On Sunday, we visited the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.  Because we had just visited the aquarium at Roanoke Island 2 weeks before, I thought this was a great chance to compare the 2.  Here is a variety of pictures that I thought were neat.

Cool shot of a big brown trout swimming away from the tank window.

Nice display that describes the destructive effects of flathead catfish in the Cape Fear River watershed.

Baby grass carp - just 30 more pounds and he’ll be in grave danger of fiberglass arrows!

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Well, the surf fishing slowed way down as the wind picked up towards the tail end of the week.  During the calmest parts of the day (still pretty rough), we managed to catch a few more bottomfish and filled up a ziploc bag of fillets to fry sometime soon.  The lone highlight was this sea mullet that Kara caught on fresh shrimp.  It was a little over a pound which qualifies it as a citation sized sea mullet in NC.  Definitely the biggest I’ve seen caught before.

I pulled one or two more bluefish out of the surf on shrimp and Gotchas, but other than the ever present sharks - fishing was very slow.  Those southwest winds really take their toll on the fishing quality at our NC beaches, but if you can catch it just right…What a time you can have!

Woke up early again but couldn’t draw anything more than a handful of bottom fish. One thing is for sure though, the fresh shrimp I am using from the seafood market is catching fish 2 to 1 to those folks fishing on either side of me with frozen shrimp. I ended up with another assortment of spot, small croaker, and sea mullet. Nothing exciting today, the water still needs to clear up a bit to catch some blues and Spanish…maybe tomorrow.

Hopefully, you all will excuse my recent absence, but I was enjoying North Carolina’s Outer Banks for a 5 day vacation.  We headed down on Tuesday evening after Kara got off work and returned on Saturday evening.  It was a fun-filled week with good food, beautiful beach weather, NO smoke!, good fishing, and much much more.  Of course, you all are interested mostly in the fishing, but here are a couple of other pictures from the vacation that don’t fit into that mold….

Here was Thursday evening’s beach picnic.  Barbequed chicken, baked potatoes, and more…delicious!  Mom’s handiwork!

Kara took this great picture of a sailboat that got right in tight with the breakers in the surf.  There weren’t many boats to be seen in the ocean, though, maybe the gas prices were keeping boaters off the water.

I must admit that today has been a sad one.  The high-flying Penguins were defeated last night, but not without a last ditch effort in the waning 2.0 seconds…never say die hockey is what I’m talking about.  Unfortunately, the one image that is burnt into my mind isn’t Sykora’s OT winner, Talbot’s Game 5 tying goal, or Fleury flashing his glove hand in 2OT Game 5….it’s that 3rd goal trickling into the net last night as Fleury tried to squeeze his pads together and sit on the puck.  That’s why it’s the best game on earth though…and a game of inches.  Have a great summer Penguins fans, I’m sure the team will be up to the task next season.  Go PENS!!!

Well, it’s 12:18 a.m. and usually I’ve sawing zzzzzzzzzzz’s for quite some time by now…BUT, the Penguins are locked in an epic battle with the Detroit Red Wings…we’re in the 2nd overtime intermission…100 minutes of hockey.  2-0 Pens lead vaporized by a drawn out Wings comeback who took the lead 3-2 with 10 minutes to go in the 3rd period.  After being suffocated by the Wings clutch and hold defense, Max Talbot nets a miracle goal with 30 seconds left.  Pens lost their #1 defenseman with a minute or so to go in the second period and Malone took a puck off the head.  But, no quit in the Penguins.  Which brings me to the MVP performance of the Stanley Cup Finals…Marc Andre Fleury has been standing on his head with 55 saves!!!!  All this to say, I would really like to go to sleep sometime tonight, so whether it’s in the 3rd overtime or if I have to hook myself up to a RedBull ‘IV’ drip, bring it back to the Mellon Arena for Game 6 Penguins!!!  I would absolutely love to see Malkin get the game winner and wake up the sleeping monster that could explode and put the Red Wings away in Pittsburgh and usher in the ultimate Game 7 stage in sports!  One way or another……Go Pens! 

Yeehaw, just realized I’ve reached the 100 post mark for my blog that I started in February.  Thanks to all of you that have tuned in, please leave comments on what you read…good or bad…I like feedback and am always interested in what you guys and gals have to think.  Also, I will mention that my page views have tracked similarly to my post records and I should eclipse the 10,000 ‘page views’ mark today!!!  I’m excited about those milestones and I look forward to bringing you The Outdoor Smorgasbord for a long while to come!

Well, it’s been an extremely busy week for myself and as such…the activity of the blog has suffered a little.  This summer I’ll basically be sitting in the office here at State working on analyzing my data and writing up my thesis in hopes of being done in December.  Not many people cross the 2 year finish line for graduate school, but I’m going to be do my best to do just that.  I’ve been working on a powerpoint to present to a group of foresters, biologists, and private landowners on QDM in August, getting ready for a poster presentation I have on June 13, 14 at SAS Institute in Cary, NC (International statistics conference), making a poster on brain abscess in white-tailed deer for the national Wildlife Society meeting in Miami this fall, and cranking out a manuscript on using catch-per-unit-effort data to estimate harvested deer populations.  On top of all that, I started my GIS data analysis from my deer collars a couple days ago and have analyzed the home ranges and core areas of mature bucks for various periods of interest during the fall months for my study… Busy, busy, busy…

Next week, I’m going to work on some articles that Realtree.com will be publishing on deer research sometime in the coming months.  I’ve already submitted an article on brain abscess (I’ll let you guys know when it is run).  Hopefully, everyone is finding enough time to sling some arrows into some 3-D foam.  I was tickled to see that this year in NC - rifle season will be coming in a little later than normal, which translates into more time for P&Y rut hunting!  Less than 3 1/2 months until archery season.  To heap on top of all this work is securing some permission for this fall’s deer season…better get to it!!!

Andrew and I headed out to one of our favorite haunts on Sunday afternoon.  I was fully expecting non-stop action after Saturday’s fast and furious wading action, but it wasn’t to be.  We spotted a school of gar on the way back to our spot, but couldn’t get an arrow after them in time before they sounded.

The highlight of the trip was the first carp that we laid eyes on.  I saw a muddy spot away from the bank and I put an arrow in the fish as it was vacating the area.  My best common carp ever.  We didn’t get an exact weight, but I know it was a good bit bigger than my 12-4 from Lake Gaston last year.  I guessed it in the 14 pound range.  Big fat female chock full of eggs.

From then on, it was hit or miss…a few carp here or there, but the water was very dingy and weeds thick enough for the fish to sink down into and become invisible.  We did add about 10 more common carp to the boat and Andrew boated the smallest bowfin I’ve ever seen shot.  I doubt that it would make the 2 lb. mark.

We did find some grass carp, but unfortunately, we couldn’t get them on the arrows.  Andrew missed the only decent shot we had as he sailed a fiberglass arrow over its back.  They weren’t flagging us down with their tails and the only other chances we had were 15-20 yard hail-mary’s at fish doing approximately Mach 2!!!

Can’t say it wasn’t a fun trip though, enough fish to keep us interested, flirted with some BIG fish, Andrew spotted the biggest bowfin either of us had ever seen (13-14 lb. range easy!), but no shot as we had a little  inopportune equipment trouble, and I shot my best common carp to date.  No monster relatively speaking, but a good one for the Piedmont NC lakes that I’m used to fishing.

Can’t wait to get back in there!

To any of my readers who are military veterans or personnel, I wanted to thank you and all the troops who have served the United States in the past, who are serving currently, and who will be serving in the future.  I never want to take even one of you for granted and I consider it a privilege to live in a country that is protected by men and women willing to give the ultimate sacrifice.  From The Outdoor Smorgasbord you are greatly respected and appreciated.  Have a Blessed Memorial Day!