Bobby, we can't thank you enough for the great time we had with you and Emily, including the fish fry with Chris & Suzie as well! And we're still baffled as to how you have acclimated saltwater fish in a fresh water pond! Crazy stuff!
Bobby went out of his way to prepare a great dinner for us, followed by some pond fishing until dark, and even rearranged his work schedule to get up early and fish the pond some more in the morning, and this includes putting us up for the night with (finally) some freshly brewed coffee in the morning! (It's the little things
).
Before meeting with Bobby we spent 4 absolutely incredible days on the St. Johns river in a 44' houseboat with bassboat in tow. So please check back in on this post as we have so many photos we'll try to get uploaded, including a video of Fatih's bout with tree fishing while a bug finds it's way up his shirt. Just too good not to share!
(I just spent over 90 minutes uploading photos through the hotel's wifi only to have them all just disappear before postin g them, ARGH!!!!!!)
This is our houseboat that we would find a spot along the banks each night to tie up to trees.
Some amazing sights along the St. Johns river, where you would swear you were hundreds of miles from civilization
Fatih's (squirmy & slimy) Bowfin that ended up flopping in the boat several times befoe finally getting a picture of it
After tying up for the night, we realized the next morning we were parked next to a tree with some kind of "bird?" nest that was NOT made of small twigs!
Let alone this hole right in front of the boat! But the sounds at night were incredible!
Figuring we would take advantage of having a grill on the houseboat we had Ribeye, baked potato, corn on the cob and grilled asparagus
Seeing several gators, this big one decided to keep an eye on us until we decided to move on,,,,, well, it was mainly the reason we decided to move on
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We caught several BG and Crappie as well as a catfish I caught on a chatterbait which we fried up for dinner along with some grilled broccoli
Fatih has pretty much mastered tree fishing but this one had to take the cake! While being in charge of the trolling motor he landed another branch, managed to put the boat in the trees, and at the same time had some kind of bug crawl up his shirt!
[img]http://i1221.photobucket.com/albums...j9cqd.mp4[/img]
After our fishing with Bobby Friday morning we made our way to Pensacola for a full day on-shore fishing trip on Saturday.
Friday night at 7 pm we met with "Josh", a guy Fatih met on a Florida fishing forum that wanted to take us out in his new Skeeter SX 200. We met at a bait & tackle shop to get some necessary tackle and decided that we could get an early start so we decided to meet at 3 am instead of 7, to be fishing the Gulf by 4 and do some night fishing before the sun came up.
Yep, not much sleep and we stayed at it until about 12:30 pm, pulling in some speckled trout, Blue fish, Spanish Mackerel, Lady fish and a nice Red Snapper!
Then the bonus visit by a friendly dolphin who was more than happy to allow us to feed him on some of our cut bait. And a great video to go along with it. More than cool!!!!
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But the highlight of the day had to be the ornery speckled trout that landed a treble hook in Fatih's thumb, barb and all! And Fatih's bravery of pushing that barb through! We then drove around until we found some friendly folks parked to party on a white sandy beach with a pair of needle nose pliers and a first aid kit. Fatih then cut off the barb and pulled it through! And back to fishng we went!
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After fishing with Josh and Selena we headed to Pensacola beach for dinner at "Crabs, We Got 'em". Just a completely different way of life, but one I think I could get used to
We're still in Pensacola and will be heading to Henderson, Louisianna tomorrow where we have rented a 14' Jon boat with an 8 hp motor to fish and explore the Atchafalaya Swamp on the 22nd.
As it's after midnight, we over indulged at a Golden Corral and we're running on very little sleep (well, except for Fatih,,,, he sleeps a lot!
), I'm hoping to get pics and videos posted in the morning before we hit the road.
Keith & Fatih
