Sending the old man home. 

 

Photo Gallery

 

The sailors will dance in the street
Then they'll mothball the whole damn fleet
We'll only have the picture books
Of land, and sea, and foam

 

Jimmy Buffett wrote of the end of a time period.  He inscribed the end of the party, the end of a great run. I am finding myself in that place now.  We are sending the old man home.  The last of the sailors is returning to land and I have some real mixed feelings about the whole thing. 

 

My good friend Todd Sherron is putting up his shark rods and heading in to port with the rest of us. (fins to the left).  Todd is ending a fairly good run as a bachelor and we celebrated / mourned this event a couple of weekends ago down south.

 

I pride myself on always learning something from every event in my life.  On this particular weekend I learned the following things.

 

  1. We're sending the old man home.
  2. Sometimes it is good to be up the Creek.
  3. Sometimes it is bad to be up the Knobb Creek.
  4. Fishing Fundamentals (stick em in the lip).
  5. Doubles are better than singles unless you’re with Kyle and Marc.
  6. The old phrase “head west young man” was wrong, Head South is much more appropriate.
  7. Its difficult to get a boat home without a trailer.

 

The weekend was a great time to mourn the death of the last great bachelor and to hook up on some great fishing.  Dr. Gray picked me up Thursday and trailered my boat down to rockport.  We stayed in a great cabin, thanks to the Parishes.  Friday morning we spent the morning fishing Mesquite with Gray’s Uncle.  Uncle Dave put us on the specs early and we were eating burgers by noon with 18 fish in the box, and a couple of real meaty fish at that.  That afternoon we loaded up and headed down to Corpus to Dr. Rob’s place to meet up with the Sherron boys.  Todd brought Nasty down from Austin and Nasty brought KC.  We loaded up with Ice, refreshments and food and headed off to Bird Island.

 

My big boat was ideal for moving cargo to and from the cabin.  The cabin was courtesy of Curtis who was a great host.  We fished Friday evening and brought back a couple of fish from the back side of the Island.  Todd caught a good sized redfish that had been hacked up by a prop.  Marc brought back a medium to small spec.  Dr. Gray played chef with some great pescado tacos, and Nasty introduced us all to his friend KC and we were up the creek.

 

Saturday morning brought some good ankle deep fishing in the Hole which produced several redfish.  Curtis caught a really nice fish on the fly and Marc, Rob and Kyle went poling around and produced some nice fish.  Kyle caught a 27 ˝ which was the winner of the biggest redfish pot. 

 

Boriski came down on Saturday and had dinner with us.  I think everyone realized how small we are in the scheme of things because the sky in Baffin Bay is as big as anything imaginable.  Great evening, great food and great guys.

 

Sunday afternoon when packed up and headed back to Bird Island.  When we got there we found that someone had stolen Dr. Rob's Trailer.  A true Blackchip ending for a great weekend.  So if any one sees someone driving around Corpus with a boat trailer with no boat let us know.

 

Congratulations to Todd on his upcoming nuptials, we can finally send the old man home.  Welcome to the club.

 

This, I hope is the first of many Black Chip Fishing Lemonade Club Fishing Tournaments.