fishing with the girls

went fishing the other day with the girls. here we are looking over a small bass caught on a "shaky head" worm.

aquarium

some of the fish i caught the other day came home to live in our aquarium. as a child, my family had an aquarium with bass, bluegill, speck, shiner, catfish, crawfish and turtles. this tank isnt large enough to handle that kind of load but its nice to have a few fish. when leah married me i had 5 aquariums with various fish and animals. since then ive scaled back to one 35 gallon tank.

bass and bluegill on the fly

a few days ago i got a small bluegill fly from bobby at big fish outfitters. a small olive cricket that he had tied himself. i decided to go out for about an hour and try it. i caught about 30 small bass and bluegills. i was flirting with trees the whole time and finally broke off in the end. these are a few pics i took while i was out.

feeding fish

"bince" (or as he prefers to be called, "uncle cool") and fern feeding freshly caught minnows to his baby bass.

night fishing on the beach

many of you know that my sister, like many of the kirbys, loves to fish. she's also a great photographer. here are some pics she took last night while fishing on the beach with some friends. thats a great batch of whiting britney!

tourney launch

this is what it looks like when you launch for a tournament from camp mack on lake kissimmee. about 80 boats which would have made for a great pay out but we couldnt get a limit... well, i should say, i couldnt get a limit. vince caught the three nice keepers that weighed 11 lbs. i couldnt buy a bite. always next time

what, where and how

vince and i had a 3rd place finish in the xtreme bass tournament on lake toho today. we weighed in a limit of five bass weighing about 20 pounds. we missed second place by a few ounces and first place weighed 23 pounds. i lost a fish in the last hour of the tourney that would of placed us 2nd and won us about 400 more dollars (if i dont say it vince will comment about it, so i thought i would beat him to the punch). we were throwing zoom horny toads on flat lily pads in 4-6 ft of water. we only caught 1 fish that didnt measure and culled out 6 or 7 fish. vince caught a 6 pounder and i caught a 5 1/2 pounder. all-in-all, im very happy with our finish. cant wait till next week!

fishing with dad

my dad and i went fishing today. we had a great time. caught a bunch of speck and a ton of bass.

fishing mcleod

richie and i went fishng on lake mcleod over in winter haven this morning. we caught a few nice bass and had a real good time.

more mounts

two more dead ducks on my wall. green wing and a blue bill

toho vince

vince caught this nice one while we were prefishing toho last week. maybe she will be back next week during our tourney. why the shirt vince?

gator fishing

was suppose to fish a tourney tomorrow morning but we decided not to and to just go fish out at south chain for fun. thats donald hig behind me in the pic, vince is the shadow on my shirt taking the picture. we caught several fish. vince lost a 7 pounder next to the boat but landed this beauty in the picture where hes looking oh so sexy without his shirt on. the best thing i caught was the gator. he put up a great fight but in the end he was no match for my 65 lb braid. its funny, because while we were out in cali the number one question about florida was "what about all the gators" and my first fishing trip out...well you see the picture. dont worry, the gator is alive and well waiting to grow up and eat a tourist from california.

first steelhead

so maybe its not the biggest fish in the world or the the best photo or the best smile but im proud of the fish. i spent two days trying to catch it. steelhead are supposedly one of the hardest trout to catch. i had hooked one the day before and everyone told me i was lucky just to of hooked one so catching one made the trip. i also hooked a salmon today that ran me about halfway into my backing before pulling the hook. well tomorrow its back to ol FLA (my true love). it will be nice to be back home... just wish we had trout!

cali fly

catching a few fish and having a ton of fun!

harris chain prefish

from prefishing for the harris chain tourney. the look on vinces face should tell you how well we were doing. vince driving through and fishing in the dora canal. it was crazy cool in there.

sea trout on the rocks

we came over to indian rocks beach to spend a few days with my parents. i brought the boat over and dad and i decided to try out the fishing back in the intercoastal waterway across the street from their place. didnt take us long to find the trout. we caught a red fish, broke off a few snook (fishing without leaders will do that to you) and caught a bunch of trout in about an hour. we kept a limit of trout for a fish fry tomorrow night. ive been wondering if there was any good fishing over here and now i know. guess i wont leave the boat at home any more.

mosquito lagoon youth

a couple weeks ago i took the covenant pres youth group camping out at mosquito lagoon. we had a blast. caught a ton of fish, played capture the flag on the island and had some sweet mafia games around the camp fire at nigh. cant wait to do it again. one of our trips, oliver and i caught 20 reds and several trout in about an hour.

3rd times a check

today we had our 3rd extreme bass tournament on lake kissimmee. the weather was, well, wet and windy very windy. we fished all day in a constant down pour and 30 mph winds. not the best fishing conditions and not many folks brought back fish to the scale but we managed to cash our first check on the tour. we caught about 12 bass but all save one were to small to keep. however, "the one" was a monster. she weighed 9 lbs even and that was plenty big enough to claim "big bass" honors.

toho prefish

a nice little bass from our prefish yesterday at lake toho. i wouldnt say we found the fish but i think we eliminated some water.

fishin with richie

from last weekend when richie and i went fishing. caught over a 100 fish. kept a limit (50) of speck (my favorite fish to eat). we both had a blast and richie finally got to keep some fish he caught and eat em. yum yum!