Creek, the starting point of nearly every one of my childhood adventures. Today, kids have the internet, social sites, cell phones and video games to keep them entertained; I had Joe's Creek. The possibilities of what I could do during a day at the creek seemed endless: Fishing, hunting with slingshots and BB guns, snake catching, fort building, manhunt, rock fights, treasure digging, rafting on big sheets of Styrofoam we would get from the old concrete factory up the creek, and the list could go on and on for years. Me and Joe's Creek have a lot of fond memories together. My mom always warned me that I was going to get an amoeba up my ear and in my brain from spending so much time in that dirty water.

Somehow I eluded that amoeba and reached adulthood. I've had to trade in daylong adventures at Joe's Creek for  having a job. But me and Joe's Creek still keep in touch. I own a house about a block away from old Joe and my parents still live in the same house where I grew up; their property backs right up to Joe's Creek. These days my brothers and I keep our archery targets at my parent's house and get together regularly to shoot bows by the creek. While we shoot bows our kids go down and carry on our tradition of Joe's Creek adventures. I often take my two oldest boys bass fishing there and it's not uncommon for them to catch a dozen bass in an hour or two of fishing.

Today, after working this morning, I was fixing my boat trailer lights and got the urge to wet a line. A cold front just pushed through yesterday leaving strong north winds, not the best conditions for taking the boat out fishing, so I decided to give Joe's Creek a visit for old times sake. When the water in Boca Ciega Bay gets cold, the snook will push up into Joe's Creek making the possibilities interesting. Bass, snook, redfish, sheepshead and even baby tarpon will venture up into the creek this time of year.

I parked near the 66th Street bridge and started walking the creek line throwing a small gold Zoom jig. I saw a handful of big snook lazily swimming around and laughing at my lure. I walked all the way to the 54th Ave. bridge with only two small strikes to show for my multitude of casts. As I made my way back I switched to a small lime green Mirror Lure 17MR and connected with a little snook that thought he was a ladyfish. He was out of the water more than he was in it as I reeled him in. A couple casts later I connected with another little baby snook. Its nice to see that they're coming back after the cold winters a couple years ago took quite a toll on em'. Under the 71st Street bridge I saw a big snook whack a school of finger mullet so I switched to my bigger 25MR Mirror Lure hoping to blend in with the schools of finger mullet. No such luck.

My wife called and reminded me that I was a grown-up now and had to get home. I cast a few times at the same group of big snook that laughed at my jig earlier and they laughed at my Mirror Lure as well. When I was almost back to the 66th Street bridge, where I parked my car, I decided to take a few more casts at the last hole where a little side ditch empties into Joe's Creek. I switched back to the little 17MR lure and right away got smacked! I reeled in a nice fat Joe's Creek bass. A few more casts and I reeled in her twin sister. Two snook and two bass, not bad for a little afternoon fishing at my favorite childhood tromping grounds. I'm thinking about going back for more soon. Looks like me and Joe's Creek still have some memories to make.

Postseason Scouting

It's a really lame feeling to walk into an area you've never been, climb a tree and hope to randomly hit the jackpot of stand set-ups. Yeah, I've done it once or twice in my early days of hunting Florida's WMA's; but if I am given any sort of opportunity, I'm going to do a lot of scouting before I decide on a stand set-up. When I think of scouting Florida Public Land, memories of wading through miles of swamps in 95 degree August heat come to mind. Cotton mouths, alligators, copper heads and lots of mosquitoes. A few years ago I encountered all of these in one horrible trek trying to scout Richloam Baird Unit in August. Preseason scouting can be really tough in Florida. Many times, areas that are banging come fall are covered in water during the summer. By the time you find a good spot, you've thoroughly drenched it in your sweat. I still do some preseason scouting, but the past couple years I have found a way to scout the areas I hunt in a way that is much more enjoyable and productive.  I'm talking about postseason scouting.

Deer season has ended and I'm never ready for it. The weather is cool, the brush is thin and the woods are littered with rubs and scrapes. This is the perfect time to tromp through the deer woods and find new areas to set-up for next season. Don't worry about leaving your scent, it will be long gone come next fall. This is also a good time to set up trail cams on public land and see what bucks survived the season. There aren't a lot of other hunters scouting around so the threat of having your cameras stolen is minimal. At my request, my brother brought my two trail cameras back from my lease in GA and I set them up at a WMA I've been hunting this year. I left them for a week and when I checked them this morning I was presently surprised to find 12 pictures on the first and 87 pictures on the second. The very first picture I checked was a tall eight point buck! I'm ready for next fall!

Another added plus of postseason scouting is that many WMA's have a small game season this time of year. While scouting I get to carry around my Pardner Pump 12 gauge with a pocket full of assorted shells and blast squirrels, rabbit, snipe, hog and a whole list of other critters that are legal to harvest at most WMA's this time of year. This morning I found a stand of small pine trees that were rubbed nearly waist high by some big boar; there's nothing small about some of the game you can chase during small game season.

If you have little guys who are interested in hunting, this is a great time to take them out into the woods. They don't have to sit in a stand or a blind and get the dreaded whisper yell for not having patience. They can release their wiggles and giggles, learn gun safety and practice their marksmanship on those furry tailed critters that jump from branch to branch. My boys love eatin' those rodent-tasting things too! Sometimes during small game season I'll take my whole family, wife and baby included, for a hike/squirrel hunt. Whatever your excuse for getting into the huntin' woods, it will only increase your knowledge of the land and the game you are most excited about chasing.

Yeah, deer season is over in most parts of the state, but there are still a lot of opportunities to get into the woods, chase other game and increase your scouting knowledge before the long, hot days of summer. Get out there, enjoy the best weather Florida has to offer and be safe.

Offshore Spring Fishing In Winter

"I probably should pass this time." was my first response to Danny's asking me to go offshore fishing on a Friday morning in early January. I'd been working a ton of hours and hadn't seen my family much, plus my bank account was suffering as it tends to do between Christmas and tax returns. But then I thought about my response for about two seconds and recanted, "You know what, I'll go ahead and do it, let me just check with my wife real quick."

Danny added to the incentive by letting me know I would just have to catch the bait and he would cover gas. After getting the go ahead from Rebekah, I received a text from Danny, "We're going with Captain Glenn to the spring." Oh boy, did I make the right decision! I had the pleasure of going with this local charter captain who is a friend of Danny's before and we absolutely slayed the snapper last time.

The next morning I met Glenn and Danny at the dock at 5:30 a.m. and we headed to the lights under the Bayway bridge to catch bait. It was a dead calm, cold morning. I put some camo rain pants over my jeans and sported my rubber hunting boots. Nothing worse than running 50 miles offshore soaking wet in the middle of winter. As we pulled up to the bridge I cast my brand new 10' cracker bait net and spread it wide open on the edge of the shadow under the bridge. First cast and I pulled in a net full of nice whitebait and thread fins, snapper candy. I continued to cast the net catching only about a half-dozen at a time until it was time to pick up Dustin at the dock and head out.

I took off my rain pants and boots, changed my jacket and patted myself on the back for having the foresight to keep myself dry for a long day of fishing in cold weather. We gassed up, nearly forgot the ice and headed offshore. We decided to stop at a shipping channel to catch some bigger bait for the free-line. As Glenn was pulling up a couple at a time with the Sabiki, I noticed a big school of true goggle eyes coming right to the surface and decided to try a toss with the net. This is usually a vain effort in 40 feet of water but sometimes it pays off to try. This time it payed off with about 50 goggle eyes in the bait well!

after enjoying a 50 mile run at 40 mph in the Calcutta, we arrived at the spring and we're greeted by schools of tuna hitting the surface. We started by slow trolling some goggle eyes and caught a small bonita. Then on the second try I connected with a nice black fin tuna. I've been wanting to catch one of these for years and had finally succeeded!

It was time to anchor up! We found the spring and threw the marker. The water was clear and blue and the amber jack came up to investigate the boat. They were everywhere! All in the 40 inch range and hungry. They were hitting the marker jug! I really wished I had a bowfishing set-up because they we're putting their backs out of the water and sliding up against the boat. I reached out and pet one. As soon as a goggle eye hit the water it was mayhem! We caught a few nice ones right off the bat and then Danny who had managed to get a snapper rig past the A.J's and to the bottom connected with a monster! About 30 minutes later we we're looking at an 80 pound A. J. landed on 25 lb test leader and a number 2 hook! We had to cut about a foot and a half off his tail to fit him in the cooler!


We were limited out on A.J.'s and I continued to try to connect with another tuna but was spoiled by A.J.'s every time. I must have caught a dozen of em'. My arms were cramped and it wasn't even Noon yet. I tried to muscle one up to the boat too quickly, and underestimating my brute strength, snapped my Redbone heavy spinner rod in two. Bummer.

We caught about ten keeper red grouper, one big mango snapper and a bunch of nice red snapper that had to go back into the water till we come back for them in July. I took a nice bean bag nap on the ride in and then got busy at the cleaning table. It was a little tough because the knife kept getting locked in my hands because of my cramped forearms. A.J.'s will do that to ya!

I topped off the day by making tuna sushi-mi for my family and man was it delicious. I cut the filet in inch and a half thick strips, marinated in a ginger sesame sauce, rolled in sesame seeds and quickly seared in a hot pan of sesame oil. After letting them cool I sliced into bite size pieces. They were money with some wasabi and soy sauce!

It's been a couple weeks and my forearms have recovered, as soon as I get a new rod I'll be ready for another invite. I'll throw a net and clean fish as much as anyone wants if it means going on a trip like that.

Venison Free Deer Season

My hunting career started with a bang about 7 years ago. After years of wondering why my older brother Jacob converted from a surfer to a redneck he finally invited me to go deer hunting with him to see what it was all about, and I accepted. My first time in the tree stand I saw a coyote, which I thought was a big grey fox, and two does, both of which I shot with the single shot youth 243 rifle he let me borrow. I was hooked! Shortly after, he gave me his old Matthews bow and took me on my first bow hunt at Tide Swamp WMA. The first morning I shot and recovered a spike. Beginner's luck was truly on my side.

Since my start at pursuing the wild game of the South I have been blessed first with many opportunities to get out of the city and into God's beautiful creation, and second with many successful hunts that ended with meat on my families' table. I enjoy hunting just about everything, but deer season is what really gets my imagination going. In the past I've been blessed with an average of 5 deer a season and for the last three seasons I've managed to harvest a nice buck off one of my two Georgia leases. That was until this season.

I knew this year would be a challenge when my wife and I discovered that she was pregnant with our fourth child which was due in the middle of November! I had managed to conceive my other three kids to be born in  March, May and July, but this time I really got my timing off. "No problem." I thought, "I'll just hit the early season hard before the baby is due."

Adding to my encouragement was the news that hunting over bait was legalized in South Georgia. My brother and I put together some corn feeders and drove up to our leases in July to put up feeders and cameras in anticipation of Archery Season in September. "We're hunting over feeders, we've got it in the bag." Or so we thought.

When the opener finally came we checked our cameras and were not disappointed except for one fact, all the photos were taken during the night. On our smaller lease, held by just my brother Jacob and I, there was a bachelor group of bucks that included a couple of bruisers coming in every evening about an hour after dark.  

I optimistically dismissed the fact that no deer photos were taken during the day and I sat over my feeders. I then moved to the swamps and the hardwoods and the pines. I tried everywhere and didn't see a single deer from the stand during my three archery season trips to GA. But gun season was coming and I would get one last chance to hunt my leases before the baby came. Opening day of general gun I saw a few deer but couldn't make a shot. A cold front came through and started a little pre-rut chasing. From the stand I glimpsed a doe running through some thick brush and could hear something crashing after her. Later as I walked back to my truck I saw a fellow club member, Tommy, heading back on a parallel trail about 100 yards to the left of me. Suddenly I heard something in the woods to my right, as I was bolting a round into my Savage 30-06  two deer busted across the trail right towards Tommy. I got ready as they pinged off Tommy and came back in my direction, first a doe, I put my eye to the scope, then a small six point. We have an eight point rule on this club. That was about the most excitement I had in GA this year. The only thing I shot was a five and a half foot long rattle snake I nearly stepped on walking down a ditch line to a stand I never ended up hunting.

The baby came November 27, a healthy little boy we name Simeon. I stayed home a week to help my wife, and decided it would be a good help to mount my eight point from last season. At least I could see a deer, right? It was my best mount yet, which is not saying much at all, and it has earned a prominent place on the wall of our boys' room. My GA season was done for the year, but I still had a shot of bagging a buck. I had drawn archery, muzzle loader and general gun tags for Citrus WMA in Florida which is only about an hour and a half from my house.

The first morning of hunting there I was greeted at my stand by a pair of blue eyes shining in my headlamp. I sat all morning listening to deer blow at me from downwind. My younger brother sat at another spot I had scouted and missed an eight point from my ground blind. He returned the next morning and claimed  he saw seven bucks but could not get a shot! I returned the next day and sat where he had been and saw nothing. I scouted around and found a small tram that had a good rub line. I returned with my younger brothers and put my climber in an oak tree right along the trail. It was a full moon and a beautiful morning. As the first glimpses of morning light mixed with the moonlight I heard footsteps coming right toward me from across the trail. I stood up to watch a buck cross right under me and started rubbing a tree about 5 yards away from my tree. He then turned and stepped onto the trail right below me! I drew my bow and put my top pin on his back..."Thwack!" He wheeled around and took off down the trail! I texted my brother Jonny that I had just whacked a buck.

I sat in the stand for two and a half more hours before getting down. There was my arrow stuck in the trail. There was dark hair and some blood on the blazers but no blood on the ground. That sick feeling that everyone who bow hunts long enough knows came over me. I called my brothers to help with the search, we couldn't find a speck of blood. We walked zig zags through the woods in the direction he ran to no avail. Nothing. I hunted there a couple more times during archery, hunted muzzle loader and decided to do a little more scouting the day before the first weekend of gun season when I came upon it. I had walked down the same tram I shot him at about 100 yards further than where I had given up the blind search at. To the left I saw an open area with green grass growing in the woods. I walked back to check it out and to my right I saw a rib case and a rack! Now I don't have the equipment in my garage to test the DNA of the hair on my arrow with the carcass I found, but I am pretty darn sure he is my buck. No, I didn't get the satisfaction of following a clean blood trail with a prize of venison at the end, but I did get to send him to the coyote taxidermist for a European mount. A nice wide eight point with dark chocolate antlers. A great Florida public land buck in anyone's book.

I didn't have the pleasure of putting venison in the freezer this year, but I did sent four nice hogs to the great pigsty in the sky and turkey season is coming soon.