Life Is Good

[ecu1984]

No Cobia today but what a great time was had.
Ran the beach, ocean was laid out like glass right outside the breakers.
Saw one nice Cobia sunbathing but he dove and was never seen again,
Started early this morning, ran up to Cape Lookout on the inside, beautiful day, sand bars, wild horses on Shackleford Banks, ran all the way back in the ocean, was laid out slick calm, pulled into Swansboro waterfront and had shrimp and grits with my best little buddy. Life is good, God is good.
Light House.jpg
Horses.jpg
Owen.jpg
Saltwater Cafe.jpg
Shrimp n grits.jpg

[Drylok]

What more could a kid want?

Yeah… Y’all had a good day.

[ecu1984]

What more could a kid want?

Yeah… Y’all had a good day.

Not a fish was caught and one of the best days on the water that I have had in several years.

[We Jeep Inn]

Good stuff

[centurian]

Try the Blue Moon Beach Grill at Nags Head. Best shrimp and grits I have ever eaten.

[buckbuster]

Good stuff!! Yeah

[Black Bart]

Livin' the dream.

[BEAR]

A fine day indeed!

[Cwaysvt]

Looks like an awesome day. Funny how those kind of days work out sometimes.

[2thDoc]

What more could a kid want?

Yeah… Y’all had a good day.

well, catching a fish would be a start.

ha
good day, ECU

[ecwooduck]

Love me some cape lookout, looking forward to our annual trip there in October

[turbo]

I miss my summers running a 12ft skiff between Harkers Island, the Cape, up the river, and the waterfront.

That is a special place.

The number of flounder that I dried out off of the sound side of Shackleford is something that I'll never achieve anywhere else again in my lifetime.

I hope to sit under that bridge at the island with a spinning rod, a cooler of cold beers, and my boys one day soon.

Thanks for sharing. That little feller you've got in tow doesn't know how good he's got it just yet.

[turbo]

Side note:

One of the coolest experiences I ever had on the water was one night gigging flounder with dad in Middle Marsh.

We had left my uncle and cousin over by the Banks and went to see if we could find some bigger fish in Middle Marsh. What we found in the marsh is something I'd never heard of and had to confirm with Duke in Morehead.

The bottom of the marsh when I cut my lights on was probably 18" deep in blue crabs as far as you could see. It was surreal. Millions and millions of blue crabs seemingly spawning, but that didn't compute.

We called Duke the next morning and met the biologist at the marker coming from Beaufort through the cut at Shackleford and showed him what we had found the night before. After he dug around a bit on the bottom, he found that the crabs were there feeding on an inordinate amount of the baby starfish on the bottom that we couldn't see for the crabs. It turns out that it was some rare starfish migration pattern that only happens every so often and the biologist had never seen before, much less in that sound.

So, when he left, I scooted back to the house to grab a dip net and some wash tubs.

I dipped crabs into floating tubs as I walked around the marsh for about half an hour. Shuffling my feed through clouds of crabs climbing up your legs and backside was weird as hell.

Papa Bill was pretty pissed off when we finally got done cleaning all of those crabs. I had dipped BUSHELS of 'em.

I don't know if it was legal or not and don't really care because we at like kings for two weeks. Crab cakes, steamed crab, she crab soup, a really special bisque that Uncle Gervaise put together, and BAGs of picked meat for the freezer. All we did for a couple of days was cook, eat, and pick crabmeat.

Even after cleaning all of those crabs, I went back the next day to see if my greedy ass could land some more and they were gone. Gone. Weird as shit.

I have stories like this that would fill a book that I haven't thought about in a very long time. Dumping scallops overboard after seeing the game warden during a closed season, diving to recover an outboard motor that wasn't clamped on the stern of the boat well enough at 10-ish years old, picking up clams the size of a kid's head whenever we felt like it, fishing that never left you skunked, making the lap around the island the first time by myself, laying on the beach on the big water side of Shackleford and watching the boys from Atlantic Beach ride the shit out of a surfboard, riding in the back of dad's pickup to Eastards to get ice cream after a long day getting sunburned somewhere nearby... I could go on for days.

We sold that place at Harkers Island a couple of years ago because life had gotten in the way and nobody ever used it anymore. I'm still sad about that, but have some of the best memories a man could ask for.

If we meet sometime, I'm certain we could swap some epic stories from Downeast.

[ecu1984]

Side note:

One of the coolest experiences I ever had on the water was one night gigging flounder with dad in Middle Marsh.

We had left my uncle and cousin over by the Banks and went to see if we could find some bigger fish in Middle Marsh. What we found in the marsh is something I'd never heard of and had to confirm with Duke in Morehead.

The bottom of the marsh when I cut my lights on was probably 18" deep in blue crabs as far as you could see. It was surreal. Millions and millions of blue crabs seemingly spawning, but that didn't compute.

We called Duke the next morning and met the biologist at the marker coming from Beaufort through the cut at Shackleford and showed him what we had found the night before. After he dug around a bit on the bottom, he found that the crabs were there feeding on an inordinate amount of the baby starfish on the bottom that we couldn't see for the crabs. It turns out that it was some rare starfish migration pattern that only happens every so often and the biologist had never seen before, much less in that sound.

So, when he left, I scooted back to the house to grab a dip net and some wash tubs.

I dipped crabs into floating tubs as I walked around the marsh for about half an hour. Shuffling my feed through clouds of crabs climbing up your legs and backside was weird as hell.

Papa Bill was pretty pissed off when we finally got done cleaning all of those crabs. I had dipped BUSHELS of 'em.

I don't know if it was legal or not and don't really care because we at like kings for two weeks. Crab cakes, steamed crab, she crab soup, a really special bisque that Uncle Gervaise put together, and BAGs of picked meat for the freezer. All we did for a couple of days was cook, eat, and pick crabmeat.

Even after cleaning all of those crabs, I went back the next day to see if my greedy ass could land some more and they were gone. Gone. Weird as shit.

I have stories like this that would fill a book that I haven't thought about in a very long time. Dumping scallops overboard after seeing the game warden during a closed season, diving to recover an outboard motor that wasn't clamped on the stern of the boat well enough at 10-ish years old, picking up clams the size of a kid's head whenever we felt like it, fishing that never left you skunked, making the lap around the island the first time by myself, laying on the beach on the big water side of Shackleford and watching the boys from Atlantic Beach ride the shit out of a surfboard, riding in the back of dad's pickup to Eastards to get ice cream after a long day getting sunburned somewhere nearby... I could go on for days.

We sold that place at Harkers Island a couple of years ago because life had gotten in the way and nobody ever used it anymore. I'm still sad about that, but have some of the best memories a man could ask for.

If we meet sometime, I'm certain we could swap some epic stories from Downeast.

I totally can relate, I was raised on the Swansboro waterfront, rode a bicycle down to the creek every day of summer, where my
12ft Sears Gamefisher was hidden in the marsh. ICW was right around the corner, fishing, crabbing, digging clams, gigging and
just running all over the water with my friend. Busted Bogue Inlet open at about 13 years old in a 12ft boat, trolling for Spanish and Kings
while our parents thought we were in the marsh looking clams