Blackwater River SP -Milton, Fl (Oct 12-16)

Sunday - After attending the outdoor worship service and saying goodbye to our friends, we made the 181 mile journey here. This is a gorgeous campground with new gravel on every site. There are only 30 sites and is almost full. This is a great place for kids, since there is a nice sandy beach on the river a short walk across a boardwalk away. John got the satellite set up after several tries. The tall pines here provide a challenge in finding open sky. We are too far from the Atlanta feed, so John missed seeing the Bears beat Atlanta.

Monday - We took an early walk, since it is still very warm here, with rain do later. We walked to the beach area and John tried the Tenkara with a all hopper. He got some action catching a small bream. We are hoping there might be som Talapia in the river. Joan took pictures while John fished. Thankfully, we don't have the gnats here. The rain has started about noon.

Tuesday - Heavy rains and lightening during the night, but no damage. More storms coming doing the day today. We are protected some from winds here in a pine woods. We headed into Milton to check out some parks on the water where we could launch the kayaks. We found a couple of beautiful ones, but it doesn't appear that the fish have come up into the rivers yet. We saw no action of fish crashing bait. Also, there were no fishermen anywhere. We also did a Walmart run. 

Wednesday - We tried to hike the trail down by the river, but after about a mile, we ran into water and had to turn back. It was a beautiful day , however. 

Thursday - Today was explore day to the coast. We started at Navarre Beach and paid a whole $2 to walk out on the fishing pier, to observe only. We saw a lot of fish in the water and also a shark cruising around not more than 200 yards away from people in the water. Several ladyfish were caught and a lady was quite excited with her Spanish mackerel. We then drove to the end of Gulf Islands National Sea Shore and checked out Ft. Pickens. Hie fort was quite interesting and was actually a Union stronghold during the Civil War. Again we walked the pier and saw several jellyfish float by. One man netted about a dozen mullet. We ended our outing with dinner on the water. 

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Cottonhill COE (Oct 9-11)

This was a shorter trip today, 135 miles. It was a very pretty drive the way we came. We picked up a lot of Argentine ants at our last stop and brought many of them with us. We had to do some spraying. Here, the problem seems to be gnats. Also the lake is choked with weeds. Hopefully, we can still fish. Our site is nice and shady.

Friday - Ants made their way along about 50 feet of satellite cable to get to the MH and we are out of spray. We found the local dollar store and took care of them. One way folks combat these Argentine ants is with Comet around anything that touches the ground. John had an idea to put cord into a container of Comet and run the cord around the wheels etc. it is important that the cord lays totally flat, so the area must be swept first. The fishing continues to be poor. 

Saturday - The families next to us didn't have a long enough cable to get their satellite working, so John loaned them our spare. They were elated that they could now watch Florida State play, and invited us to watch with them. We spent the afternoon, enjoyed getting to know them and shared burgers on the grill.

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Whitetail Ridge COE (Oct 3-5)

Monday - This was the longest leg on our return to Florida, covering 230 miles. It was cloudy most of the way, but cleared up when we neared LaGrange. We got set up and had Joan's stuffed pepper soup for dinner. This is a beautiful spot on site #47, on the lake. We went down to the boat launch and fished for a few minutes, but John lost the only biter.

Tuesday - We woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise. This is something we miss at Trackrock because of all the mountains around us. Not complaining, though. Later in the Morning we took our Tenkara rods back over to the boat launch area and caught a bunch of bream. Most were too small to keep, but there were a few nice ones. John had a very large bass on, but the 4 pound test tippet on the Tenkara was no match for this fish. In the evening we fished there again using the 6wt fly rods, but it was much slower.

Wednesday - In the morning we drove over to the Horace King Recreation Area nearby and fished from shore. The shoreline has more gravel here and is less muddy than by the campground. The bream are larger here, but since we were going to go grocery shopping afterwards, we couldn't keep any. This time it was Joan's turn to hook a large bass, but the result was the same with it breaking off. We had the most success on small yellow hoppers. After doing some needed cleaning of the motorhome and dinner, we took our cane poles and plastic worms over to the boat launch. Together we hooked and lost three nice bass. It was a beautiful, warm evening.

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Smokemont Campground GSMNP (Sept. 8-11)

Monday - It was a pleasant 89 mile trip here and we arrived and got set up around noon. We had lunch and talked to our neighbors Bill & Jean from Westminister, SC. Joan watched John fish the river right behind our MH for about an hour. He caught a small trout and lost another. We were excited to discover there are at least a few fish here in the campground. John used a hopper with a greenie weenie dropper. Joan spotted a huge hornets nest hanging from a tree. We were glad we didn't disturb it, since it was very active. We reported it to the rangers. 
Tuesday - It cooled off nicely in the night, making sleeping pleasant. We made our coffee, then took our walk along the river, checking out places to fish. After breakfast we donned our wading boots and walked down to where Bradley Fork (the river here in the campground) empties into the Oconalooftee. However, there was already someone fishing there, so we moved upstream a few hundred feet. We each caught one and lost 2 (John) and 3 (Joan). As long as we have action, we're happy. It rained in the afternoon. Supper consisted of chicken and rice that Joan mixes up and John cooks on the cast iron Dutch oven. Delicious!!!! In the evening, we were treated by our neighbors, Bill & Jean, to watermelon and a nice chat. We were joined by other neighbors Harry and Barbara. Harry kept us entertained with his many stories.  
Wednesday - We took our coffee and checked out some places to fish upstream. We found the best places to get to promising holes. Later, when we actually fished them, we were disappointed that we struck out. Joan used the 4wt. while John stuck with the Tenkara. We also tried heavier nymphs and John tried a dry fly, but still nothing. 
Thursday - The weather forecast was for rain all afternoon, through the night, and most of the day on Friday, so we decided to pack up while everything is dry and head home a day early. If the fishing was better, we would have stayed. We fished in the morning from the bridge near our campsite up to the group area, but resulted in Joan getting one strike. The water is very low, a little to warm, and very clear. We had a good drive home and got resettled before the rain came at Trackrock.
Added Comment - We got an e-mail Friday from our friends Bill and Jean who were in the neighboring site, and they told us that it was a good thing that we left early, since they said they had a terrific storm Thursday nite and that a large limb came down on our site. It would have hit the motorhome on the back bedroom and done considerable damage. 

Trackrock 2014 (Summer)

We've taken a vacation from the blog, but you can view pictures.

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Special Needs Kids Day at the Hatchery (May 14)

We joined with many other volunteers to help special needs kids and adults catch eight trout each directly out of the runs. We wish we could have recordings of the squeals of joy when they caught fish. 

Veteran's Day at the Hatchery (May 9)

We joined local Trout Unlimited groups honor our vets at the Chatahoochee National Fish Hatchery. Hundreds of trout were released into Rock Creek for their enjoyment. Dozens of our vets had a great time catching them. Lunch was provided, consisting if hotdogs, slaw, beans, and brownies. John fished and quickly caught his limit of eight trout, with Joan bagging them. We brought them back to Trackrock where John cooked them on the smoker. We invited our friend Peg over to help us eat them. They were delicious.