The Full Sedge, by Alexi

     Well this'll be an easy fishing blog entry.  I say that because not much happened.  I got a later start than I wanted.
      I hit the water around 1 p.m.  I wanted to get one or two fluke and a couple of med size bluefish for the smoker.  I started by trolling and casting in the small channel directly at the kayak launch.  My efforts were immediately thwarted by the seaweed.  I tried never the less, and after about an hour and a half was at Oyster Creek channel.
     This is where I was decidedly setting up a drift for fluking.  I tried for a little bit, but the current was a little strong, and the seaweed still bad, so I tried some fishing from land.  That also proved fruitless.  I decided to make  my move to Snake Ditch. The current was slow, and despite lots of bait, not much action.  Because of time issues, I didn't stay long at Snake ditch, maybe half an hour, then I headed straight for the inlet.  That was my best chance at a keeper fluke.  It took about 45 minutes, but then I was in 30 feet of water.  I had to at least get a short, but instead I got a snag and lost a rig.  On my drift back to the mouth of snake ditch I did manage to hook into a Houndfish.

   These guys are great fun to catch. They jump a ton.  Anyway it unhooked itself at the side of my kayak while I was contemplating it's set of teeth.
   
     Back at Snake ditch, and at the end of my day as the sun was setting and I was giving up I hooked into another fish.  About 20 inches of striped bass that I was actually hoping was a bluefish.

     There was a ton of bait, and occasionally it would explode with a big fish underneath.  They were there, I just couldn't seem to get the right presentation in the right place.  I even saw from about 100 yards away, in the flats part of the bay, a pretty large fish splashing around in what looked to be about one foot or less of water.
     when I got home I read reports of lots of 2 to 5 pound bluefish, and lots of short bass.  AND, I've been there before myself, just not this day.
A. Flats fishing for bluefish
B. Oyster Creek Channel, for fluke and bluefish
C. Snake Ditch
D. The inlet

adirondacks

     I was camping up at middle lake saranac for about five days with family and friends.  It's the best camping, canoeing, kayaking, fishing spot I've ever been introduced to.  I was there last year, so this was my second trip. Last year was pretty much a three day fishing marathon.This year I spent much more time relaxing and just enjoying the camping.The fishing wasn't as off the hook as last year, but then again I did much more experimenting. I caught a large mouth bass on a Hogy (homemade version), yellow perch on a small popper, small mouth on spinner baits, yellow perch on buzz bait, and of course plenty of small mouth on rubber worm.
     The only real buzzkill the whole trip was when Maisy attacked a friends dog, Buddy, and he had to go get stitches in town.
     I've got a ton of pictures.   These are some of my favorite.  However, as is always the case, neither words nor pictures can adequately capture the serenity and solitude of camping in a spot where the closest other campsite is a 15 minute paddle across a lake.

Haley in the front,

then Maisy, then me

Wendy is always pointing, "Look over there!"

Marshmallows are better burnt (Haley did stuff chocolate
chips in some which was delicious)

Home

There was always surface action near our campsite...

the view

the journey back...Wendy, Maisy, Haley.

Delaware Canoe Trip, by Alexi

     Steve and I decided to do a Delaware river trip in his canoe. It started out as an idea to take Haley(my 13 year old daughter) out, but she decided she'd rather no go.  So, what was going to be a 4 hour trip turned into a 6 hour float which took eight hours.
     If I could sum up what this trip was like the central, pivotal, moment of the day, the thing that was the glue that held the day together, it was my Hoagie.  That's a sandwich I'm talking about.  A sandwich I bought at a sandwich shop.  It had the word sandwich printed in big letters on the outside.  Inside, on the menu it said cheese hoagie.  Also, I'm sure  I saw something about all hoagies coming with lettuce tomatoes and onion.  So I ordered a cheese hoagie.  I should have suspected something was going to go wrong when the young cashier asked me for a second choice of cheese in case the first was out, when clearly there was muenster cheese in the deli case.  (My second choice was provolone.)  I got my sandwich, a red-bull for later, water and a bagel.  I ate the bagel on the way to the put in, and saved the other food for later.

deer bones

the hot dog stand on the river

    Later:  Fishing was slow.  SSSLLLOOOWWW.   Not skunked, just small and far between.  The canoe had very hard seats and 4 hours into it my butt was sore.  I was hungry.  Steve and I decided it was time to eat the sandwiches.  The sandwich I ordered was far from what I got.  Yes it had muenster. And it was between two pieces of bread.  But, THAT WAS IT!  Nada. Zilch.  Nothing else.   I wanted to throw it into the river but I was too hungry.

smallest striped bass ever

majestic

deer