Fishin' with the Fam

Earlier this month my dad, brother, and cousin came down for a little fun in the sun and also to wet a line on the new boat. Well we successfully completed both of their goals and landed a couple fish to top it off. Below is a photo montage of the boys and some of their fish. Enjoy!

Bahamas -- San Salvadore

When we picked up and took the boat across the pond for a second time this summer it was for a small billfish tournament that takes place on San Salvadore Island in the Bahamas. This time we were determined to learn from our/my mistakes and land a marlin. Ideally a blue marlin, since they count for the most points.

Thankfully, on this trip the mothership "Angel Wings" (shown below) was along for the journey that way my work load ended when the boat was washed and cleaned at the end of the night and my friends on the big boat could take over.

We did have some success on this trip and I was able to land my very first blue marlin. This blue marlin happened to be one pushing 400 pounds. A real monster. There isn't a more adrenaline pumping experience I've ever had fishing than holding on with my hands to this 400 pound monster. At any point I could make the wrong move and get tangled in the 250 pound test and this beast would rip me over the side and I'd never be seen again. It's fishing only with the fear of death. It's exhilarating. I can't wait to do it again. 

The photos below are a bunch of the best from the trip I hope you all enjoy. 

There is a storm brewing batman.

Michael with the big one on.

Action shot 400 pounder gone vertical.

Coming up to smile for us. 

Right before the release. 

Bahamas - Chub Cay

Well I admit, it has been way too long. I mean way too long. I've been busy... fishing haha. I realize now, that it's a lot more difficult to capture photos and movies when you are the one in charge of landing all the fish. I mean my hands are usually pretty full... So these photos have been borrowed by the core of people that have been sharing fishing adventures with us across the Atlantic. 

The first group of pictures are from Chub Cay a small island in the Bahamas island chain. We spent 5 full days fishing had a few opportunities to catch white marlin but came up a little short. We did catch a pile of dolphin, or as you may know them as mahi-mahi. 

Fishing Creek, PA (07/11/2013)

The past few weeks have been filled with excessive rainfall and it has kept me busy observing all of the flow levels on the USGS database.  Most days you could still fish but the conditions were not optimal by any stretch of the imagination.  When I've gone out to Spring Creek we have had a lot of fish but nothing gigantic like Jeff hooked into on Thursday.

Due to the precipitation that we received in Central PA on Wednesday night I checked some of the stream gauges and decided that we would take a gamble and check out Fishing Creek.  The numbers were not insane but the fish we hooked into were healthy to say the least.  The first fish of the day was a nice brown trout and then we worked further up the stream and I heard Jeff say "I don't even know what to do with this trout."  Knowing him and our fishing conversations, I knew it had to be a hefty trout because I've never heard him say that when he hooked up with a fish.

After making my way downstream to him, I caught a glimpse of this trout's body and knew this was potentially the fish of the summer.  He was using 4x tippet so he was nervous to apply a significant amount of pressure onto the fish, so he let it make a few runs and applied minimal side pressure until we got his head out of the water.  Once Jeff got its head out of the water, I knew the Nomad hand net was about to be engulfed by this huge brown trout.

I was glad to be a part of this big brown as I netted it for Jeff but the conversations that were had about this fish kept us busy for the remainder of the day and into the night.  We reminisced stories about the fish like it was Bill Brasky from Saturday Night Live.

Enjoy a few of the pictures of this toad of a brown trout! Special shout out to my dad Greg Hoover for capturing these photos, he was clicking that camera like Marty Stouffer.

Jeff and his big brown trout

Nomad net saves the day again!