make it five

another pic of fern and leah with lots of fish. just how i like it.

so the streak continues. vince and i fished our thursday night tourney last night on lake alfred and placed 4th. thats a full rotation of all five lakes we fish with a top four placement. next week we fish south chain where we won 2nd place.

gators

two pics from two separate places.
first- simon holding a gator. braver then i am!!
second- fern and leah checking out a gator (from a safer distance) at the florida aquarium.
since the recent gator attacks, florida has become more lenient on gator hunting. longer seasons open to more hunters, free classes on gator hunting and harvesting. i might even try to do a hunt this year. could be fun.

lionfish

i used to have a lionfish that looked just like this one. his name was auggie and he ate every fish i had in my saltwater tank save one. he loved this small clownfish (which he could of eaten with no problem) and they use to sleep together at the top of the tank under one of the power heads.

fern tank

leahs good friend reidun came down from tennessee for a visit and we decided to take her, fern and lyla jane over to the florida aquarium. im trying to get fern as obsessed with fish as i am. i have a ton of pics from the trip. this is one of my favorites. fern looking into the shark tank. ill post more later.

first place finish

well it was nasty weather and the fishin wasnt very good and i would say maybe 10 boats out of about 40 weighed in any fish at all. but for team kirby/strawbridge the winning streak continues on. we had two placements last night, 1st and big bass. pretty nice payout when you combine the two, even though the field was kinda small. big bass was 7lb 3oz. next week is lake alfred.

fern & i

from over at old shady lake. this is the neighborhood i grew up in and more importantly the lake i grew up fishing on. i take fern over there a few times a week for some casting and hanging out with the strawbridge’s. thanks to cha cha (aka richard) for taking the pic.

thursday night tourney tonight on eagle lake in winter haven. lets see if we can keep the streak alive...

kissimmee kids

cowboy kirbys from top to bottom: mason, fern, simon (technically a fullgraf), addie, connor and fern. we had a lot of fun over at ol river ranch. the kids got to go to a rodeo, horseback riding, pony rides, fishing, hay rides and much more...

dane dog

dane streets with a nice 6 pounder from our trip to river ranch on the kissimmee river. it was a combanation kirby/streets vacation. the fish werent really biting that well but dane managed to rustle up a few nice bass.

fishin bros

dustin and me back in the day when my family used to take vacations at lundy’s fish camp. check out the sweet mesh cut off shirt ive got on.

tourney update
last three tournaments we have placed
lake haines - 4th place (with dustin)
south chain o lakes - 2nd place (with vince)
lake ariana - 4th place (with vince)

last night vince and i didnt miss any fish and vince caught a 3pounder on the last cast to give us a 5 fish limit. things are heating up in the summer.

sharp shooter

i have to admit, when leah said she wanted to buy a gun i was a little bit scarred. thought maybe she had some ulterior motives if you know what i mean... but she bought a 20 gauge shotgun and we took it with us down to river ranch on our family vacation. they have a skeet and trap range at river ranch and i thought that would be the perfect place for leah (who had never shot a gun befor) to learn how to use her new gun. what can i say but my wifes a natural. she hit 19 of 25 clays, which is impressive for anyone and especially a newbie. hopefully she will be taking down ducks this coming season and pray that its not just a ploy to shoot me. more pics from river ranch to come…

boat ramp

an image i took the other week while i was teaching my digital photo class. at the end of a boat ramp, believe it or not...

hung my show yesterday. still have a few poems to print and hang. i think it looks good. will post pics later...