Goose Hunting in Maryland

November 28, 2014
Havre de Grace, Maryland

I recently got a once in a lifetime opportunity to hunt Canadian geese in Maryland. I went to Baltimore to see my Fiancé’s family for Thanksgiving and my future father-in-law was kind enough to plan a goose hunt for us. So I packed my gear and brought it on the 1,450 mile trip to Maryland. The hunt started at 4 AM when we met up with Joey of Joey Jobes Gunning Decoys at his local shop and headed for the duck blind. It was a bitter cold morning, especially for a southern boy. It was about 27 degrees when we started setting out the decoys before dawn. We were hunting on a small pond that had not seen any goose hunters during the 2014 season. We huddled in the blind that was made out of short pine and cedar branches and waited on the first geese to make their way to our pond. 

The first wave of geese came through twenty minutes after daylight. The first wave was around 200 geese. The geese were coming from local farms where they were feeding throughout the night. Joey began to call the geese with various goose calls when we could tell the geese were contemplating landing in the pond. The first wave was easily fooled and attempted to land in the pond. We waited until the very last second before we all stood up and emptied our shotguns into the flock, dropping no geese. I'm not sure if we were not shooting accurately, jittery from excitement or distracted by the number of birds but there was a moment of silence after the flock left where everyone understood that we needed to shoot better. We had several flocks come in on the pond throughout the day and these flocks were much smaller averaging 3-4 birds. We had much better luck shooting the geese out of the smaller flocks. The 13 different hunters sharing our blind were able to kill 23 different geese that day. This was a very exciting hunt, one that I will never forget. 

We took several geese home and Joe prepared them for dinner the following night. The meat was excellent - not too tough and the flavor was not too strong. The meat was prepared two ways: one with orange juice and one with wine. The meat prepared with the orange juice was the group's favorite because it was the most tender. This was one of the most exciting hunt I've been on to date. Joe even got me a Canadian goose replica for a wedding gift. Thanks Joe!

Sight Fishing Redfish in South Texas

October 25, 2014 
Port Lavaca, Texas

It was a long trip down to Point Comfort. I was in Point Comfort to train at a local petrochemical plant and luckily, I had my best friend with me for the entire trip. We decided to find a local fishing charter because we heard that there was great fishing in the local bay. We found a guide through one of our plant contacts and booked the fishing trip. The guide’s name was Sonny and we met at the dock before sunrise. This is the first fishing trip that I had been on with Dylan. We started out early in the morning and I was able to snap a couple of pictures as the sun was rising. I thought it was very interesting that the bay was only 2-6 feet deep even though it was miles from one side to the other.

We started the morning by using corks and live shrimp to catch schooling trout. This is the first time that I had fished for trout so we made sure to get as much information from the guide as possible. The first fishing spot was a rock jetty reaching out into the bay. The guide informed us that when a school of trout is feeding that they continually regurgitate and eat the bait fish. So, we spotted an area along the rocks where there was an oily slick on top of the water indicating that the trout were feeding in the area. We popped our corks and landed our limit of trout by midmorning.

The guide then took us around the outskirts of the bay in hopes of catching some schooling redfish. We swapped out tackle to spinning reels with gold and silver spoons. We were in extremely shallow water and the guide was on the tower of the boat. We were sight casting the redfish when the guide would spot the fish from the tower. This was much more difficult than catching the trout. The guide caught one redfish which didn’t fit into the slot limit so we had to release him. We bounced around the rest of the morning trying to find schools of redfish. We caught several redfish but only one fit into the slot limit. By midafternoon our arms were sore from catching so many fish and we headed back to the dock. This was one of the best fishing trips I have ever been on.

Offshore Business

September 14, 2014 
Corpus Christi, Texas

Port Aransas 

There are perks to traveling for business. I was able schedule an offshore fishing trip with some of my new co-workers. I started a new job working for a chemical company in Texas shortly after I graduated from Auburn University. I started the chemical company in an entry-level training program with nine other chemical engineering graduates. We were split into groups to travel around to various oil refineries and petrochemical plants. I was traveling in Corpus Christi, Texas with Jeff and Christian when we got to do a little offshore team building. 

As with most fishing trips, we started for the dock before daylight. There was an 80% chance of rain and the sea conditions were expected to be 5-6 foot swells. This is usually the limit for when the chartered boats will stop the trip and stay at the dock. We took a ferry over to Aransas island where we bought our one day saltwater licenses and waited for the captain to load the boat. While we were waiting a monsoon type rainstorm started battering the dock. The wind was blowing the rain nearly horizontal. We passed around a few looks of possible regret but no one was ready to quit on the trip just yet. Thankfully, the rain subsided after about 20 minutes and we loaded the boat. After passing the break water, we knew we were in for a rough day of fishing by the size of the swells. We motored out for about 2½ hours until the brown, costal waters of South Texas turned into the deep blue that you would expect to see offshore. Even the foam on top of the breaking swells was blue. Most of the trip included dodging the 15 different sea sick passengers on the boat. Sea sickness is due to the conflicting information that your brain is receiving from the rocking of the boat and the still horizon. 

We started our day drift line fishing for king mackerel. We used light weights and baited our hooks with cigar minnows. We all fished from the same side of the boat and let out about 150 feet of line. This allowed the minnows to drift away from the boat and stay suspended in the water column. We hooked up with several bait fish and then the kings started piling in the boat. I landed a 3 foot king and then we moved spots and started bottom fishing for reef shark. I was the only person in our group to land a king but both Christian and Jeff brought reef sharks home. We finished the day with a 2 ½ hour nap on the way back to the dock. We got a couple of recipes from the deck hand on how to prepare the reef shark. He told us to fry the fillets and use salsa to make a reef shark quesadilla.

Thanks to Captain Kelly's Deep Sea Headquarters for a great fishing trip!