Playin' catch up...

A lot has happened since my last post. My daughter, Peyton, arrive on July 2nd for a while. It has been a long time since I have seen her so this trip is much needed. She settled in okay after a horrible day of travel. Too many delays for the last leg of the trip meant that she finally arrived after Paul's bedtime. Oh well, such is life I suppose in today's air travel world.

 

Anyway, on the fourth I got a chance to go fishing with a friend of mine. Rob met me at the Lotus Garden and we spent a few hours trying our best to get anything to bite. I finally ended the day with only three White Perch that weren't even as big as my hand, but they hit my spinner bait pretty hard and that is all that matters. Rob did not catch a thing all day. Just a hot, tiring trip any way you cut it.

 

Then a couple of days later Peyton and I went out to Lake Rudee to try our hand at some light salt water action. I checked the tide table and the solunar information to see when we needed to be out there. We finally made it to the ramp about an hour later than I wanted to, but we made it none the less. After a quick pep talk and introduction to what we were looking for we paddled out to the grass island and anchored up. Peyton was on one oyster bar on one side and I was on the one on the other side. It was bright and a little warm, but there was a nice breeze blowing so it wasn't too bad.

 

We were there for only a little while before Peyton mentioned, rather nonchalantly, that she thought she had a fish on. She gave it a little tug and the rod bent over! She struck first! After a brief fight, and reeling it in too far, we were able to get her very first Red Drum (Puppy Drum) into the net. We just sat there admiring it in all of its shiny glory! I helped her get the hook out and measured it. Legal keeper size in Virginia is 18 inches. This one only measured 17 ½ inches. Missed it by that…much! We released this beautiful fish and kept on fishing. Then she started killing the Speckled Trout! She caught two of them before I even caught my first fish of the day!

 

Then we hit a drought for a bit. The first one to strike to end the drought was Peyton. She hit another Speck. Then I caught a 16 inch Flounder. My card said that it was illegal to keep. The legal length, according to my card, was 16 ½ inches. That card was dated January 2013. A friend of mine at work produced a card dated March 2013 that said 16 inches was legal to keep. Oh well. You live and learn. I released that fish and kept on fishing. Peyton caught a few more Specks and then the dinner bell stopped ringing. We waited around for a few more minutes and then called it a day.

 

It was my first time fishing with Peyton in over 15 years so all in all it was an outstanding day! I look forward to doing that a few more times before she leaves.