Vacation Wrap Up, Back to Work

On Monday we got on the Carnival Elation at the Port of New Orleans. I have never been on a cruise before and let me tell you it far exceeded my expectations!



We traveled all night and all day Tuesday and got off the ship Wednesday morning in Progreso, Mexico. Progreso is pretty much a dump, we paid a guy $10 per adult to take us to a "nice" beach. The beach really wasnt that nice, but we made the most of it had fun playing in the sand.

Then Thursday morning we got off the ship at Cozumel. Cozumel is sweet! First we took the kids to Chankanaab State Park and swam with the dolphins and snorkeled in the ocean on the beach and swam in their very nice pool while eating nachos, burritos, and quesadillas! Now let me just say that Cozumel has it all figured out in terms of how to run a world class state park. That place was amazing and very well kept! I think I need to take the Illinois govt officials down there for a few days to show them how to run a state park!! It costed $16 just to get in, but was well worth it!

Here is a pic of the pool overlooking the ocean:


Then at noon we went over to Paradise Beach to check out their facilities! Again very nice! It costed $2 to get into Paradise Beach and $12 for those who did the watersports. We stayed there till 4pm and then headed back to the cruise ship. We loved the beach and the huge pool there:



So anyhow on the cruise ship, the kids absolutely loved the kids programs on board the ship. It was called camp carnival and they had nonstop activities for the kids to do anytime they wanted from 10 am to 10 pm! We usually just did the evening programs at camp carnival so we could enjoy the nice formal dinners in the dining room. The food was actually really good which surprised me! Here are some of the kids after one of their programs:


Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and all the inbetween snacks far exceeded my expectations! Pizza, Deli Sandwiches, Paninis, and Ice Cream were available 24 hrs per day! We ate ice cream cones and had hot chocolate several times each day!!!


This was by far the most relaxing, easy vacations I have ever been on. Im not saying I would want that all the time, because we are generally pretty adventureous by nature, but I can definitely see myself going on another cruise again sometime in the future. It really is much cheaper than you might think if your flexible on your dates and can travel at nontypical vacation times. We were able to take this 5 day cruise all inclusive for everything but alcohol for $211 per person plus tax which came to $247 per person! Normal rate during a busy travel time is around $450 per person. I can guarantee you that I ate well more than $247 worth of food in those 5 days. I had three lobsters and tons of shrimp on lobster night alone and it was some of the best lobster I have ever had. (and Ive eaten em fresh caught from Boston, Key West, and the Caribbean).

If you drive to New Orleans which is a very easy drive from Central Illinois you dont even need to get a plane ticket. Plane tickets alone to Florida would cost more than that cruise did per person!

So we got off the ship Saturday morning at 9 am and I drove to the dry ice company, picked up the fish meat and headed for home. I was home about midnight and spend the day Sunday just getting settled back at home and took one last nap before the spring Marathon begins.

Its only Feb 13th and we are swamped already at the office. We ship lake and pond supplies all across the nation on a daily basis, actually is a major part of our business. Anyhow the spring rush down south has begun a couple weeks early this year and we are well ahead of last year at this time! Not only that, but the warm weather up here as well has our local season way ahead of schedule and clients are already chomping at the bit to get their lakeside projects rolling. For the most part we are already booked up solid for 2012 which is an awesome blessing, but now we just got to buckle down and get er done!! Just a couple more months of 80 hour weeks and I am gonna be ready for another vacation already.

Chef Todd Mississippi River Fishing Article

Chef Todd Kent (for those who don't know) does alot of guiding and cooking for my clients at their properties and on their lakes. Also he writes several columns in Heartland Outdoors Magazine and has a cooking segment feature coming up in Pond Boss Magazine in the near future. Anyhow here is a little article of his that just got Published in Eddy Magazine February issue.

Family Fun in New Orleans Before the Cruise

Our New Orleans adventure started out Friday morning at 3 am when we loaded up 4 minivans with 12 adults and 13 kids and headed out of Central Illinois. We found a great deal on a nice hotel in Gretna, Louisiana just across the Mississippi River from the heart of New Orleans. There is a free ferry that crosses the river just 1/2 mile down. Here is a pic of the Holiday Inn Westbank we stayed at:


We picked this place cause it was $100 per night cheaper than all the New Orleans hotels, plus it offered free parking for us while there and while at the cruise. Parking at New Orleans hotels is $25-$40 per night and parking at the Port for the cruise is $80 per vehicle. The Holiday Inn Westbank Tower is the way to go if cruising out of New Orleans!!

We are cruising on Carnivals Elation and heading out Monday and getting back on Saturday morning. Cruising (and New Orleans) is a first for all of us in this group but my mom and dad. We are super excited for a week of nothing but eating, sleeping, and having fun!!

So anyhow we arrived at the Hotel about 4 pm Friday afternoon and ate dinner at the RoundHouse Grill connected to the hotel. Just an average dinner there, nothing to write home about, but the convenience was well worth it!

Saturday morning us guys went out deep sea fishing down in Venice with Captain Josh Howard of Deep South Charters. You can see the pics and read about that adventure here at Nate's Fishing Blog

While the guys were out deep sea fishing in Venice, the gals and the kids had a fun day at the Hotel pool and the Oak something shopping center just 3/4 mile away!
Here is a pic that got texted to me while I was out in the boat fishing:


Anyhow we got back late Saturday night and crashed! The women stayed up and played some games or something but Sunday is when our downtown family fun New Orleans adventure began! Most people would think we are crazy for taking 13 kids under 10 years old for a day of exploring the heart of New Orleans, but while it may be true that we are indeed crazy, New Orleans was surprisingly accomodating for our group!!

First we all boarded the Ferry to cross the Mississippi. It was free and the kids absolutely loved that boat ride!!


Then we walked 2 blocks to the Audobon Aquarium and Imax theater! We bought a combo pass that also included the Insectarium and Zoo! That costed $35 per adult and $19 per child. Was well worth the price! The aquarium was AWESOME and the kids absolutely loved the hour long Imax 3D movie about African Lions!

Drake is two and he was glued to the screen for the whole thing!



The aquarium had a bird exhibit that the kids loved! For $1 you could feed the birds with a bird seed stick:



Drake loved the aquarium. I have much better pics of the sharks, etc but I am on the cruise ship right now and using the last bit of wireless internet signal from my Iphone before I have to buy Carnival internet. I actually downloaded these photos from the hotel room early this morning so I wouldnt have to do that on the cruise ship!


So from the Aquarium we started walking down Canal Street in the heart of New Orleans on our way to the St Charles trolley. En route we stopped at an Arbys! About 6 blocks later and we were at the trolley. It costed $27.50 for our group to board and it was again well worth it! The kids loved that few mile ride down to the zoo.




The Zoo was again surprisingly awesome and we ended up staying a bit too late. Only one pic of Drake eating a corn dog in front of the flamingos. The girls took hundreds of pictures though...


Anyhow it was about 5 pm before we got back on the Trolley and here we are in New Orleans after dark with 13 kids ages 6 months to 10 years old! We eventually made it back to the Ferry which runs from 6 am to 12 am daily. We made it back to the Hotel about 7 pm and ordered pizza and watched the Super Bowl.

The pizza we actually ordered from the Hotel restaurant and believe it or not it was actually awesome pizza. They hand make it or home make it or whatever you want to call it, but there is a meal worth writing home about!!

We made it to the Port of New Orleans about 10 am this morning to load up on the cruise. We dropped off all the gear and kids and then a couple of us guys drove our vehicles the 5 miles back to the hotel and took a $22 taxi back to meet up with the rest of the group.

We boarded the cruise and have been having a ball ever since getting on! The kids have already had the adventure of their lifetime and the fun has just begun!! We ate the buffet for lunch, the kids swam and then we explored the ship and ate our 6 pm 5 course meal. From there the kids went to orientation at Camp Carnival and they have been playing games there ever since!

Drake and I finally went back to the room about 9 pm and he conked out immediately. I am writing while I am waiting for the kids to come back and tell me all about it! I stayed with them for about an hour and they were right at home dancing and playing games. I cant believe they are still out partying, its already 2 hours past their normal bedtime! Maybe, hopefully, lets just pray they sleep in tomorrow morning!

Guys, this vacation is a must do, especially with kids and the entire family! It is far different than anything we have ever done before. Normally we are camping or staying near a body of water for our vacations. This is the first time we really are tourists.....

Oh yeah, instead of shipping all our fish meat back home, I found a company in New Orleans called Louisiana Dry Ice and Shipping. An awesome small company who is going to flash freeze and prep our fish meat for us to pick up and transport home ourselves on Saturday. The quality of the meat is going to be so much better than me just UPS shipping home the fish on ice. Also we saved a ton of money!! Anyhow I am also going to load up on sweet potato pies and poor boy spicy sausages from them before heading out on Saturday!!!

Venice Offshore Fishing Report with Pics

Full moon this first weekend in February and all the charter boat captains were booked up for Saturday because of the potential for a great wahoo bite. That all changed when the waves were predicted to be a rough 4-6' offshore for Saturday. Captain Josh called me up while we were eating at the Holiday Inn Roundhouse Grill Friday night and said pretty much all the captains were cancelling their trips for both Saturday and Sunday due to the weather.

Most sensible, normal people would have canceled too, but Josh knew who he was dealing with, with our group and it took us all of 5 minutes to change our plans and head to Venice early Saturday as opposed to Sunday morning for a deap sea fishing trip! Let me just say Captain didnt pressure us into going at all, he just presented an opportunity and explained that we would be some of the only idiots heading out that day....

We were staying at the Holiday Inn in Gretna and headed towards Venice at 3 am. We left an hour earlier than normal cause we hadn't made that trip before, anyhow we got to the Venice Marina at 4:30 am and werent meeting the Captain till 5:30. We just drank coffee with the one legged marina guard and soaked in the sights and sounds of the ocean air...Also once the marina actually opened up we got our fishing licenses and purchased every kind of motion sickness pill and concoction that they had on their shelves. Dramamine, Bonine, herbal motion sickness cough drops, all natural motion sickness inhalers, and some snickers bars (comfort food).

Only 4 other boats headed out with us that morning on what normally would have been a very busy day at the dock. It was a very foggy and rather chilly ride out the Mississippi to the oil rigs that litter the Gulf of Mexico in that area. We headed out a few miles and stopped off at a rig and put out two rods to see if the wahoo were around...about 5 minutes and we were hooked up with what turned out to be a nice Jack Crevaille:


One more circle around the rig and we were hooked up again with a large fish that fought alot like a big amberjack according to the captain so once it shook our lure free, we immediately changed our technique. Instead of trolling big bomber lures for wahoo we dropped large live mullet down about 50 feet. Overall it was about 130 feet deep at that first rig, but the big amberjacks hang out about halfway down.

It took all of 1 minute for our 1/2 lb mullet to get nailed and 10 minutes later we had our first tasty amberjack in the cooler:


Next Justin dropped down and again 30 seconds for the AJ to nail the bait! Justins fish was about a 15 minute battle and it was a monster amberjack!! By far the biggest we have ever caught:




We basically just took turns dropping the big live mullet down until we each put a big AJ in the fish box.





The limit for Amberjack is one per person so we got our 6 and headed out to try some more rigs for Wahoo. Our fresh live mullet were caught from the marina with just a couple casts of the cast net. Mullet actually isnt the preferred bait, but this time of year bait is a bit harder to come by as opposed to during the summertime....

We were marking lots of wahoo at the rigs, but for whatever reason we could only get this one little guy to actually bite. Yep, this actually is a little wahoo for this time of year around the rigs of Venice:


The other boats out werent able to get the wahoo to bite either so we changed gears again and went to the salt dome for some tuna fishing. The salt dome is an area where 400 feet of water comes up to a basically a big hump about 200 feet deep. The currents hitting this hump causes a bunch of bait to congregate here and you all know what happens when bait congregates.....

This area was absolutely full of all kinds of fish! Amazing, really. The routine was to catch king mackerals, bonita, and various other fish and chop them up to form a chum slick. Then we would hook up a piece of chum and slowly let line out hand over hand to keep our bait looking exactly like a piece of chum slowly falling thru the water column. It usually only took about 2 minutes to get a bite with this method, but sometimes you would watch the fish eat it instantly right under the boat.
Here is a pic of one of the two small yellowfins we caught:


We caught 7 sharks over 6 feet long, king mackeral, bonitas, two yellowfin tuna and a handful of blackfin tuna. You tried hard to get your bait down away from the sharks and king macks, but they were just everywhere we went. We couldnt get away from them, but when they didnt break the line they were alot of fun to catch. About 2 pm and our arms were pretty much shot. We were very tired and I guess our legs were too. By no means were we about to give up though, times like this you just dig deep.....

We took some video of the trip and even quite a bit of underwater video of all the sharks we landed at the boat, but it will take a few weeks to get that footage online. Normally I would have had a billion pictures of all the species of fish we caught, but nobody was interested in posing for pictures, they just wanted to fish.

Anyhow it was getting late and we were just about ready to head in about 4:30 pm when we hooked 'the fish'. You know the fish that your out there after, the one you dream about all year long or your whole life! This was the one and we literally hooked it on the last drop.

Chad hooked it and after about 15 minutes he handed the rod off to Dave. Keep in mind we are exhausted from nonstop reeling in fish all day. When you only offshore fish once a year, you just are not prepared for battling strong fish all day long, and I dont care how strong you are or how good of shape your in....Anyhow about 25 minutes later and the sun is setting and Dave hands off the rod to Justin.

25 minutes later and the sun is really setting and is pretty much gone and Justin doesnt really have anyone to hand the rod off too. Dad was too exhausted, and Jared and I just landed 250 lb sharks each during that last drop of Chads. (we actually had a triple header going for the first part of Chads battle. Anyhow Justin decided to man up and fight the fish.

He fought and fought and fought and we were following this fish around with the boat for a long time. By now its about 6 pm and we have the fish within 30 feet of the boat, but its too dark to see what it is. The fish decided to go for one last major run and was able to get around the front of the boat before Justin did and that little bit of friction finally snapped the 130 lb test line! Talk about being oh so close to a fish of a lifetime!!!!

The ride in was very interesting. Not only were the seas rough and it was dark, but the fog decided to roll in as well. Its times like these when your thankful to have a world class captain who grew up in these waters guiding your ship. A weekend guide or pretty much anyone else wouldnt really make it back safely or at all...

Oh yeah I forgot to mention the rain that also came along with the fog, darkness, and rough seas. Yep, it was a very cold and soaking rain. One of those things that make the trip a full blown adventure that will help embed it into your mind forever. One of the jokes in the ride back to New Orleans that night about how I dont remember how long it actually rained for because all I remember is the beginning and ending of the rain because I just found a happy place to get me through....find a happy place, find a happy place.....

I brought a cooler so big it barely fit in the trunk of my mini van and we filled it up completely with some unbelievably tasty fish! I found a dry ice and seafood shipping company in New Orleans where I am going to package up the fish and ship it home Monday morning before getting on the cruise ship. The fish meat will make it home before we do and my grandpa Herman is going to take good care of it for us in the mean time.

Speaking of the cruise, thats really what this family vacation was all about, the fishing trip was just something we threw in at the last minute. Im sure I will throw in some New Orleans details and cruise details in the days to come for those interested in that combination for a family vacation, we really are having a blast and we havent even boarded the ship yet! The guys are happy, the gals are happy, and the kids are happy!

We planned on taking more pics when we got back to the dock, but we didnt plan on it being dark and wet and cold when we got back. (I'm glad I got some while out on the boat, it literally was like pulling teeth to get the guys to hold up a fish for more than 6 seconds). Here is a pic of the amberjacks hanging and some of the tunas to show how one of the blackfins got bitten in half by a shark while reeling it in:



We fished with Captain Josh Howard of Deep South Charters. He flat out knows how to fish and pretty much is the guide all the other guides look to down out of Venice. He has a big network of the best guides out of Venice and knows how to pair up each group of fisherman with the right guide. You want to Tuna fish way off shore at the Lump, he knows the best. You want to bottom fish this region for snappers and groupers, he hooks you up with the right guy. Amberjack, cobia, and the same for pretty much every species of fish including redfish, speckled trout, backwater bowfishing, and even duck hunting- He is or knows the best of the best for everything Venice has to offer. Deep South Charters has you covered from A to Z and can put you on limits of several species all in the same day or weekend!

Here is a cool video showcasing the kind of stuff Deep South does:


We are chomping at the bit to see more of what Venice has to offer during a guys weekend sometime in hopefully the near future! We only barely scratched the surface of everything this place has to offer. Logistically its much easier to get to than the Florida Keys and the deep sea fishing is 1000 times better than Orange Beach/Gulf Shores area! Venice truly is the fishing capital of America and is a very easy straight shot down I-55 from Central Illinois!

Archived Weather Difference

Here is a blog post from Feb 5th 2011. (last year at this time). It was so cold last year that we had to cancel alot of ice fishing trips....This year is completely different, it is so warm I was only able to get on the ice for ONE DAY!!! Been in the 50's and even 60's this last week of January and first week of February. I had to cancel over 150 ice fishing reservations for this winter! Anyhow, this was a fun read from last year:

I took Mae and Noah with me to Presley's Outdoors this morning to grab a couple dozen fathead minnows for bait. I didn't have to head out ice fishing till noon, so I figured I would spend some quality time with them running errands and fixing up fishing poles for the afternoon trip. We actually had fun and they learned how to line poles all by themselves....

Anyhow the fatheads for bait paid off big time, check out this rainbow trout Julio caught from an automatic fisherman rigged with a big fathead! He fought this fish completely by himself and we were PUMPED UP to actually land it!!


This is probably the biggest rainbow trout we have caught through the ice so far this year! Here is another view:


The weather has been absolutely brutal here in Central Illinois the last week. I had 5 guided ice fishing trips this week canceled due to bunches of snow, high winds, and well below zero temps. Anyhow it was great to finally get some decent weather and get back outside and into the swing of things. Today's trip was with a group of more than 30 people looking to spend some fun time outside fishing and sledding. I definitely could of used some help today, but even so we still had a great time.

I was a bit worried how the fish were going to bite after such instable weather the last week, but even though the fish weren't exactly feeding aggressively, we still did scratch out some incredible fish and had plenty for dinner. Speaking of dinner, our mission today was to catch fresh trout for dinner- not just any dinner, but a feast for 60 people at my clients house!

While we are on the topic of food, here are some pics of the grub. We ate baked potatoes, chili, soup, fried trout, smoked trout, smoked bass, baked trout almondine, whole catfish, fried calamari, fried grouper, elk loin, blocks of cheese, deer sticks, salami, veggies, shrimp, cornbread, and a few other items I can't think of at the moment. I didn't want to look like more of a retard than I already am so I only nonchalantly snapped a few quick pics.

The smoker! We put the trout and bass in the smoker within minutes of catching them! Here are some pics of them coming out of the smoker.

I wasn't able to take many pics today, because I was a bit preoccupied untangling lines, tying on new hooks, drilling new holes, and helping people try to catch finnicky fish. Anyhow I was able to snap these photos of Julio and Miguel because they were the first ones to show up.

The fish were on fire from noon till about 2:30 pm. As the sun starting dropping and people started piling on the ice the fish got much tougher to catch. Not uncatchable, but they weren't hooking themselves by any means. Altogether we ended up with 17 trout, 14 bass, 11 bluegill, and 2 catfish.

Unfortunately not everyone caught a fish today, but this girl was determined. I have never seen someone so scared to touch a fish, and then actually touch it. She really wanted the photo with the fish, but really didn't want to touch it. She didn't know there were other ways of getting the photo without touching it, but no one was kind enough to tell her that. Everyone was laughing just a bit too hard at the drama, epecially when the fish wouldn't come off her finger right away.


The weather doesnt look to good for fishing next week. We got lucky with this rare warm 30 degree day. I potentially will be headed out Monday morning with a group from Chicago while its still relatively warm, but other than that its forecasted to only be about 10 degrees the rest of the week. I don't like to take people fishing when its that cold.