Any pictures/stories of fishing adventures this summer?

We really haven't had much notable going on. Well, maybe....

Our red snapper season started June 4. Every year, like clockwork, we catch a ton of them during the spring. Then when the season opens they seem to disappear.

This year we figured we had a better shot at them since we now have a boat that can get us to deeper water. Our first trip out deep was cut short due to a storm. We got about half way out and it blew up on us. One of the guys we took was already getting seasick so we didn't make it any farther. We managed a couple of small red snapper but that was it. The next trip was right after the hurricane. The spots we had been catching them in were barren. That's been the reports from most fishermen.

The big story, though, is the red tide. The bay is pretty much dead. Tons and tons of dead fish have been pulled out. The city hired all kinds of folks to pull them out. The shrimp boats have been most effective. The bay itself looks a lot better but there's still a bunch in our canals. However, the red tide is still here. It stinks and the water is a nasty looking brown.

This sort of hampers offshore fishing because I can't get live bait. We use frozen which works sometimes, but not always.

So, it has been a sort of tough summer. Not horrible. Just not great.

Here's some pics.

A decent gag grouper.



A big mess of mangrove snapper. YUM!



This one has been the highlight of the summer. It is a 5'-6' cobia. An absolute monster. We hooked it on our lightest tackle. It took over a half hour to get to the boat. It was so big that we didn't really need all of the meat so we didn't want to kill it. We tried getting it's head into the net and grabbing the tail so we could at least get a picture of us holding it. But it wasn't meant to be. Too much fish.

Looks amazing. I’ve wanted to do some deep sea fishing lately but never have, you look reasonably good too and in good health. I’ve only been crab fishing in Virginia and there’s a lake near my place in Kansas where I fish on rare occasion with some people for walleye and crappie. Kansas is not a good place for fishing lol. I’ve always thought it would be cool to go blue marlin fishing sometime- for me that’s probably a project 4-5 years down the line once I age out of cuteness . Glad you’re doing well.

Thanks Spaceman!

Catching a marlin has always been on my bucket list. However it has become significantly less important the more I'm able to fish.

Our last trip out we hooked a sailfish! So much fun. It jumped 7 or 8 times before it got off. What a hoot!

A little mini-rant about vaccinations.

Why are people so unbelievably stupid? Somehow, because you have a keyboard, you know more about this than some of the smartest people on the planet that have spent their lives studying this for decades. Hell, lets bring back smallpox and tuberculosis and every other disease that we've successfully eradicated with vaccines.

The delta is running rampant at my wife's work. Not with the residents because they've, for the most part, are vaccinated. It's the healthcare workers that for reasons that are completely beyond me refuse to be vaccinated. HEALTHCARE workers. How could someone who spends their life in that profession be so unbelievably stupid?

One lady my wife works quite closely with is very ill. She'll probably make it but it has been rough. She's 2 weeks into it and still can barely get out of bed. Another coworker has lost more than one family member and STILL won't get the vaccine. My wife knows of over 10 coworkers and their family members who have it and most are very sick.

It boggles my mind.

/rant

+1. The level of willful ignorance is astonishing.

There's a post in one of the corona threads discussing how ignorant of basic science and medicine nurses actually are. The poster is in the medical field, not sure if he is an MD or anything, but talks about the things he's heard at the nurses' station.

I'm a little testy these days.....

The guy that owns the condo above us has decided to turn it into a hotel. There is a rule about the number of times you can rent a condo for under 30 day durations. So, he rents it out for 30 days. This is the sixth different tenant we've had above us this year.

2 tenants ago were horrible. Up all night clomping around. Playing video games that rattled the building. We complained to the owner but decided to not bring it up with the condo association hoping it was an anomaly.

New ones showed up yesterday. As soon as they walked in the door they cranked up the stereo. We called the guards and they told the people to turn it down, which they did. Then they turned it right back up. We called again and they shut it down for the night.

I called the owner again and let him know I will be reporting anything to the condo association.

I talked to the girl in the office and she said that if we call the guard and have violations documented, they will fine the owner.

They have the music on now, but not too loud. Still annoying.

You have my sympathy. After my last apartment, I decided I would never live anywhere but the top floor or a house, and the person upstairs wasn't even that bad. I just hated having someone clomping around above me while I was trying to sleep. Way worse was the person whose living room wall was my bedroom wall, who boarded dogs in his apartment that would bark me awake, and who played video games loudly enough late a night I'd often have to sleep in the living room. That's why I live in a house now and only have to worry about the neighbors' gas-powered blowers

Awesome I wish I could catch a sailfish. COVID caused actual problems for me and so I’ve been stuck during the whole thing. I want to do so much more. I need to be free next year so badly. I have so much I want to do.

Blogs can come in handy sometimes.

My 401k account with my last employer has just been sort of sitting there. I don't pay much attention to it.

I went to look at it yesterday and it had a 0 balance! Yikes.

After navigating through the automated system and getting put on hold several times, it turns out it was moved from T Rowe Price to Fidelity. I was probably notified of this at some point in time, but I'm old.

So, it's off to Fidelity. Their automated system is horrible. There is not option for "my account got transferred to fidelity and I'm trying to track it down". After many transfers and getting hung up several times by the automated system, I finally got someone that could help me.

But first, a few security questions. "What was your last employer". Easy peasy. Wellcare. WRONG! So, I went through every employer going back 25 years. Nope. It finally occurred to me that they wanted the name of the company that bought out Wellcare after I left. Sheesh.

Next question. What is the month and year you got hired? Oh geez, how am I gonna remember that. I didn't. OK, what it the month and year you left? UGH. Missed that one too.

Soooo, I went back in this blog to find those dates. Called them back and answered correctly. Woot!

My last employer is with Fidelity too. I found that they had a pretty good selection of investments, hope it works out for you.

I really should collapse all these accounts to a single provider at some point to make tracking easier.

Yeah, I think they are fine. Their automated phone system is total crap but once I got to a human it was great. I ended up talking to 5 different people and they were all super friendly and helpful.

But, I decided to roll over this account to my vanguard ira. I'll then have almost all in one place. Just to make things easier to manage.

It's generally never a good idea to keep a retirement account with a former employer. The only exception is if there is some penalty or vesting issue. I once had to wait ten years for a 5% premium from the provider to vest. Other than that, roll it over the day you leave.

fidelity is great. you can easily get a knowledgeable person quickly when calling. ive been using them for 40 years.
they are also the only ones that answered their phones when the big crash happened 12 plus years ago.

i dont let anyone manage my money so no mutual funds that are managed. or advisers.

My mechanic and I replaced the throttle cables and throttle handle thingy yesterday. I doubt I could have done this myself. I think we've replaced everything except for the motors and simrad units. Boats be expensive.

Trolling motor bit the dust last trip. In the shop. Did I mention that owning a boat is somewhat expensive?

The red tide seems to be gone in my area. I'm hearing it is still bad further north.

Upstairs neighbors not so bad. They turned down the music and later apologized. They must work for a tesla dealer because we've now seen three different teslas parked in front of our place.

Tesla uses electric motors. Trolling motors are electric, no? Get the neighbors to hook you up.

I've been wondering when they might come out with electric boat motors. Doesn't look like any time soon. I'm not sure what issues they might have with boats that they don't have with cars. My mechanic told me they've had some of the prototype batteries catch on fire. Doesn't seem ideal.

On one of the sailing trips I've been on, we had a minor issue which we were able to remedy.

One of the guys made a joke that we should radio in something like, "don't worry, when it sunk, that put the fire out."

A few recent pics.

Pink sky



Crazy rainbow



The skyway bridge. It is lit up every night but different colors and patterns. They colors quite often "move" across the bridge. It's really hard to get any sort of decent picture at night with a phone camera but this came out pretty good.

Nice pics. How does that rainbow pic match up with how it really looked? I've never seen a rainbow look like that.

Yeah, it's not the same. The rainbow was really brilliant and the sheen on the inside wasn't like that.

My camera does this sort of thing a lot. It won't capture some really cool stuff very well, but it alters a lot of stuff in a way that comes out even better.

In a semi-related note... My wife and I decided to giver ourselves a joint birthday present this year. A telescope with a camera. I started googling this and it's a little daunting. So many factors.

Spoke too soon.

About a week ago the couple had more than one screaming matches. The guy left. The girl stayed a few more days then left.

Last night, the guy shows up at 2:00 AM trying to get in. He gets on the phone and starts screaming at someone. Then he starts throwing stuff around in the hallway.

The guard came and wouldn't let him in because his name wasn't on the lease. He raised more hell then left. My other neighbor was pretty sure he was coked up.

I called the owner again to complain. He doesn't really care. I went to the office to lodge a formal complaint. Turns out the couple never registered so they weren't on the list of people ok to be there. The office sent an email to the owners letting them know of the issues.

Wow, that sucks. Do you think the HOA will actually do anything about it?

Best of luck.

Update.

There are people up there again. No clue who. Not the same people as were there before, I don't think.

Called the owner again. We had a really good heart to heart. For the first time he's really talked to me. He's not enjoying this at all. I believe he's leaning towards selling now. He still can't cross the border by car and he realizes this month to month leasing isn't optimal. I really like him and his wife, which makes this more difficult.

He isn't sure who is in there now. He keeps asking if it is the same people and I keep telling him I don't think so. Whoever it is doesn't sleep at night. Up all night making noise AGAIN.

I think maybe. When I went in there last time, there was nobody upstairs. I went to talk to them again today but the office closes early on Fridays. I told the guard I don't believe the 2 cars belong here and he said he would follow up. There were notices on both, which the people have since removed.

The owner tells me the lease is up on the 30th so we'll see what happens then.

tell him you will handle renting it for him for say 15% which is standard month to month.
this way you get to choose your neighbors.