"I'm writing you to catch you up on all the places I've been" - John Mayer "3x5"

Where have I been? Friday afternoon after work I took off for a weekend of fishing and camping in Carolina Beach and Kure Beach. I intended to camp for two nights at Carolina Beach State Park, but I arrived at the park around 7:15 and the gate closed at 7 so I ended up getting a hotel room for the night and thanks to AAA saved 10%. Saturday morning I woke up bright and early at 5:30 and ate the free breakfast at the hotel with the other fishermen. If you didn't know, the fall is the best time for fishing on the NC coast, so there were fisherpeople all over the place making me jealous of their boats. After a bowl of Cherrios I headed to the Kure Beach Fishing Pier. I grew up going pier fishing with my grandparents and cousins at a pier on Emerald Isle so it was nice to get back on the planks after a long absence. I arrived at the pier around 6:30 or so and found that I was late. As I've read and soon realized, the north side of the pier is the place to be and due to my late arrival I was relegated to the south side. While not a bad place to be, I did notice that more fish were being caught on the north side of the pier. I fished until about 11:30 and caught one small Pin Fish which are bait stealers and one Pompano that was slightly bigger than my hand and those are good eating though I gave it to a family that was fishing next to me.

Sunrise on Kure Beach Pier




The Pin Fish


The Pompano


After my jaunt on the pier I picked up some lunch at a local place called Hardee's and then headed to the state park to secure a campsite for the evening. I found a suitable site and set up my tent and then headed out for some exploration. I ventured to the end of the pensinsula to Ft. Fisher State Recreation Area. Ft. Fisher was a Confederate Civil War fort built at the mouth of the Cape Fear River to protect Wilmington. It was the site of the "largest naval and land-sea battle fought in any war up to that time." After two battles it finally secumbed to 56 hips and 3,000 troops in 1865. While I was down there I saw a couple of kayak fishermen and decided I'd rather have a kayak than a canoe even though I've never been kayaking. It seems like a great way to fish being right there on the water plus it's human powered instead of gas/diesel powered and thus is cheaper, quieter, and doesn't directly pollute as much. After visiting the site of the fort I scoped out a fishing spot on a jetty and had a great time watching the waves crash and pelicans scoop up small minnows. Unfortunately I didn't catch anything but still had fun. Following a couple of hours on the jetty I was getting hungry and went to the gourmet store known as Food Lion to figure out what I wanted for dinner. I ended up buying some flounder since I didn't have too much luck fishing. I ended up frying the filets and never had done that before and it was actually good. I also avoided burning the park down with my hot skillet of oil sitting on my Whisperlite stove. I definitely recommend Carolina Beach State Park but make sure you have long pants and long sleeved shirts to ward off the mosquitos. Luckily I had my Columbia fishing shirt and awesome North Face convertible pants/shorts which I think may be my favorite article of clothing I own.

















This morning I woke up at 5:30 again to get packed and get in some early morning fishing. The weather on Saturday was perfect, in the low 80s with a steady breeze to knock down the heat and humidity. Sunday morning brought a cool front and a shift in the wind from the SE to the NE and was noticibly cooler but it's finally fall-like! Unfortunately it was low tide this morning and I didn't catch anything again but it was fishing and thus was fun. I also got to stalk a big bird that looked like it was searching out some food as well. I was surprised how close it let me get to it but I guess it realized I wasn't too much of a threat as I walked in step with it down the beach. I also saw two sail boats get seemingly stuck in the boat channel from the park's marina and that makes sense given that from the high tide mark it looked like the river was 3' lower than high tide and with a big sail boat keel that probably doesn't make for a good combination. Also of interest was a Coast Guard boat that was stationed at the park that went out on a call and flew down the river being pushed by twin 250 hp Honday 4 stroke outboards. Upon it's return I realized that it had a huge machine gun mounted on the bow. When I say huge I mean at least 4-5' of machine gun, it was serious firepower. I left the park about 8:00 and headed back to Raleigh to pick Emily up at RDU after her fall break trip home and now here I am on the couch writing this.





Overall it was an excellent weekend. In high school I went camping with Scouts at least once a month and sometimes two or three weekends a month. After high school that's been reduced to two or three times a year. Now that I have a job and no homework (!!!) on the weekends I think I'm going to try to get back in that mode of camping or at least getting in the woods at least once a month. Now back to work on Monday.

Also, if you haven't seen, The Facebook now has photo galleries. I'll be posting pictures there until I figure out a better option (i.e. paying for webhosting) since the new Blogger photo upload interface is cumbersome and slow when uploading multiple pictures.