Today was Brent Williams 17th birthday and his father Mason and his mother Mary decided that since it was his birthday and he's been doing well in school they would surprise him and let him play "hooky" and go fishing for his birthday. We left my house at 5:45  and were through the locks by 6:15. The last member of our crew Donnie Poston hooked up with us at Cape Marina. When I went to bed last night I looked at  the NOAA forecast and since the wind had died for a few hours I though they may have gotten one right. What was I thinking ? Sorry boys missed the forecast again. Instead of the forecasted 10-15 knot winds and 2-3 foot seas we faced a "stiff" northerly breeze and very sloppy conditions. At the 20 mile buoy the winds were blowing between 17 & 19 knots and gusting to 25. With a three foot sea, all that wind and a STEEP 2-3 foot wind wave on top, lets just say we got our butts soaked to the bone on the ride out and upon arriving in 108 feet of water southeast of PC we started trolling and holding on very tightly.

In spite of the miserable conditions and being soaked to the bone today turned into one of the best birthdays I can remember and I was delighted that we were able to make this a very very HAPPY BIRTHDAY for Brent. We had a really good day with the dolphin we pulled the hooks first off on a big boy probably in the upper 30's and lost a couple more in the mid twenties. We went through 3 1/2 dozen ballyhoo and pulled away from a bunch of small ones and could have caught all of the 5# to 8# school dolphin we wanted

The wind finally did die down in the afternoon for the ride home and we stopped by the "D" can buoy off of the Cape to pick up Brent's 25# cobia.

Final Talley for the day:
14 Dolphin  -  27#, 25#, 15#, and the rest between 5# and 8#
1 Cobia - 25#
4 Salt Encrusted Fishermen with big Grins