The Continuing Adventures

So my life has been non-stop for about a week now, and I have not checked in.  I know it must be bad when Sarah called me up to the living room yesterday to say "Bruce you have not blogged in a while."  Honestly I did not miss my time away from the keyboard but today is a cleaning day (6 days of traveling and 2 fishing trips in the past week and a half has left the house a little messy) and with all that cleaning I have had time to think about what to say.  First let me say that my wife did a great job recounting two of the events.

A cool picture Sarah took on her iPhone of the farm country I called home for so many years.

First was my sisters graduation.  I have not said it on here yet - Congratulation Steph!  You will do great on the next step of your life.  My wife shared this event on her blog in two posts and here are her two links, please go read about my wonderful sister's graduation, and see a little of where I came from.   (Hard Work Pays Off)  (Graduation Sneak Peak).

My beautiful little sister.

Next I had an anniversary, 2 years of marriage to my wonderful wife Sarah.  The thing that makes me laugh and also makes me think she understand my fishing obsession is that Sunday night (the night before our actual anniversary) I was asked if I wanted to go try to fish for Striped Bass the next day.   I carefully thought through the next day and asked Sarah if she was going to the office, then if she wanted to go out to eat, and then I said, "Would you mind if I went fishing on the bay till dinner?"  Fully expecting to have to work for this I almost started in with my defense when she said sure (and the good sure not the one with undertones of no).  So here are her accounts of the anniversary of our marriage.  LOVE YA HUN!  Rehearsing Anniversaring; 2 Years; More Wedding Pics;  and lastly after hours on a boat cutting bait and catching nothing Anniversary Dinner

I have never been a fan of the finger point but Sarah loves this picture and truth be told there are worse pictures of me.

So now for a quick word about the fishing in this long span of time since I last posted last.  We went to PA for my sister's graduation, but another perk of the trip was that my brother was home from Wisconsin for the same reason I was home.  We grew up fishing for trout and other fresh water fish together, and we were fishing partners for years.  I do not remember many fishing trips as a kid, teen, and even the first couple years in my twenties where Jay was not along.  Then I moved to Atlanta with Sarah, and started fishing alone.  I have been fishing alone ever since, and the truth is that first bass adventure with John a while ago, was the first time I fished with anyone in a long time.  Jason and I fished together last Friday.  We fished a spot we had fished together countless times as kids and we did well there, missing and catching some fish as we moved up stream.  Here is my wife's take on my brother and I fishing together again.  If you don't click over to read the post maybe do it to see the picture of the crappy Jason caught it was huge! (Temporarily Single)

These were phone pictures and so this first fish needed two shots.

This wasn't a bad little stocker, I put him back in hopes he outsmarts the gangs of people who were on the stream that day.

Then we went to another spot where he and my did fished a pond and I hit the stream.  I did good on both streams I fished that day, and was shocked that the streams have not really changed a lot over the years.  It was nice to have a fishing partner again but Jay and dad wanted to call it a day, when it started to get hot, so I followed them home.

I got nothing but browns all about the same size. 

Until hit the other stream where I caught 3 of these little guys who were about 5 inches of so.

I think they might have been hold overs from last year or very early in this season because they had all their fins a the colors were great.  Check out the red on the top and bottom of this little guy's tail.

Once we were home I convinced Jay to come help me try to land a carp (it is a goal to hook one on my fly rod).  We when to a local pond where carp were everywhere and after spooking a bunch I had one take my fly where I promptly ripped the fly right back out of its mouth.  Jason had no hits at all and after an hour it really was hot so we went home.  Needless to say I miss having a regular trout fishing partner and will most likely never really have another trout fishing partner.  I am planning on going to see what the fishing is like out his way at the end of the summer, and I hope that he can come here and fish with me sometime in the future.




This leads me up to the last two days.  Saltwater fishing......

Just a couple days later I was looking at this...  Saltwater and lots of it!

That could be all I have to say about that, but I guess I will give a little more detail.  In the last two days (Monday and Tuesday)  I went fishing with John and his brother Brian for stripers.  Brian has a nice Sea Fox (center console boat mainly used for fishing) and we went in the bay looking for striped bass.  On my anniversary The first day we fished for a couple hours but the tides were wrong and a storm was rolling in so we quit before any action.  So the next day we went out again.  After leaving the dock at 5:30am and hit some tried and true spots where John landed the only Striper of the day, which was too small to keep.  We changed spots a couple time and still no good striper bites but now a rain storm was coming.  After talking about quitting the Peter (the 4th of the 4 of us) convinced us all we needed to stay out a little longer.  We changed tactics and started trolling and I am sad to report I lost the only fish we had while trolling.

Picture of Striper is coming

Finally we decided to do what would be best for our fishing pride.  We decide to fish for Scup, which I am told are the sunfish of the sea in these parts.  After a good boat ride we got to a spot I was told we would catch them.  We  were not there long before Peter landed a Fluke big enough to keep.   Then we started to catch scup and by we I mean everyone but me.  John, Brian and Peter all had scup, John also had a black bass and I was starting to think I was doing something wrong.  Then I landed a fluke, and about 3 or 4 scup on just a couple drifts and that restored my faith in saltwater fishing.  Needless to say we wished we had gotten some stripers or blues to show for almost 12 hours on the boat, but I think we all had a good time.


Now with a surf rod I am borrowing from my dad I think I want to try to catch some more of these saltwater fish.  So stay tuned because this summer I am planning on putting in the time and effort to try and learn how to saltwater fish.  I might even try to do some salt water fly fishing!



-Bruce