Thank goodness, server rooms are airtight. If not, the winds this week would have created a spreading forest fire larger than the mind can imagine. We are sorry we have been offline since Monday. I know I have missed a number of important emails and I am sure dad has too. If you have emailed and we did not answer, simple answer is we had no access. Our hosting company had a major electrical fire that wiped more than 8000 sites offline—for a few sketchy moments there, it looked like we had lost the entire forum, eight years of fishing reports, and ten years of closely cherished photos. I now have everything backed up on a server copy, detachable hard drive, computer hard drive, and disk—four times redundancy should have us protected…should I go for a safety deposit box copy as well to round out our protection?
As far as the fishing goes, well, it doesn't get much better than the negative aspects of a blazing electrical fire. The winds have slowly whipped themselves up to a gale over the last four days. I had a couple of our best friends/clients down for five days and the conditions deteriorated across the board. We ‘fished' for an hour today but the winds blew us off the water with 45 mph gusts. We did catch a few trout and one red but not quite worth the backlashes and on plane drifting—not to mention the true reason they were here was for some bluewater fly-fishing and a few reds and the winds made the whippy sticks impossible.
Sunday started well enough. Bill and I started on the flats and had about 6 reds a piece on fly by eleven and decided to slip outside. We got out the cut and hammered the bonito. I think Bill ended up with four in about forty-five minutes. We came back in and met his group, ICW Insurance, and set them up for the next few days with our triumphant tales from our day. Yeah, then the wind started and I seemingly lived up to my birth righted initials, BS. Bill is contemplating a last name change to mirror dad and mine apropos monikers.
The next few days all seven boats found fish with some quality but not the red-hot numbers dad and the gang had been on. I did have one gentleman catch the largest trout of his life, a twenty-five, on top water—only to follow it up with a larger one, twenty-eight, exactly four casts later; all on topwater. Although he was happy with the fish, he was cussing me for wading the soft stuff. Ford caught them on my go to black & chrome She-pup in mid-shin water and thigh deep mud. Dad always says ya gotta go where the fish are.
We are on the water everyday for the rest of the summer. Once the 10 to 12 foot seas lay down expect some tarpon, tuna, and shark reports. The time is getting close. We should be firing on all barrels by the end of next week. Once again, sorry for the downtime.