Steve’s Popper Blog

Its friggin hot…too hot to fish comfortably and its makin’ me grumpy.

So what brings this up?  Advertising.  Say what?  Yeah, advertising.

Here’s the deal…I’m a detail-oriented kind of guy.  I’m the guy that watches a movie and picks out the errors…same goes for TV shows and advertisements.  Drives Connie Lou nuts but thats just the way I am.  I mean, hey…does it really take that much effort to get the details right?

Back to advertising…  Yesterday my buddy Tony D sent me a link to a website for a resort in Captiva Island, Florida.  I was clicking through the pages and thinking it was a pretty spiffy place…until I clicked on the ‘Activities’ button to see what they said about fishing in the area…things went downhill from there.

First off, this photo graced the link to the fishing page:

Now some would wonder why in the world a photo of a pretty fly sitting in front of a nice fly reel would bother me.  Well, admittedly it is a pretty fly, but its all wrong.  Its a fly for salmon…not redfish or tarpon or speckled trout…which aren’t trout but thats an entirely different issue.    Its a fly one would see in Ireland or Scotland…not in Florida!  There aren’t any salmon in Florida except for the kind you pay out the wazoo for in restaurants or the kind that comes in a can and you pronounce the ‘L’.  Whoever put the webpage together found a pretty picture but obviously didn’t do his or her homework to figure out that the photo just doesn’t fit!

But that wasn’t enough.

They talked about catching tarpon, redfish and speckled trout…the usual suspects for that area.  They listed several of the local charter captains and then they listed a few local outfitters and tackle shops…where you can purchase or rent fishing ‘poles’.  Huh, what?  Poles?  Yeah, poles…  Seems to me whats going on here is the web designer doesn’t know jack about fishing and hasn’t bothered to do his/her homework beyond watch the intro to The Andy Griffith show on TBS.

Fishing ‘poles’…its a perfect phrase to describe the gear you’d use, regardless of quality or price, on a lazy Sunday afternoon in the pond out back or sittin’ on a river bank…makes one think cane poles or Zebco 33s.  I’m thinking thats probably not quite the image a spiffy high end resort catering to spiffy high end folks wants to portray.

So who beyond me really gives a rats behind?  Probably no one aside from a few folks that are just as quirky as me and have spent too much time out in the heat lately.  Fortunately we’re looking at the end of August and are running headlong into fall and cooler weather.  The fish will be more active for a few weeks and I’ll get to go fishing again instead of sitting around nit-picking advertisements…

Thanks for the vent…I feel better now…

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Got up and out early again this morning. It was overcast and humid but not raining.  A look at the beach told me the surf was still rolling so I opted to try fishing the grass flat in St. Joe Bay that the guy at Bluewater told me about yesterday. 

Three or four other guys were already there when I arrived bu there was plenty of room to spread out and fish.  I tried a popper for a little while hoping to catch something on the surface but it didn’t take long to decide that it probably wasn’t the better plan.  After half an hour of so I clipped off the popper and tied on a pink and white slinky fiber clouser…

It wasn’t too long before I tied into the first of a couple of small speckled sea trout…

and then a pinfish…

With the day shaping up to be much nicer weatherwise than the  previous two, I headed back a little early to have a little extra beach time with the kids.  Though I needed to get on back I couldn’t resist making a couple of stops for a little caching on the way back.

Upon arriving at the condo I was surprised to find the girls up and moving already so it wasn’t long before we were headed for the beach.  Instead of being jumbled and confused the waves were almost perfect for boogie boards with a relatively smooth area across the trough between the breakers and the sandbar.  We spent a couple of hours riding waves, floating in the trough and generally chillin’ before heading off to Scoops Up, a local sandwich and ice cream shop for lunch and some ice cream.

It turns out that the folks at Scoops make a pretty darn good deli sandwich and, of course, Blue Bell ice cream is always good.  We gave it 8 thumbs up.  Unfortunately, a great little snack shack’s days might be numbered since a flier in the shop window told us its up for sale.  You can get the whole shootin’ match, fixtures, inventory and a pink vehicle painted up with the shop logo for the low, low price of $58,000.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent chillin’ in the Gulf and ignoring a couple of rainshowers that passed through…hey, there was no lightening and, as I heard a kid on the beach say, we couldn’t get any wetter, couldn’t we?

For supper we opted to give Beach Pizza a try on the recognition of David Broshar, one of my friends from college whose dad has a place in town.  It isn’t much to look at but the pizza was darn good…much better than any of the chain pizza joints…another place to remember and another 8 thumbs-up…

Filed under: Clouser, Geocaching, flyfishing | No Comments »

Woke up early this morning as usual.  Being an early riser can be both a blessing and a curse.  Getting up early to go fishing or hunting has never been a problem but sleeping in on a rainy day when it’d be nice to snooze usually doesn’t happen.  Fortunately for me vacation mornings are usually my time to go fishing so I take advantage of being an early riser.

It was rainy this morning but not quite bad enough to keep me from grabbing a rod and my gear bag and heading out.  After over two weeks of being almost smooth as glass with almost no wash on the shore, the Gulf had changed its tune thanks to a little storm 700 miles away names Alex.  Still, early in the morning it wasn’t too bad…

I worked the surf for a little while with a clouser and a sand flea pattern with no luck.  Line management wasn’t too much of an ordeal but a stripping basket sure would have made life easier.  After a couple of futile hours I headed back up to wake up the rest of the family and get everyone moving.  Once the sleepyheads were up and moving we decided to head down to the beach but as we looked up the street we saw that the sky had turned dark and a wall of rain was headed our way…

We did a quick reevaluation of our plans and decided to change clothes and head over to the Indian Pass Raw Bar for lunch instead.  Now I’ve been anticipating going back to Indian Pass since our vacation at Cape San Blas last year and I wasn’t disappointed.  The steamed shrimp were as good as I remembered.  The kids tried the crab stuffed shrimp and Connie opted for a BBQ sandwich.  Once again we gave the joint 8 thumbs up.  BTW, just in case anyone is wondering how the BBQ is at a seafood shack…in this case its pretty darn good!

We stopped off at a local tackle shop on the way back to the condo to see if I could get a suggestion or two where I might be able to find a sheltered spot where I might catch a fish or two tomorrow.  Once we returned from lunch the rain had slacked off and the surf was up…time for boogie boards!!  The waves probably seemed a lot bigger than they were but they were plenty big to give us some good rides and to bash us around a bit as well…

While we all had several great rides, it only took a couple of hours for us to decide we’d had enough of scraping our legs and feet across the sand on our boards and getting out feet knocked out from under us and slammed into the ocean floor.  As we began to pack up to head to the pool to relax a Apalachicola…

The view is beach houses, a few town homes and a small motel or two and not wall to wall sky high condos like one sees from PCB west to Gulf Shores…

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Summer has been trying to sneak past us this year.  Work and other things we’ve had going on have made time go by a little too fast and we decided its time to take a little break and get away for a few days.  After a bit of searching we found a condo we were able to book on short notice in Mexico Beach, Florida.

After a couple of weeks of anticipation we finally loaded up and got ready to go.  Its always good to have help when you’re loading the car…

Why was I thinking I’d be able to see out see out the back window?

We finally got moving and after a quick stop for gas we were on the road…

Our drive through south Georgia and the Florida panhandle was mostly uneventful but we did break up the drive to find our first Florida geocache which just happened to be an earthcache…

Once back on the road, it wasn’t long until we reached Mexico Beach, checked into the condo…

and were treated to a fine view over the Gulf…

Even Sophie approved…

We spent a little time playing on the beach in a light rain then headed down the street to Toucan’s for supper.  In keeping with my tradition of posting mini restaurant reviews on the popperblog we gave Toucan’s 7 thumbs-up out of a possible 8.  My steamed shrimp were pretty good, the girls enjoyed their crab and shrimp cakes and Connie said her grilled chicken salad was…well…salad…

More to come…

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…As if you haven’t noticed.  Heat index of 103 in the shade, haze so thick you can eat it with a fork and one doesn’t dare inhale too deeply outside for fear of drowning from the humidity.   Welcome to summer in the Deep South!!

Unfortunately I haven’t fished a lot lately, weather and life in general have conspired to keep me off the water but I have managed to get out a few times and have met with mixed success.

Floated my favorite pond one Saturday evening a couple of weeks back…

And caught a few nice fish like these…

This past weekend I got up and out early to try to fish for a while before the skeeters woke up…

But it seemed that the fish slept in too so I headed home to enjoy the rest of the morning…

Not too worry, the heat will break sooner or later and I’m feelin’ some saltwater fun in the near future…

Filed under: flyfishing, largemouth bass | No Comments »

I had all intentions of getting up early and heading over to the pond this morning.  I did wake up early but once I was coherent enough to realize the odd noise I could hear was rain hittin’ the roof I decided that rollin’ over and sleepin’ in was probably the better option.

Aside from going to the pond for a little while we had no big plans for today beyond throwing a few racks of ribs on the smoker for supper so we spent the morning and early afternoon doing a few things around the house and enjoying an opportunity to just chill out for a while.

Before lunchtime I took a few minutes to put a layer of dry rub on our ribs and get ‘em ready to go on the smoker.

By 2:30 I had a full load of charcoal in the charcoal basket in my smoker’s side fire box and a short batch of briquettes getting ready to go on top of the rest.

Once the charcoal in the basket was topped with the lit briquettes it wasn’t long until my thermometers told me I had between 225 and 250 degrees on the grate and it was time to put the ribs on and add a few hickory chunks to the fire…

…and let it do its thing for a little while…

In the mean time I got some corn on the cob ready to go on the grill once the ribs were finished…

At the 1-hour mark the ribs were lookin’ good and had a nice bark goin’…

Well, our plans got changed up just a little.  Connie and Jenna returned home from running errands and kindly brought me a bottle of barbeque sauce from Sprayberry’s.  I mopped the ribs down good about half an hour before I pulled them from the heat…

…and was about to start getting the coals ready to put the corn on the grill when a late afternoon shower rolled in.

No big deal, we just shifted to Plan B and cooked the corn on the stove and it was perfectly good.  Finally, by about 6:15 the ribs and other fixins were ready and it was time to chow down…

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What a busy weekend its been.  Northgate High School chorus variety show Friday night, a trip up to Young Harris College Saturday morning for Ashley to tour the campus (fingers crossed), dinner with friends on the way home, church this morning, errands after church and finally a little fishin’ time this afternoon.

I actually debated going geocaching instead of fishing.  The wind was gusting and after the monsoons yesterday I figured the pond would look like a YooHoo drink.  In hind sight I’d say I made a good call by going ahead and loading up the yak and my gear and hitting the pond.  The wind was a bit of a pain but the water couldn’t have looked better.

Got on the water about 4:30 and it took a little while to catch my first fish.  This little warmouth just couldn’t help himself and had to go after my crease fly…

I made one interesting discovery this afternoon as I was trying to take a few photos…its just about impossible to see the image on my camera’s screen through polarized glasses.  A bit annoying but still, I learned something new today.

I picked up a couple of small bass over the next couple of hours…

…but things were pretty slow.  I decided to kick back for a bit and enjoy a Tatuaje Noella while I drifted along…

By about 6:30 I was considering packing it in and calling it a day but since the sun was getting low behind the trees and casting some nice shadows I decided to make just a couple more casts by one particular boat dock.  I was a bit surprised when I connected with what might have been the biggest bass I’ve found in the pond so far with the first cast up by the dock.  Unfortunately it came unbuttoned before I could get a hand on it but it looked to be over 3 pounds, maybe pushing 4.  The next cast yielded this chunky fish…

And in the next 10 or so casts I picked up 4 more…needless to say my thoughts about packing it in early were quickly forgotten.  Ended up fishing a couple more hours and finally packed it in when it got dark.

Another fun weekend in the record books…

Filed under: Crease Fly, flyfishing, largemouth bass | 1 Comment »

I got an e-mail the other day from my buddy John from Jacksonville.  John was up in Tennessee visiting his grandkids and took ‘em fishin’ like any good grandpa would.  An afternoon with a flyrod and a handful or Rubber-Legged Dragons produced some nice results…

Check it out…

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Hope Jimmy Buffett doesn’t mind me using the title of one of his books and his songs in my the title of this blog entry.  Me, Connie and the girls spent half of last week on Perdido Key, a salty barrier island on the Florida-Alabama coast.  As is usual for a trip to the beach, we had our share of fishing, food and fun but the available time was all too short.

Rather than posting daily entries for each day as I did during our summer vacation last year it seems more appropriate to wrap things up in one post and break it up into categories like…well…how about fishing, food and fun?

Fishing

Gotta say up front I didn’t catch squat.  Wednesday and Thursday mornings were beautiful…

But the wind was rippin 15-20 and blowing directly onshore.  I was fishing a floating line and didn’t stand a chance.  I could deal with the wind but line management just wasn’t happening in the rolling surf…

Bay options in the area are pretty limited without a boat of some sort and I’d elected to leave my kayak at home this time around but I still found a few places to try…

Friday dawned clear and the wind had swung around and was blowing more or less offshore and the surf had calmed…

I spent a couple hours casting both in the wash and toward the sandbars with nothing to show.  If the pompano were there they weren’t making themselves known…at least not to me and the other folks fishing in the surf.  Maybe the boaters outside the sandbar were doing better.

Food

To me food is as big of a part of vacations as fishing and thats saying a lot.  We typically try to eat breakfast and lunch in at the condo and then go out for supper.  We also make it a point not to go to chains or places that we have at home.

Wednesday found us at The Crab Trap in Perdido Key, Florida.  Imagine Pineapple Willy’s in PCB or Toucan’s in Mexico Beach and you get the format.  You can eat inside or out on the deck overlooking the ocean and there’s a sandy playground for the kids.  The food was generally good, the beer was cold and we gave it a 6 thumbs up out of a possible 8.

Thursday was Lambert’s night.  Lambert’s, located in Foley, Alabama is different.  Their specialty/schtick is their huge yeast rolls - which they throw to you…thus the moniker “Home of Throwed Rolls”.  The food is good and the portions are big but its not exceptional (well, except for the rolls) but its a fun place to eat and the kids really dig it.  Not too many places you can go and have your food thrown to you.  We gave it 7 thumbs up out of 8.

Friday night was Guthries in Orange Beach.  Guthries is a fast-food chain and the only reason I’m mentioning it is we used to have one here in Newnan.  We enjoyed it but it closed after year or two.  Guthries locations have done quite well in college towns but I’m guessing that a menu limited to chicken strips, fries and drinks just wasn’t enough for Newnan.  There were a few more things on the menu at the Orange Beach location but it was still basically the same format.  Regardless, the food was good.  Nothing special but good and it earned 6 thumbs up out of 8.

Saturday night…Lulu’s at Homeport Marina.  If you’re ever heard of Lulu’s and know anything at all about it you most likely know that the owner is Lucy Buffett, Jimmy Buffett’s sister.  You expect the place to be fun…and it doesn’t disappoint.  I’d found out about Lulu’s about 7 or 8 years ago when it was located over in Fairhope, Alabama.  The lease ran out on the old location and wasn’t renewed so Lucy packed everything up, loaded it up - lock, stock and building - onto a barge and moved to its present location on the Intercoastal Waterway just east of the Hwy 59 bridge.  At the time we were visiting Perdido Key at least once a year and I’d been hoping for the chance to give Lulu’s a try…then Hurricane Ivan hit.  Lulu’s was damaged but was back in business in short order but my sis-in-law and her husband’s condo on Perdido Key was heavily damaged and was eventually sold.  Since then we’ve been visiting other locales for vacation and I’d begun to wonder if I’d ever get to Lulu’s.

Lulu’s has a little something for everyone…a BIG sandbox and play area for the kids, volleyball net stretched between a couple of palm trees, a shave-ice stand, three bars, a gift shop, lots of places to sit when there’s a wait, live music every night and then there’s the restaurant itself.  The menu is filled with fun food, not fancy food.  The food and the service were both great.  Connie and the girls had cheeseburgers and fries and I had a jerk chicken sandwich and a cup of gumbo.  We almost passed on dessert but at the last minute decided to split an order of the Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding…in hind sight we should have ordered two or maybe even three.  Just imagine bread pudding made with chopped up Krispy Kremes instead of regular bread…slap yo mama good…

Of course we hit the gift shop and came home with an assortment of t-shirts, ball caps and other trinkets.  Wish I’d picked up a signed copy Lucy’s ‘Crazy Sista Cooking’ cookbook…gonna have to do that next time we go coastal.

Oh yeah, almost forgot…we gave Lulu’s 8 thumbs-up and since we were wearin’ flip-flops we could probably add a few of toes too for the atmosphere - definitely will be one of our go-to places down the road.

Fun

Now for some non-gastronomical fun.  What can you say about the beach and pools in April other than if you can tough out the initial shock of the cool water to various and sundry body parts you can still have a lot of fun splashing around.  We spent a fair amount of time out on the beach and by the pools and all of us managed to come home with a bit of sun.

Since the fish weren’t cooperative we spent some time geocaching and I added another 20 or so to my finds list.  We even took my 6-year old nephew Andrew out for his first hunts.  Rather than try to explain the concept of geocaching we put it into terms he could relate to and called it a treasure hunt.  He took to it like a duck to water and had a ball.

The Outlet Mall…it pains me greatly to  mention a trip to an outlet mall under a category called ‘Fun’ -  It was crowded and fun it wasn’t.  However, I did get a new pair of Mossy Oak camo Crocs out of the deal and after an early supper at Lamberts me and Andrew were released to go off geocaching.  The women-folk didn’t get back until after 10:00 so apparently they had fun so I’ll include it on their behalf.

Saturday afternoon found us packing up to head home.   We stalled as long as we could get away with and probably a little too long since it was nearly 2:00 in the morning when we rolled into the driveway and unlocked the door.  Four days just isn’t long enough and now I’m sittin’ here wishin’ I was sittin’ on a salty piece of land.

Filed under: Clouser, Crease Fly, Geocaching, Uncategorized, flyfishing | 1 Comment »

Got a little bit of a later start than I intended this morning but the day started off so nice I decided a cup of coffee and a nice cigar out on the deck were in order before loading up and hitting the pond.

Once I finally got my tail in gear it didn’t take long to rig up and pull the yak down to the water…

I made a couple of casts with a Cowen’s Something Else and picked up a little bass which had me thinking it was going to be a good morning.  As I paddled across the pond I noticed the wind had picked up a bit and that it didn’t seem to have a preference for direction…long and short…casting and holding in position were going to be challenging.

I picked up another fish or two on the Something Else…

Then things slowed down…

After an hour or so of a lot of nothing I figured it was time to change things up.  Fishing subsurface wasn’t overly productive so I couldn’t really do any worse on top, right?  The water was a bit dingy so I guessed that something that would move some water and make some noise might work.  After digging through my topwater box I finally tied on a beat up crease fly with a rattle buried inside.

It didn’t take but as few casts for it to become quite apparent that the crease fly was working and the topwater bite is ON!

Also noticed quite a few fish swiping at the fly without actually taking it…suggesting to me that some are already on the bed and were just trying to move the intruder from near their beds.  Regardless, several fish later I decided I’d had enough fun in the wind and decided it was time to call it a day…

Filed under: Blogroll, Crease Fly, flyfishing, largemouth bass | 2 Comments »