Honeymoon Fishing Trip - Day 7

Sadly this is our last day at the fishing resort. We have had such a good time here and would like to send out a big thank you to our hosts Clint and Billie Jo as well as the park mascots Tater Tot and LuLu who have kept us in doggie kisses this week!

I am finally feeling quite a bit better tonight (man this cold kicked my butt for a couple of days there). Gonna hit the docks once more this evening and then get packed up to head back to Daytona Beach in the morning. We are planning to go early enough to dip a toe in the ocean before returning our rental car and checking in for the flights back home.

Located a great little 2 bedroom apartment here in Crescent City and hope it will still be available in a couple weeks so we can hold it until we move down here. We both love it here and the move is inevitable. Have a LOT of downsizing to do and so much to accomplish when we get back home but we can't wait to get back here!!!!!

Next post will be from home and we will add a few more pics and videos when we have a better internet connection.

Love from Florida!

Honeymoon Fishing Trip - Day 6

Not much to post about again today. I got up and fished for about an hour this morning. We caught a couple of catfish and I got to feeling lousy so I came back to our room and Bobby stayed fishing for a bit alone. He came back to the room and said it wasn't the same fishing without me (isn't he soooooo sweet?) so he made a trip over to the realtors office to check on rentals in the area. Found a cute little 2 bedroom apartment really cheap that we are hoping we can hold until we can get ready to move here. Then he came back to hang with his sickly wife and wait on me hand and foot. Sent him to the store for some chicken noodle soup and it seems to be doing the trick. Starting to feel a little better. Hopefully I will feel like a full day of fishing tomorrow since it's our last fishing day. Can't believe how fast a week can go by. Wow!

Sunday we plan to head back to Daytona Beach early so we can run down to the beach and dip a toe in the ocean before our flight home. Looking forward to that! I will post again tomorrow night before we wrap things up here. Night all!

Honeymoon Fishing Trip - Day 5

Sorry for the late post but I came down with a nasty cold and cough and have been under the weather. Not a lot to post about anyway. We are still having a wonderful time. Still catching big bluegills and some catfish. The weather has been wonderful (nice in the morning, warming up in the afternoon bringing a nice short little thunderstorm followed by a lovely evening). Today's thunderstorm produced a really cool sky. Here's a couple of pics.


Also thought I would show you the Florida version of nightcrawlers LOL. Hard to believe these big ole fish hit like crazy on these things. Makes me wonder what they would do on some huge nightcrawlers like we use back home.

These things are extremely tough though and so squirmy it's not funny! So we did a little more fishing, ate some supper and bedtime once again. Boy is this time going fast!

Honeymoon Fishing Trip - Day 4

Not much happened today. We kind of slept in (until 7:30) and didn't hit the fishing hole until like 8:30. Nothing much biting today. Caught a couple medium sized catfish and a couple bluegills but smaller ones.

Went on a Churches chicken and boiled peanuts run again. Yum. Came back and took a nap. Tried a little more fishing but it was pretty hot and still not much biting although we did get to see an otter pop his head up and look at us for a minute. The wildlife around this lake is nothing short of AMAZING! We headed back for the air conditioning, shower and supper. Took another short nap and tried again around 8 tonight. Bobby caught another little bluegill but we were really fishing for bass and none were hitting anything we threw at them and a storm was coming up so we called it a night. We are really having a wonderful time!

Sorry no new pics today! Hopefully tomorrow will be another good fishing day. See ya then!

Honeymoon Fishing Trip - Day 3

Wow, one hell of a day today!

Started out at 6:30 this morning heading for the dock and were treated to this beautiful sunrise:

We proceeded to catch quite a few more bluegill (or brim as they are called here). Took a few more pics.

After a couple of hours we got hungry so back to the cabin for some taters, eggs and toast. Then we took a drive up to Palatka (a bigger town about 25 miles north of here) to look around a bit and go to Walmart to restock our fishing supplies.....We lost a few bobbers to the rushes!

Came back to Cresent City and stopped in the local newspaper office to check out the archives of when Bobby's Dad owned the paper. They have archives of all the papers waaaaaaay back. Got to read some editorials written by his Dad and got copies of a few including a photo of his parents he had never seen. Pretty cool stuff.

Time for a beer run and more fishing. This is where it gets good.

Fish on???? Hell no.....Gator on!!!!!!!!!!!

Here we are fishing nice and peacefully when along comes Garth (yes we named him) the Gator! It soon became clear that this gator was stalking our bobbers. It also soon became clear that he wasn't too bright! So Bobby, in his usual goofy manner, began taunting Garth with erratic bobber movements. In the video above I said no to reeling in a gator, but on the second bobber chomp Bobby talked me into it. MAN, a 175 pound gator on the end of a pole is um, indescribable!!!!

It was obvious after he bit on our bobbers for the third (yes I said third) time that Garth must have ridden the short bus into the lake and then probably ATE IT! We're certain his motto is "Bobbers...the other white meat!"

Everyone should be pleased to know he has been fitted with special gator glasses and is doing well in the everglades!

Soooooooo.......back to fishing and guess what? Along comes Garth's little brother, Barf...LOL...who also must think bobbers are a delicacy. When I say "little brother" here, we are still talking about a 4 to 5 foot long gator. Bobby actually hooked this one, wrestled with him for about 10 minutes or so, got him all the way to the dock, but he lost his balance for a second and Barf darted around a pylon and snapped the line. (All that just so i could get a better shot of him with the camera)...At least all arms and legs are still intact!

So ends the gator sightings for today. Got to actually fish for a few more hours, caught some more bluegills and called it a day.

Honeymoon Fishing Trip - Day 2

Woke up at 7AM-ish, clothes on, coffee swigged and hit the dock! Bobby's day today. He started off small (2 Iowa sized bluegill) but then.................Monster bluegill on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He caught 2 of these babies!!!

Now THAT'S a bluegill! Are we having fun yet? You bet!

Saw another gator. I was watching him watching me watching him! Here are some cool pics from the dock:

Check out the heron's on the end of the dock!

There's a gator out there, just doesn't show up in the pic. Isn't the lake gorgeous?

And here is Bobby on the dock getting ready to fish.
Got a little hungry so off on an adventure. Drove south on a quest for goobers (fresh boiled peanuts) and Church's fried chicken. Found the chicken and yum is all we can say. Just how we both remembered it. Then onward on the quest for goobers. Asking everyone where to find a stand we were told to find the lady in the white pickup. No suck luck but we did find them and got our goobers. 3 pounds of 'em! Bobby's still eating them as I type!

A little grocery shopping rounded out the morning. Save-a-lot followed by Winn-Dixie (haven't been in one of them in quite a while). Bobby was freaking out about all the yummy weird stuff he likes to eat that you can't get in Iowa (tripe and ox tails for his menudo, pickled polish sausages, cajun fish breading, and we got collard greens and mustard greens) He's a happy camper. Time for a little r-n-r in the cabin before our evening fishing adventure. Landlord was kind enough to give us a catfishing starter pack so we'll let ya no how that goes later!

More tonight!!!!

Wow, what a great day! Went back out fishing around 2 and stayed until about 7:30. Caught some more monster bluegills and Bobby caught a catfish, saw another gator, had a big ole snake swim by and had a turtle eat a fish right off our stringer.

Bobby filleted the bluegill and we fried them up for supper. Check out the pics below.

Isn't he pretty? And the fish too!!!!!

This one was bigger than he looks in the pic!

Mine again. Please note Bobby's whole finger fit in the mouth of this one!
Yeah Bobby got a little sunburned today but with fish like these it's well worth it!

And here is some local wildlife we have been seeing. Cool crane on the dock when we came out this afternoon.
And a neat snake went swimming right by our bobbers
If ya click on this one and look at it bigger you can see the gator!!
This is the fish cleaning station provided and my good hubby filleting our supper
And here they are all ready for breading.
And here is supper all cooked up. It was YUM!!!!
So as a GREAT day 2 comes to a close, Bobby is already snoring here next to me and I am ready to join him. Planning to hit the docks at 6 AM tomorrow. Can hardly wait to see what we catch and see tomorrow. See ya'll later!

Honeymoon Fishing Trip - Day 1

Yesterday (Saturday, July 10th) we got married. Guess what we did for our wedding reception? You got it! We went fishing at our favorite spot on 280 lake.

Tonight finds us in Florida for the start of our fishing honeymoon. Gotta love air travel. We started from the Quad Cities airport at 5 AM. Here we are arriving in our sleep!

Left Quad Cities airport at 6 AM sharp. Had a great flight to Atlanta airport. Thought we would have to scurry to catch our next plane but the next gate was right next door so we had time for a quick ciggy and then the next flight was delayed for takeoff so we grabbed a hot dog and another ciggy at the airport. Took off from Atlanta around 11AM and arrived in Daytona Beach around noon. Look at the cool clouds out the plane window......

Coming into Daytona Beach in the air is really awesome. You fly way out over the ocean and come in from the east. Miles and miles of beach as far as you can see either direction. TOTALLY cool! Here is a shot outside the Daytona Beach airport. The palm trees are sooooo cool!

When we went to rent the car we had a little issue with them not taking debit cards (didn't have a problem when they took it on the internet and didn't say anything about it on the website) so we went to a different rent-a-car company who did. Cost was a little higher but we had enough to cover it. Thought we were gonna be stuck in Daytona for a minute there. Onward to Cresent City!!!!! Drove through a downpour or 2 on the way but when we arrived at our resort around 2 PM it quit raining. Great people here. Here is our rental car in front of the cabin.



Got all our stuff in our Cabin and hit the dock for some fishing! Gayle caught the first fish of the trip (of course). A gorgeous sunfish with a red belly and it was a real nice size. Forgot to take the camera so ya'll (that's my southern accent coming back LOL) will have to take our word for that one! And Gayle saw her very first gator! How cool was that?

We were both feeling a little tired so after about and hour of fishing we headed to Domino's for a pizza which we took back to the cabin for a bed picnic. We were treated to a nice little thunderstorm over the lake while we ate and watched a little tv (and we mean literally a "LITTLE" tv LOL).

end of day 1...a really great one too!