faster or not as slow.

now its starting to look like they are replacing all of whats needed.
i still would like to see longer brackets on those corners since its not pressure treated wood. but may outlast you anyway

sooner or later you may choose the east coast side where you are into fish in ten minutes from shore.

i may ask or some ideas on a boat from you. probably buy used first. about 18 to 19 footer bay and close ocean. thinking garage fitting.

my west coast boats are aluminum, dual windshield seating with full tops. and you stay dry even in breakers over the bow. but the water is 50 degrees.

where do you put an outside boat in the summer if a hurricane is coming.

Yeah, we've talked about the east coast. But we have the ideal place for us right now. I can't imagine having a setup that suits us better. Plus, my wife's dad and son live here.

I'd be happy to help with the boat. Most bay boats are pretty similar now. They say pretty dry for the most part. If you decide to get a used boat, my only suggestion is to see where everything is located, like bilge pumps, livewell pumps, etc. Some boats are really difficult to work on because it is so hard to get to everything.

Well, we survived Irma. It wasn't a direct hit but it was still pretty gnarly. We just trailered the boat and it was fine - as were all the others in the parking lot. A lot of people left theirs in the slips and simply tied them down and they came out alright as well. Although, I would think trailering would be better.

I have friends who retired to their sailboat ~5 years ago. For a few years, they went up the Cheasapake in summer, and down to FLA in the winter.

In 2017, they thought, "let's just say in the keys this year," and got a spot in Stock Island. When Irma was coming, they bailed out, as it looked like it was going to hit the southern keys initially.

To the marina at Marco Island. Oops.

Fortunately, they got up there in plenty of time, got the boat secured and then were able to find a place to stay on the mainland. A resort in Naples, maybe? Wherever they were, they didn't even lose power or internet.

It was interesting to see their reports and yours at that time. Super happy all came out ok.

Anyway, it turned out minor damage to the boat. It didn't get off the moorings and float away or trash the hull when the water went out or anything really bad.

I spent Thanksgiving with my mom (and family). The last time we visited was mother's day this year.

Wow, she has really gone down. She's 93 and has always been sharp as a tack. Although she is still sharp about a lot of things, her memory is failing. She used to dominate the conversation but now barely interacts.

It is interesting to me that she has never been a routine sort of person, but now here life is a strict routine. I sort of chuckled because she just couldn't miss Wheel of Fortune. It was very rainmanish the way she kept mentioning it.

She has been going down physically for quite some time, but now she just stays in her chair most of the day. We were able to get her to a movie but it was a major production number.

Fortunately she is getting great care. Someone is there 24/7 and they are people that she trusts and likes. They are great. My sister stayed with her one night to allow the regular overnight person to have thanksgiving with his family. He wrote out a 4 page manifesto on what to do for my mom. Very detailed and down to the minute.

Many of you that have followed this remember me chronicling my Dad's last months/days. This is so completely different. Dad was never at peace with life or death. Mom is so at peace with everything.

did get a smaller cobia. an older one just to use until i figure out what i really will want here. 17+ feet cc rides fine 90 hp. cold today so stayed in and last two days it blew hard.
i hear the red tide is forming near you. not good but it does come around often. hope it stays small.

was down at the beach and a pile of either jacks or pompano were in the surf right at the shoreline. i didnt have my pole . duh. some tourist guy hooked a few but didnt know he needed to set the hook and they just got off.

That will work. I see a lot of these and people that have them are happy with them.

So far the red tide has stayed south of me. And, it appears to be subsiding somewhat. Fingers crossed. It was horrible last year.

That's always the case. I keep so many extra rods in the boat just in case this or that fish just happens to show up. You never seem to see them when you are ready for them.

I've always resisted the "depression" tag that follows me. I'll have to accept it based on, well, everyone I've ever talked to about it. I guess I feel like it is some sort of weakness or something. Like I should just get over it.

I've always described it as "my head feels heavy". I went through this for a couple of years and I never thought I would shake it.

Fast forward to now. I'm pretty damn happy these days. What isn't there to be happy about. I have my dream house, a boat and a wonderful wife. But, damn, that "heavy head" hits me every once in a while. I start spiraling into this vortex of negative thoughts. I have to fight it tooth and nail with the knowledge that the positives outweigh the negatives. When it hits it is forceful.

Fortunately it rarely lasts more than a couple of days anymore.

Glad to hear it's at least manageable. Being pretty damn happy is a good thing. No one manages to be completely happy all the time, I think. I totally get wanting to resist the tendency to make everything a medical diagnosis (e.g. "depression"). Like it feels too final. But at the same time I think it's useful to recognize that some of what we go through is just a little out of our direct conscious control, and it's not weakness to acknowledge that. It's OK to find constructive ways to cope.

I don't have the same kinds of experiences as you're describing but for the last 4-5 years I experience anxiety when driving on the highway (whereas I used to drive a ton with no issues). And it's like it's frustrating but I just kind of shrug and get through it, make the wife drive sometimes, etc. C'est la vie?

It's really a battle (for me at least) because my rational brain tells me one thing but my mind tells me something else.

Interesting about the driving. We have a big bridge that goes over the bay. Looks a little like a mini-golden gate. Last spring I took a fishing trip and one of the guys I was fishing with asked if I could take his wife with me (she had to work when he was going down there). Apparently she was deathly afraid of driving over the bridge. She had no issues driving in general and was fine if someone else drove but could not drive herself. About a month ago, a guy I met told me the exact same thing. He just wasn't able to drive himself over this bridge.

The mind is pretty wacky.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland has people stop on it all the time. They just can't continue. It's such an issue that there is at least one company that will drive your car over for you. To me the $35 fee would be a waste, but to some it's the best bargain they ever had. To be fair, it's long, high, and you're traveling about 3 feet from going over the edge.

up in montana we have the going to the sun highway in glacier national park. you are right on the edge for alot of it. and its winding and narrow.
worth watching if you never saw it

Nice vid!

Check it out.

nice yellowfin. you getting those as singles, or slaughtering them in packs?
do you set a bait drop and keep them around the boat.

albacore are mostly in bunches in the pacific northwest. usually you find them from the birds. and the temp. breaks with the blue water at 60 deg.

We generally don't see schools of them. It's sort of hit or miss.

If we see anything feeding on top it's usually bonito. I've heard that tuna are sometimes mixed in with them but I've never hooked one like that.

My plan that day was to try to chum them up with a lot of live bait, but we struggled to find bait so this was just a pinfish on a line we had out. We got hit several times from kingfish but finally got the tuna.

Did the deck work ever get completed? Is it to your satisfaction?

They are still working on it.

Yesterday they cleared off one side of the patio. YAY!. And, they removed the plywood from the doors so we can get to it without going around.

They appear to still be painting and staining although I think the construction work is done...........except.

They still need to put up the rain gutters and soffit. I'm guessing another crew does this or something.

But it appears as of right now we have 1/2 of our patio back which is a good thing.

Liking the thread .

Although I do miss Dilbert updates. But, ok, I can live without them .

I guess I could post some things that happen at the bait shop. Not much dilberting happening but it is far more interesting than any other job I've had.

Yesterday a pelican was sitting on our dock. Not much strange about this since they sit on it all the time. But this one was sitting right where most of the foot traffic is. We thought he might be sick. But he flew off so we figured it was fine.

He came back and we were able to see him more closely.

He had wrapped himself in a sabiki rig. For those that don't know, a sabiki is a line with a bunch of hooks on it and a weight on one end to hold it down in the water.

He had one hook in his head and another in his foot. So, every time he took a step, the hooks pulled from both ends. Even worse, the weight (about 3 ounces) was hanging free from the hook in his head so if he tried to fly it was waving around. It was a pretty nasty sight.

So, a guy comes in with some fish to clean not too long after we became aware of how bad the pelican was. Whenever anyone cleans fish there, birds come from everywhere to get scraps. Most of the pelicans stay in the water so when you toss the carcasses in, they grab them. But this one stayed on the dock.

Our game plan was to get the guy cleaning the fish to hold a piece in front of this pelican and then I would come up from the back and put a towel over his head to calm him down. Then, another guy grabbed the bird so he couldn't move much. It took the fish cleaning guy about 15 minutes to get the hooks out but we did.

The bird seemed no worse for wear. He stuck around for quite a while and we made sure he got fed. Then he flew off with the rest of the pelicans.

Oo, that is an even better story!

Nice job saving the bird!

good job pelicans get caught with a lot of crap. that is why some of them are getting endangered. when taking the hooks out the mouth should be held open a little for breathing.
people catch them fishing and just cut the line being afraid of them. that leads to death most times.

Work story. Actually, it's more of a weird convergence of events story.

Last night we had a storm coming through. It was the same system that spawned a bunch of tornadoes in Lousiana on Monday. I had been watching the storm approaching on TV at the bait shop and it was set to hit right at the time I normally leave work.

Sooo.... I made an executive decision to close the shop 15 minutes early to avoid driving home in the storm. Nobody had been in the shop for hours and there was no possible way anyone would be coming in with this storm approaching. Not only that, but we were completely out of our prime seller - bait.

As soon as I got home, I got a call from my boss. She told me that the night guard needed a key to the bait shop so he could let the shrimp delivery in. Our normal shrimp supplier has this key but for some reason on this night we were getting a delivery from another supplier.

So, I drove back to the bait shop in the middle of this nasty storm, took care of the key, and drove home while the storm was still raging. Teach me to close early.

I was fully prepared to tell my boss that I closed early when I went to work today. I'm sure that now she thinks I do it all the time.

Also, as part of the story. My boss could have told us both ahead of time about this key. The guard was there when I closed up but he knew nothing about it. Even when I came back to the shop he had no clue what he was supposed to do. I had to call my boss again to figure out what she wanted.

So, here's the weird convergence of events. A perfect storm if you will.

There has never been a storm hit right at closing on any day I've worked.
I have never closed even a minute early before.
We have never had a different shrimp supplier who needed a key.

And, my boss has never called me one time at night.

Lol, all that nonsense and the shrimp guy never even came.

OK, a real dilbert work story.

We just got a new "state of the art" phone system. It does all kinds of neat stuff (or so the salesman says). Except that, with the pumps on, you can't hear it ring in the bait shop.

Turns out the ring volume can't be adjusted.