Gorham Fishing Team

Let’s see how I do here. Let me take you on a lobster trip for a day.

It all starts with decent weather, cooperative tides and a plan of attack. For this trip, we sort of had the weather (scattered showers, 10 knots of wind, but warm). The tides were expected to rise all day for us, and peak out at 3 foot above mean low water. We typically stay in the backwaters so it is skiff country!

Off we go – load em up

We headed toward the north to the areas surrounding johnson keys. In the picture of big pine key below, our house is in the neighborhood at the bottom of the island. Our route took us down around the northern tip of big pine through the pass between big pine and Howe key (bottom of the pic) and then south half way back down and off the screen to the left past no name key. Awesome picture eh?

Out the canal we go …

As we headed around the top of big pine, you can see that scattered showers meant scattered on top of where we wanted to go!

Game on. Once we get on site, Robin heads to the bow with markers in hand, and I get us close on the gps and she throws markers on top of the structure.

Then anchor down, and depending on how deep, don the tank.

In the water I go, net and tickle stick in hand, and poke around looking for critters!

Back on the boat, measure twice and cull the herd.

Rinse and repeat!

and fill the well!

Pack up and head home. On the way back we had enough tide to take my mangrove shortcut. it is not for the faint of heart, but knocks 5 miles off the run. yea that water is less than a foot deep!

Home canal …

Clean everything up …

Take the hero picture –

And then leave the rest to Robin, home made pasta, light sauce, grilled lobsters on top. Killer!

Until next time!

What a great time to make a post! We are actually in St Pete in between trips to Big Pine Key. I have a crazy work schedule as always this time of year so it makes fishing time precious.

Before we left though lobster season opened in Florida. Don’t know why, but it has been tough pickings out there. We did ok, but certainly did not kill it like previously. Some blame the hurricane, I just think it was a weird season. All our spots were still there, but have to admit the water is not as clear as it used to be. Here are some shots ..

This is a big turtle we chased around the flats

I am not saying that the water is not still beautiful! After all this is the Florida keys I am talking about …

I love those mirrored glass shots. Trust me, it is not like that all the time. The keys are one of the windiest places I have ever been. Wind makes waves, which can make it pretty uncomfortable at times!

Back to the tower work on the Woodytoo. I am close to having the tower rigged as a second station. Everything is in place, still working on adjusting. Lower station works perfect, up top I am having trouble getting full throttle.

Here is the work to date … the biggest pain was running the hoses and cables. All in all 3 steering hoses, a throttle cable and a gear cable through the pipe work. It gave me a chance to fold the tower and console down. Worked pretty slick.

Steering install:

For the controls I installed teleflex dual station units one for throttle and one for gears. I had to manufacture and glass in a shelf to mount them, and decided on putting it on the bulkhead under the current lower station. I am not the best at glassing, but it came out pretty well.

Then it came down to installing the Morse controller-up top, new cables to the lower station control, and then the engine.

True confession time – the reason I was working on the controls so urgently is we broke the gear cable near the engine connection. Of course while offshore, and in a less than desirable sea state. We Gerry-rigged it to get home, and then the real engineering took place! So out come the wire ties and a lot of cursing. Got her done though, and fished the boat flawlessly on a couple more trips.

Seeing is believing …

Of course I had plenty of errors. Glen kept telling me to watch out for a plastic bushing that was holding the cable tube near the engine. Well, guess what it sinks! :). Glad I am scuba certified!

Bottom line – got it all done, and now it is time to tune it to perfection. It sure makes for a different boat and good heavens it improves the visibility!

There you have it. We are headed back this weekend, hope to be able to tell fish stories!

3rd post in my catch up series … friends, fishing, and boats!

So we dialed these guys in. Quite the run on back country sea Trout!

Jan Troy and Casey came to visit for a week. The weather did not cooperate to well, but we still had fun!

Laura came to spend a break with us. It was the first time in almost a year that she got to see the keys. She also brought some nice weather with her (sorry Jan), and so we soaked a lot of sun, caught a lot of fish, and did a lot of gunkholing!

Tom and glen came down as well. I have a crazy lack of pictures, but we certainly had a great time. Tarpon fishing at Bahia Honda, Mahi offshore, trout and snapper on the backwaters, a weird day trying to find a grouper on the American shoal, where we got circled by a 4 engine go fast boat, glen hooked a tarpon reeling up a grunt, and an unsuccessful day trying to find a mutton snapper.

Poor glen caught the bad luck germ, my Jeep broke down on him on a bait run (starter), and we lost reverse trying to stay vertical over ricks wreck. The last issue was fixed through a creative use of zip ties, and is still in place today!

Anyhow, thanks boys, it was fun!

Plenty of fish caught this spring though … but no tuna, wahoo, or billfish 😦

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And a lucky bucket list fish .. I caught a nice permit, 12 pound test!

From the boat front – the Woody too is getting an upgrade! We have put a custom tower on her. The install will take a while to complete, but the pipe work is in place. Lots of rod holders, cockpit shade, fold down bonnet, and break down mounts.

The next phase is rigging, thanks to amazon, all parts are on hand!

And the little Woody? That little beast just went over 400 hours! That is a lot banging around the backwaters over the past few years … Looe approves!

The last bit of news is our new friend … the 8 o’clock croc!

All caught up!

2nd post in my catch up series …

We spent a lot of time running around out front and in back…

BahiaHonda

Marvin key

Detour through key west harbor

Fat Albert is back!

Irma pushed a lot of debris onto the flats. Each one is a whole ecosystem

It is crazy when you can’t tell the water from the sea! And when the sea looks like a mirror!

So many sunsets!

Shame on me, been having too much fun to stay on top of the blogging. Kelly Torres fussed at me last week in Phoenix, so I figured I better get caught up. So this will be a multi series dump. I will let you judge how well I do!

I am going to call the house done now. Robin and I got to spend from April until mid July in the keys, and our main focus was to finish putting Humpty Dumpty back together, and start moving forward. Other than some facia and soffits, we succeeded!

So it was really nice to actually move in, let Robin decorate, and call the nest home. Let me try and take you on a tour …

Out front – probably don’t notice, but we got the sewer hookup complete, new rock brought in and spread, and new trees out front – green Milesian coconuts, and the centerpiece a Canary Island Date palm. Not too shabby!

that tree is killer!

Continuing around …

The Woody too is still looking good!

And you can see we installed sun shades along the whole back. What a difference in the afternoon!

I just try not to look at the sea wall in the corner,

The back porch is totally awesome!

Inside tour: Living room

kitchen and pantry

Guest rooms and baths

Master

As you can see, open for business and moving forward!

I thought I was better at posting, but I guess I really stink at it!

Priorities …. Sunsets in the backwater are still beautiful!

Lots to catch up on, the biggest news is that Robin’s Nest is (almost) fully restored and we are moved back in. Equally good news is Monroe county finished debris pickup post Irma. I did not think it would be possible because it was flat depressing during Christmas, there was still debris piled on the sides of very road and through every neighborhood. Robin and I were back a couple weeks ago, and the progress was unbelievable!

Businesses are starting to come back on-line in the lower keys, and services slowly coming back. Still no on the water fuel, so I have 50 gallons of gas cans, and am running to marathon to get rec90 marine fuel. The shell on Summerland just opened but the price is still $.50 a gallon higher than marathon. The big pine shell is still closed, but we do have a new bulk ice machine! So it is very hit or miss. In the neighborhood, folks are slowly working on their properties. There are blue tarp roofs everywhere still, but construction crews are everywhere working on places.

As for us we really have to thank D’assign Source who really came through for us. Since we were still finishing out construction when the storm hit, Tony gave us first priority which their construction teams. We now have a new metal roof (Miami dade 180mph rated), new blown in foam insulation, replaced most of the dry wall, repaired cabinets, and a slew of new ceiling fans. Robin and I also went all around the exterior and spot touched all the spots outside marked by debris. Insurance has totally sucked – they have paid out 20cents on the dollar, and we have had to hire a third party adjuster to try and recover some costs. Totally fricking unacceptable!

All that said .. the house looks great! And we are now able to think about landscaping, enjoying ourselves again … and fishing! Random pictures ….

Doesn’t the place look great?

Double rainbow …

New firetable for Christmas …

Looe at Christmas … he knew his stocking was full of dog toys!

The Jeep survived and running great!

The gloves are mounted!

Fishing pics … even through the cleanup work, we fished when we can. Here is dad …

Robin is the trout queen!

I even get to catch some …

Don’t forget Looe!

Can’t do a post with out some food pics!

Trout and shrimp ..

A bit of everything!

Our neighbor caught a swordfish!

The game is back on indeed!

Wore out and headed back to st Pete.  It has been an emotionally draining month, that is for sure.  Robin has a ton of pictures and will be able to tell a much better story than me, but I figured I wanted to get something published pretty quickly.

Our story started in st Pete the week leading up to our trip back to big pine.  Robin and I stopped by Sam’s and filled two shopping carts with supplies and I got the word out at work asking for hurricane relief help.  Folks came through in spades 

Thank you to the folks at American Express, Morgan stanley, the building team at 200 central, old friends and amazon prime, and the random social media folks who dropped off supplies all week.  special thanks to my work elves Julie, Becky, Tricia, Tess, mylinh, ternie, and our  neighbors John and Jen who helped us unload organize and repack the truck and trailer.

The drive down was hard to describe, things looked Florida normal until we hit the stretch between Florida city and key largo.  It looked like a big windstorm hit and then it steadily got worse as we traversed through the keys.  But it was about when you hit grassy key it was like crossing a line between bad and horrific.

Couple call outs – islamorada pretty much standing, bud and Mary’s not bad, Anne’s beach boardwalk gone, post card marina gone, upper matecumbe over washed, rainbow bend over washed, duck key not bad, marathon pretty trashed.  But when you crossed the 7 mile things went bad quickly.  Sunshine key rv park, Bahia Honda park, the big pine fish camp pretty much all flattened.

Here is a couple examples – 105th street in marathon

This is our street, george road, in big pine …  

Our place – we were lucky.  We lost our roof, a window, and took a lot of water damage.  But our place is still standing!

We spent the weekend beginning the clean up, but mostly distributing the supplies.  Our neighbors have a landscaping company and a bunch of their guys lost everything.  To say they were appreciative is an understatement!  It really made us happy to give back!  

It took us a day and a half to get it all distributed, and it was a great feeling to have an empty trailer!

We also cooked dinner for the neighborhood and it was a big hit.  Both nights we had a big crowd, and it definitely lifted spirits!  Nothing like a cold beer and a full belly to uplift the mood. 

Interesting tidbits …  what is wrong with this picture ?

When I park the boat on the lift, I put the white pole on the letter “a” in Parker.  The wind pushed it about 4 feet aft.  If I wouldn’t have cleated it to the sea wall the boat would have been gone.

Another … my gloves are still there!  Left them drying on the gaff in the cockpit.  You could see them in the cockpit on video cameras.  Laura and Kyle were making bets about how long they would stay there, and even mailed me a replacement pair as a joke!  Here they are 150mph gloves!

One more story.  No power and it was hot and stinky … so I opened windows to get some air in.  I borrowed a portable ac from work and when we turned it on robin went to shut the windows.

She started fussing at me that she couldn’t find the window.  I thought she was nuts and went over to check.  Sure enough the fricking  window fell out and. It is at the bottom of the canal!  So much for Miami-dade 180 mph windows!  Cardboard window installed for the night ..,,

Last one – our big mahogany tree really got trimmed.  The iguanas did not seam to mind.  Check this guy out .,

I will update more when we get home and decompress.  But I did want to leave you with this … the keys are still the keys.  Driving out today we got a glimpse of our gin clear water and those beautiful blues.  Life goes on, let’s clean things up, repair, rebuild and most importantly – go fishing!

Just got some aireal shots of our neighborhood in big pine, and the house is still standing!  Better yet, the boat is still there!

That is it in the upper right above.  Below is a shot where you can see part of the boat – and my trailer!  Again upper right corner.  No shots of the front of the house, so the jeep is a mystery.

Even the jeep is there!  

There is a lot of heartbreak out there though.  Tons of houses with missing roofs, boats crashed, and just plain in places they should not be.

Top it off we are back in st Pete where we sustained no damage!  Big big thank you to my sister Beth and brother in law Jim for housing robin and I.  Pretty tough on the psyche being double refugees!

How we could have got hit dead center by a cat 4 hurricane and walked away as good as did is a miracle!

Other shots – little palm island …

Bahia Honda looks good still

This poor guy ..,

The folks in the pink house have a beautiful Calcutta the keep in that boat house..

The mess at the sea center …

I don’t have the heart to post the avenues.  It is beyond horrible.

So we are good with doing a roof repair and a big cleanup.  I am sure there will be scars (ceiling fans on porches, and the front porch light), but we will take it!

Don’t know when we will get back,but hopefully soon.  Sigh of relief!

Will see how this works, Irma updates through the weekend.

9/9 evac day – Woke this morning early, couldn’t sleep.  Turned on the weather channel and the forecast swung the storm further west, direct hit big pine and Tampa.  You just can’t make this up.

Radar out of key west …

We packed up and shut down our house in st Pete. Water heater off, tv’s etc off, gas off, water off.  Packed our laptop, backup data drive, scrapbooks, and the family silver.  Add to it the lobsters, tequila, mixers and wine.  If we are gonna go… might as well go happy.

Arrived at my sisters house in Brandon, and the dogs have made it a party!  They are gonna be warn out!

As of now, we still have power and internet at the house in the keys.  Wind is blowing but she is still standing!

1:00 update 9/9 – nothing new, except a good visit!  Only time we come to Beth and jim’s is natural disasters – or Christmas!  

4:00 pm update – 9/9

Starting to blow pretty hard.  Still have power and cameras.  It is high tide right now, and luckily still no water over the sea wall!  Hang tight house and boats.  

Laura asked where my fishing equipment was.  I put all my rods and reels in the Lil Woody and she is locked the garage under the house.  So I think they will be fine.  My poor jeep though is outside, but it is tough!

Radar and webcam pics …

 9/9 8:00 pm update:

Bad news – cameras are down at the house in big pine.  Looks like the outer bands are firmly ashore.   Kinda feels empty.  All quiet here in Tampa.  Here is the radar picture:

9/10 – 0800 Sunday morning

Direct hit on big pine, eye is now onshore.  Don’t really know what else to say.

Our saving grace, if we have one is it is low tide, and a really low one. 

9/10 – 0930 update 

Port pine heights is in the eye.  You can see us clearly right next to the super nasty red stuff.

9/10 11:00am update – good riddance!  

Irma clears the keys.  No idea of damage, but sure it is not pretty.  Weather channel reports gust of 120mph on big pine key at the key deer refuge.  Pretty sure that is the weather station at the end of Kyle blvd and key deer blvd.

9/10 1:00 pm update

Not much word on big pine, other than surge speculation.  There was one guy who posted a video earlier around 7:00 when the eye wall hit.  It was encouraging because houses still were standing!  Weather channel reported 120mph gust at the key deer refuge weather station. That is located at the end of Kyle blvd, at the edge of our neighborhood.

Next on deck is my sister and brother-in-laws house on manasota key, near englewood.  The eye will pass inshore if the a little bit.  Naples looks like it will be a direct hit.  Fingers crossed and pray for safety.

9/10 4:30pm update

Irma is hitting Naples dead on.  Outer bands now hitting Beth and jim’s house on manasota key.  Here is the radar:

Here in Brandon the wind is up and it has rained all day.  But nothing bad yet.  We still have power.

Got a Facebook link to this strange site – bayshore drive in Tampa, all the water sucked out before the storm comes by.  Nuts – this is nuts

9/10 7:00pm update

She is starting to wind down a bit.  We are still good in Brandon with power (unbelievable).  Couple updates, it is now hitting manasota key pretty hard (Beth and jims house).  

Ted sent this pic of his canal in st Pete.  This no water thing is crazy.

We got the first picture from big pine, boats in the road.  Looks like at the seacenter, across from the strike zone scuba.  Good news, power lines are up!!

9/10 9:30pm update

Dogs are stressed …

Last one tonight.  Power went out here in Brandon.  Wine open, going to go to bed soon.  Got the first official word out of the keys.  Bottom line no official word from marathon or big pine, they were the worst hit.

This picture came from our friend Alan who found it on Facebook.  It is tagged from port pine heights (our neighborhood).  Flooding  but structures in place.

Here is the radar out of st Pete.  Worst for Tampa bay will be over night.  Good night all

9/11 11:00am update

Gotta say the Tampa Bay Area is lucky!  Still no power but all are safe.  Checked in with team at work and most everyone is ok.  50/50 still have power!

The big news is there was no storm surge on Tampa bay.  We got a shout out that our house in st Pete is ok, no flooding.  No word our place on big pine .., if anyone hears word, let us know.

Don’t know when we will head home yet.

I figured I will get caught up before old Irma shows up.  Hoping for the best but fearing the worst.  Robin and I left Big Pine on Tuesday after Labor Day and returned to St Pete.  Monroe county officially declared a county wide evacuation on Wednesday in the keys.  This morning pinellas county declared an evacuation in our neighborhood, so we are now double evacuees.  🙂

We spent today putting up plywood over non-impact windows on the st Pete house. And robin signed the plywood in hurricane tradition.  We have weathered 3 storms here in this house over the past 10 years.  This one is in another league all together!

Before we left the keys we put everything inside and buttoned up pretty tight.  We still weren’t sure on the storm’s path so we did not empty freezers and stuff.  I am afraid we will return to stinky bait freezers and a robins brand new kitchen freezer will be a bit ripe as well!

I have the Woody Too up on the lift as high as possible and tied down to the house and a cleat.   We are expecting 120 mph winds and > 5 feet in storm surge.  Hope it is still there when we return.  

Effects should start over night tonight, for now all we can do is check out the cameras, and hope for the best.

Before all the gloom and doom of hurricane prep, we did hit the water.  The water was flat and beautiful, and we got a really nice afternoon chasing the bugs.

Robin and I got our 12 lobster limit in a couple hours.  Really glad we found them!

We hit a spot we call the Spanish key toilets.  It is a cut through a bar that divides 2 of what we call basins, relatively deep pools of water separated by wide shallow salt flats.  You can really only dive there if you time the tides, because the currents are absolutely nuts!  We call it the toilet because someone dumped a coupe toilet bowls and tanks there which make some pretty good lobster structure.  The cut is 10 to 12 feet deep, so I always dive it with a tank.

This dive we hit the slack perfect, and I got to spend about an hour really checking out the cut.  I found an awesome coral head, 2 really good ledges, a bunch of big sponges, a 55 gal drum cut in half and 2 sets of toilets.  All the structure was holding lobsters!

We also went to a pair of corals that I keep pretty close to my chest and we rounded up our limit.  always a good feeling when you fill the hold!

Those boogers sure are tasty!  My dear wife certainly knows how to prep them!

Well all for now.  Prepare for the worst and hope for the best!  I sure hope my next post is positive, the next 48 hours will tell the story.