Tomorrow night should find me perched upon a barstool at the Island House Restaurant and Vomitorium, while swilling grog and swapping lies with the local patrons. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday are all designated fishing days this year, with Tuesday now designated as the homeward bound travel day. It's a small group this year, about a dozen. We're hoping to put a hurtin' on the flatties by day and perhaps a drum or too by night. We'll see. I'll report daily on the catch numbers. The smart money's on Sig in Northwestern, 'cause Cornelia Marie has a backup skipper.....sorry about that. I'm addicted to that damn show....

Good luck to you George, and may you even remember part of it! I am jealous, we are headed to the valley for an annual trip to camp with some of my wife's people. A couple of panfish, maybe a bass is the best I can hope for. I will fish vicariously through you- the drinking I can handle on my own! Look forward to reading your reports!

Good luck George...I know you look forward to this trip every year....We'll be prowling the blue somewhere between Cape may and charleston...Catch em up...Bob

I will be up there tomorrow 5/22 as well. Catch 'em up!

Go get em George!!!! Good luck!

Did we ever get a report from this years event?? I wait with baited breath- or is that fish breath? Or just 'morning after' breath???

You're absolutely right Kevin. My mistake. Here's the lowdown: Headed up to Wachapreague on the Thursday before Memorial Day. Limped in with a possible malfunctioning turbocharger in the Beast. Engine is hard to start and keep running until it warms up. Then I get occasional power loss with smoke from the exhaust. It made it there and back, but this could be the first time my 7.3 liter Powerstroke goes to the shop for actual repair work. 10 years and 150,000 miles before the first repair ain't bad. Anyway, fished Friday and had a real good day. I got 4 keepers out of 12 fish to 22". ALL 4 KEEPERS came on a chartruse 2 oz jig with a chartruse GULP Eel. The jig functions as the sinker in the hand tied rigs I use for flatties. The best anyone did in our group was 5 keepers on Friday. And here's one lesson learned: My older brother caught a nice fish, up around 24". I net it and BAM, it's in the cooler. He decides to measure it. Well, we measure fish on a ruler that is part of his cooler top. I net all the fish in our boat, and I keep the fish in the net as I measure them. He pulls the fish out of the cooler, lays it on top of the cooler and, needless to say, one flop and it's over the side. Rookie mistake. Painful too. And I would never dream of rubbing that in. Not me! LOL! Had a great day on the water, grilled out for dinner then over to the Island House bar for some fun and libations. Took advantage of their new game system to institute a new tradition to the trip: Bowling for Shots. 4 two man teams, loser buys the gang a shot. A round of shots for this group ran about 70 bucks before tip, so the object wasn't to win, but to fail to lose. My rugby brother from the Philadelphia Hybernians, Doc, and I never did win, but more importantly we never lost. Anyway, late that night a front moved through and the winds went to the southeast at 25+ knots. That pretty much shut down the fishing for the next two days. My brother and I did not catch another keeper, and the entire group only caught 1 keeper each day. But we maintained the tradition, drinking into the wee hours of the morning and fishing each day. It was interesting to watch as some of our group lashed together 4 of the rental 16' Carolina Skiffs and manuvered them as one huge party barge. They drifted for flatties in the channel by the old Coast Guard Station, and ran it right up on the beach at the inlet for lunch. You see, we normally fish seperately from sunrise to noon, then all meet at a designated beach spot for a 2 hour lunch break. We grill brats and burgers for lunch, swap lies, take a swim, have a few cold ones and back to it for the afternoon bite. That lunch break is usually the highlight of the day. Anyway the fishing wasn't much the last two days, but the company more than made up for it. Everyone had a great time and we all took home some fish. Looking forward to next year!

Now THAT'S what I wanted to hear! After last years reports, I felt something was missing- thought maybe I had missed it with all the offshore reports so went back to see what you had said. Glad you had a good trip and didn't lose at bowling! 70 bucks a pop could hurt if you lost much! Just for kicks on the "beast', you might try pulling the fuel filter out and draining the reservoir, fill it up with Sea Foam and put the top bck on (assuming you have a 2-piece filter kit). Run it for just a minute or two to get the Sea Foam in the injectors, shut it down and let it sit over night or at least a few hours. I would do this with a warm but not hot engine. Next day, start her back up, will probably smoke like h-e-doutoothpicks but put some throttle to it until it clears up. Reinstall clean fuel filter take her out on the road and run her hard. I am not sure you have a turbo issue and this is a cheap, harmless injector cleaning. My 7.3 loves Sea Foam- I ran into trouble only when I tried to rebuild the injectors myself, a 4-grand mistake. Anyway, my 2 cents and I think, worth a try.

Thanks Kevin, I'll give the Sea Foam and filter change a try!