still life with dead duck

the first duck of the season for the lakeland crew.

waiting for a duck

dustin looking for a target

drake

i like to set a goal for the duck season. my goal this year was to get a wood duck drake and or a blue wing teal drake. either one would make me happy and would produce a mount for my hunting/fishing room. on the second day out i shot down this wood duck drake. i was so excited that i could hardly wait to go pick him up. unfortunately, when i picked him up i realized he didnt have a full head of hair. he’s not a mature duck so he wont go on the wall but he will still find a cozy home in my belly.

wood ducks

from the first day of early teal and wood duck season. didnt get any teal but i did limit out on wood ducks(both hens) the first day.

green hornet

a pic from last year of me with a green wing teal (my favorite duck)

did some scouting yesterday and found some teal and wood ducks. hope they will still be there on saturday. ONE MORE DAY!!!

teal time

so there was a little bit of confusion on the site as to what a teal is, so i decided to post a few pics. a teal is a small duck. i believe im correct in stating that the green wing teal is the smallest of all the ducks. there are a few different types of teal. in florida we really only see two kinds of teal, green wing and blue wing. the teal are the first two pictures i posted. the third is a wood duck. all three taste great. on september 23rd early teal and wood duck season opens and i can hardly wait. im having trouble with my boat right now but hopefully i will have it fixed by then. if not i will be crying myself to sleep at night and there will much complaining on the blog, so pray that I get it fixed so that you don’t have to listen to that.

dust duck

another from last season. more then anything last season dustin wanted to get a drake hooded merganser. here it is. it came on the final hunt of the season and was the last duck taken. pretty crazy, huh

early teal

a pic from last duck season. i had to stay up on land while the boys hunted out of the boat. it was a small cattle pond so it didnt really make much of a deference. early teal season is just around the corner. i can hardly wait. sept 23 cant get here fast enough. hope the teal are out and about.

where i wanna be

another brit pic from over at the beach. i can just imagine fishing from the shore and watching the sunset

fisherman simon

simon with a nice stringer of whiting.

under the boardwalk

well not really a boardwalk but it is the redington pier. a pic of grammie (my mom) and simon taken by britney during their time at the beach.

brit fish

my sister is staying over at the beach right now. she decided to take up fishing while she was there. here she is with a couple of nice black drum. guess its just in our blood.

fishing room

im posting these for my mother-in-law who wanted to see the work we did on our house. we had the wall from our front from knocked down and replaced with this arch. it really opens things up in there. all the walls in the front room, which use to be panel board, were replaced with drywall. and new ceilings in the front room and living room. the front room is now a kinda sitting room that has all my fishing and hunting stuff in it. also a picture of fern with my two faux hunting dogs.

100

post number 100. eat your heart out richie. richard swore he would beat me to 100 but no i have conquered. even though i started a month after he did. i gave you plenty of chances to catch up this summer.

another pic from the migrant fields of south florida. they get into a line and throw these melons. i tried throwing a few and was out of breath after about three throws. of course they all thought that was pretty funny. lazy, fat, out-of-shape white boy that i am.

in tourney news: we placed 4th last night which is in the money. so we didnt start a loosing streak. it was a good night. caught some nice keepers.

migrating melons

from a series of shots i did on migrant workers down in south florida. inside an old school bus that they cut the tops out of and use to carry these watermelons. we rode back to the plant on top of these melons. they sent a few home with us. very yummy.

net maker

a guy i stumbled across in englewood that makes these huge cast nets by hand.

boat abstract

shot at the end of the redington beach pier. i spent a lot of time fishing from this pier as a child. caught my first redfish from this pier. at the entrance there is a huge sign that that stretches over your head and reads "God does not subtract the time spent fishing from a mans life"

mangroves and coconuts

another black & white. from little gasparilla. i was walking along the inside of some mangrove trees and i noticed all these sun bleached coconuts had washed up together. thought they made for nice contrast.

under the pier

someone asked me to post some of my black and white "florida" prints because they are think of buying a few. so for the next few posts you will have to deal with that. this pic was taken down at the venice beach pier.

in tourney news!!! the streak ends. we only got 2 keepers last night. so that sucks. guess we will have to start a new streak. hopefully not a loosing one.

fern fish

another pic of fern with fish.

tomorrow is the thursday night tourney at south chain so cross your fingers. maybe we can make it 6 straight placements in the money.

shark week

fern, face to face with one of my worst fears and fascinations. posting this pic in tribute to "shark week" on the discovery channel. i see a lot of sharks while i am fishing. makes me very cautious about getting in the water at the beach. trying to instill a good healthy fear in fern and leah without going overboard and being irrational.

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...

upland bird

with his pointer dale
quigleys on the quest for quail
waiting for a shot

another drawing that will be in the show. they wont all be hunting ones, actually these are the only two out of fifty that have to do with hunting. but there are a couple of fishing ones.

art show

finished the day with
a beautiful brace of birds
what could be better?

some of you have seen my silly little drawings before. ive shown them at platform and in the public library gallery. im going to have a show at mitchell's coffee house july 1st-31st. fifty drawings and fifty poems. the opening reception will be held friday july 7th from 5pm-9pm. there will be food and drinks and fun for all. id love to see you there.

i thought this drawing was appropriate for the blog. for each drawing i write a haiku. i just finished this duck hunter so i havent written the poem yet but ill post it later.

tarpon from the shore

a tarpon my dad landed back when we use to live on pompano beach. he caught it on 17lb test and a spinning reel. i helped by going and getting a drunk guy from the tiki bar to help land the fish.

mac the mason

my nephew mason with a spanish mackerel

connor

my nephew with a nice trout.

red dustin

dustin with a nice red from our trip down at the beach last week.
vince and i have a tourney tonight so cross your fingers but dont hold your breath.