I’m on the road with the family in late August on assignment for Trailer BOATS and Camping Life magazines, among other publications. A new Toyota Sequoia was delivered to us to use on the driving trip to and from Florida, which starts with a few days at a place called Steinhatchee Landing Resort in the Big Bend area of Florida, where we will pick up a new NauticStar deck boat to test and use to snorkel for scallops in the Gulf of Mexico. To catch the tasty bivalves, you swim over 5-10 feet of water looking for grass beds hiding the two-inch-diameter scallops, and use a net to scoop them up as they try to skitter away, and it sounds fun. They are supposed to be having the best scalloping season (July-Oct) on record this syear, so we look forward to it. We’ll also fish for tarpon, redfish, sea trout and snook, and the feature article on that stop will be in a summer 2009 issue of Trailer BOATS. Then we drive over to Walt Disney World, where we will camp at Ft. Wilderness for five days for a story on camping at Disney for Camping Life magazine. We’ll also fish the lakes at WDW, and on one day we will be with a female fishing guide for a story I am doing for Women in the Outdoors magazine, aboard a pontoon boat for a story I am doing for my fishing column in Pontoon & Deck Boat magazine. AAA’s Home & Away magazine is interested in a story on the Walt Disney World camping option, so you may see that article if you are a member of AAA Ohio in that magazine next year. So I guess you could say it’s a ‘working’ family vacation.
I am recently back from the annual ICAST fishing tackle trade show in Las Vegas, where I found lots of neat stuff, some of which I will be testing in Florida and writing up for various magazines and discussing in my annual holiday "Gifts for the Sportsman" show I do with Cabela’s every December.
I also visited the Ohio State Fair and checked out the new kayak pond, which was such a hit. They may want me to offer kayak fishing demonstrations there next year, which would be fun. If you tuned in to the fair week’s (Aug 9) show you heard my interview with Ted Nugent, his third guest appearance on Buckeye Sportsman and always interesting…if you missed it, you can hear what "Sweaty Teddy" had to say by going to the podcast link on this site.
I look forward to Farm Science Review coming up in mid September, where I’ll be in the ABN barn for at least one day before heading to Venice, Louisianna (the fishing port at the end of the road due south of New Orleans; hardest hit area by hurricane Katrina) for a few days of fishing in an annual fishing writers’ event called "Marsh Madness" organized by Skeeter boats, Plano tackle, Under Armour, Quantum, Sea Guar line, and other manufacturers. We catch yellowfin tuna, big reds, sea trout and the occasional alligator gar. I’ll post some fish pix after that event.
Meanwhile, I welcome a new affilliate: WCSM 96.7 FM radio in Celina on Sept 8. With Grand Lake St. Marys in their backyard and lots of hunting opportunities in the area, WCSM listeners are fortunate AND are avid outdoors folks. I look forward to reaching them — and will welcome one of their local fishing heros, Pro Crappie Guide Russ Bailey, of St Marys, as my guest that weekend to talk about late season slab-slaying!
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