Striper Fishing, not seagull fishing

The night was a bit chilled as the sun went down just before 5PM. My dad and I were well underway from Little Creek Marina to the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. It was too late in the day to head out in the ocean to go after the Striped Bass that had more "portfolio" and size, so we just went after some schoolies that hang out in the shallows by the bridge tunnel. You can't keep any of the fish in the Chesapeake Bay after the New Year, only catch and release or a $500 fine...per fish!

Once we pulled up to the bridge we cruised around looking for flocks of seagulls diving in the water, feeding on schools of menhaden. Where there's menhaden, there's stripers.

The fishing was slow at first, but once the flock of seagulls found the bait fish it picked up very quickly. When it's good you'll hook into one every cast.

Thousands of seagulls flock in the area. Sometimes if you don't cast low enough you'll hit a seagull. Since I was wearing thick gloves it was hard to let go of the line while casting. As the jig hit the water and the line slackened down a gull's wing got caught under the line. The gull panicked and entangled itself in the line.

I started reeling the gull in and noticed he was much more difficult than what I could have imagined. This was a smaller gull, maybe only 2 pounds at most. The bird wasn't freaking out and further entangling itself but for some reason I felt a little extra tug.

As I pulled the gull in closer and lifted him up to the boat I noticed the jig was deep in the water pulling with a lot of force. Turns out I caught a seagull and a striper on the same cast! As I unhooked the fish, the seagull went to bit the 4 pound schoolie. Better him than me! My dad and I had to work fast to untangle the bird otherwise if his friends saw that he was in danger, the scene may have quickly turned into Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." We ended up cutting the line out and he flew away without much difficulty.

We considered the bird and ourselves lucky and concluded this was one of the more interesting catches we've ever had.

Happy New Years

Training has been going stellar the past few weeks. Last year at this time I was experiencing a minor setback that led to a whole chain of injuries throughout 2008 season. I tried doing things my way during 2008, some things worked, some didn't. After weighing my options, I figure I'll just sit back and do what my coach says vs my way. Learning the hard way sucks!

I've been back in Virginia Beach for the past few weeks. About to head back to sunny Colorado on Tuesday.
I went out for a ride yesterday morning, but before I left I checked the forecast and there was a wind advisory until 10PM. I figured whatever I like a good stiff crosswind every once in a while.

Turned out to be a serious cross wind. Gusts were out of the NW (I think) at 40MPH! Tailwinds were great but holding about 250 watts on a flat road and only going 10MPH was freakin' awesome. I wanted to try and take some cool pictures while riding with the camera on my phone but I probably would have been blown off the road in the ditch.....Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have almost no shoulders and deep ditches. Wish I could have seen myself hiked way over leaning into the wind in a crosswind.

Moral of the story: get out and ride on a windy day. If you make it back with out blowing sideways into something, you'll feel like you've conquered something

MC