bassmaster classic

boyd duckett made classic history yesterday. he is the first angler to win a classic in his own state. while most people were watching the oscars last night, i stayed up and watched the classic final day weigh-in till midnight. what a fishin dork! for those who dont know, the bassmaster classic is the superbowl of fishing. its what every bass fisherman wants to win.

going xtreme

vince and i have decided to step it up a notch in the tournament fishing. next month we are starting to fish the xtreme bass tour. we will fish ten tournaments starting march 11th and going till August 18th. if we fish all ten tourneys that will qualify us for the championship at the end of the year. vince is out right now trying to scrounge up a couple of sponsors. if anyone can do it, its vince and if anyone out there would like to sponsor an "xtreme fisherman" just let me know.

superbowl fish

we had a superbowl party over at the roberts house. thats me frying up some bass and speck. i fried fish for over 3 hours. it was well worth it. speck is my all time favorite fish to eat.

foucault's outhouse

ive started another blog. foucaults outhouse

i cant seem to stop. someone help me!!!!!!!!

tornado camping

so we decided to pick the tornado weekend to go camping. of course if we would have known we wouldnt of gone. i guess if anyone had known there wouldnt be 19 dead floridians because of the tornado. it passed about 20 miles from where we were camping. needless to say we felt some of its effects. we are all very thankful that no one got hurt since we had 5 adults and 6 children ranging from age 9 weeks to 5 years old. friday night we really didnt know what was going on. we just thought it was the cold front moving in a day early and were pissed that the fishing was gonna stink the next day. it wasnt till the next morning when we turned on our cell phone and noticed all the messages we had received from concerned family and friends. kinda puts things in perspective when you realize that while you were getting mad because fishing was gonna be bad and your kids were getting wet in their tents that people were dying a few miles away.

all-in-all we had a pretty good time. fishing wasnt all that bad. we had plenty of trout and reds to eat at night around the campfire. vince had purchased a huge tarp (just incase of rain, hehe) that kept us dry when it was really pouring. the kids seemed to have a fun time and no one was injured or anything. cant wait for the next trip!!! if you wanna see some more pics you can go to vinces blog and check em out.

where and what for

u may already know from past posts but mosquito lagoon in canaveral national seashore is one of my all time favorite places in the world. im going camping tomorrow thru saturday so i thought i would post up a few pics of the lagoon and what we will be fishing for (the king of all fish, the redfish). if you click on the map at the top you can see where we will be camping. jones canal, campsite #6. the other pics are of a school of reds and a redfish tailing (the best sight in the world). hopefully it wont be too cold and the fish will be on the flats.

got a stiffy?

well yesterday i got a "stiffy." might not be what you think. its a brand name for a type of push pole. i can now throw away the pool cleaning pole ive been using for the last 6 years. next week we are going camping over at the lagoon so soon ill be polling around on the flats.

dr. bass

saturday i went fishing with dr. bill roberts. we caught a bunch of bass and speck. we kept a limit of bass and 21 speck. it was a beautiful day and the weather was perfect!

toho

sunday after church, vince and i went over to lake toho for a couple hours. caught about eight bass. not too bad since we had a front move in the night before. jerah will be glad to know that we released all the fish including the ones in the picture.

saw thousand of ringneck ducks rafted out in open water. heard a lot of gun fire from the north east side of the lake. hard to focus on fishing when there r that many ducks flying around but somehow i managed.

taxidermy

my first duck mount. two hoodies that i shot last season. let me know what u think.

fly tying

i always wanted to learn how to tie my own flies. ive been fly fishing since i was in middle school, mostly for bass and bluegill and trout a few times. anyway, for christmas i got a bass pro shop gift card from my brother and sister in law (thanks guys) and decided i would finally learn to tie flies. so i got a fly tying kit a new 5 piece travel fly rod. here r my first attempts at tying flies and my first fish on my own fly. hes not big but im proud of him! from top to bottom; caddis fly, woolly booger, and winged ant (from this angle you can only see one of his wings). the one in the bass' mouth is a pattern i made up myself, which made catching him double fulfilling.

national champs

once again i gotta give props to the florida gators for winning the national football championship. football and basketball all in the same year. first time a school has ever done it. too bad it wasnt miami!

this pic comes from a guy on the florida waterfowler forum. this is how ohio state wished things had ended up last night

redfishing vicariously

i told a friend of mine (jarrett) about camping and fishing over at mosquito lagoon and since he loves camping and saltwater fishing he couldnt wait to get out there. here r a few pics from his first of many to come trips to redfish heaven. glad u got on to the fish jarrett, now its time to get u hooked on duck hunting!

dove turned ducky

so every time we go out for one type of game we end up bagging another type. richie and i went out for a dove hunt and didnt see a damn dove but while in the middle of the woods a random duck flys over and richie takes him down with dove shot. i took one shot all day and killed a single snipe. maybe i should go hog hunting or something and end up with a trophy buck

fla mallards on crooked

went to crooked lake this past weekend to get some ducks. didnt see many ducks! most of the ones we did see were mottled ducks(florida mallards) and u can only take one per person. these two ducks came in as a pair to our decoys. we hit them at the exact same time. dustin also got a few snipe. we had a good time!

duck scout turned fishy

so dustin and i were invited to shoot ducks on some private land. the problem was we didnt know if there were any ducks out on this land and since it wasnt duck season last week we decided to go scout it out one evening. the land owner said there could be a few bass in the old phosphate pit so we brought along a couple of poles. he was right there are a few bass in that old pit. we didnt see a single duck but that could be because we had our hands full catching bass. in a couple hours we had landed around 50 bass (most keeper size) a few in the 6 pound range and several in the 3 pound range. we probably could of caught a 100 if we would of kept fishing a worm but we decided to throw some topwater plugs and toads for the excitement factor. we kept a limit of 14 inch fish for our annual wild game cookout but released all the larger fish. don’t know if we will ever kill a duck on that land but u can bet we are going to go scout it out again before duck seasons starts back up. crapy scouting trip but great fishing trip!

dustin & mason

from one of our dove hunts this year

dovey dustin

dustin waiting for some dove to fly.

shark hunter

simon with a sand shark he caught all by himself over at my parents place. he had been wanting to catch a shark for some time now. nice catch simon!

u may have noticed a new link on the page. kirby kids is yet another blog by van cannon kirby. its set up mainly for family (grandparents and the like) but anyone who wants to see pics of fern and lyla is welcome there.

bince

vince (or bince as fern calls him) with a small trout from our camping trip.

richie and i went dove hunting on saturday and got a few birds but no pictures.

fishing from the shore

i took fern and lyla over to visit my folks at the beach this past weekend. got to do a little fishing while we were there. this is a small grouper i caught on a jig in the intercoastal. britney took the pic.

bassin britney

a nice large mouth my sister caught while up in st. louis a few weeks ago. caught on an artificial worm. this is a wall mounter for the st. louis area and a big bass in any area! way 2 go brit!

ffa

future fishers of america. fern and aiden on the boat

aiden

aiden strawbridge with her first ever redfish. she caught it all by herself. way 2 go aid!!!

mosquito lagoon redfish

a couple of the reds we caught while camping

dove hunting

finally got to go dove hunting this season. been going through major withdraws not having a place to shoot those speed demons. we got 10 total which isnt too bad. i was just glad to be out there!

camping with fern

finally have something to post... vince and i took our daughters, aiden(5) and fern(2), camping this week out at mosquito lagoon. it was ferns first camping trip and she had a blast. she is only 2yrs old so that made it interesting but we all had a good time. caught some reds and trout even though we didnt get to fish much but we didnt really go for the fish so it was a nice bonus. the weather was perfect for camping. cant wait to go back. ill post more pics later.

fly fishing

i love fly fishing even though i dont get to do it all that often. heres another one of my silly drawings. ive posted a page with all of drawings on it. go and check em out and vote for your favorite. if you click on the image you will get a much larger pic that is easier to see. haikus & charicatoos