GOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAM! OK, I know it’s not the morning or Vietnam or the 70s, but I always loved that opening and now I got to use it – it’s a good day. Anyways, I’m back. Sorry for being off the radar the past few weeks. The holidays combined with getting married and going on my honeymoon kept me a little busy. But now I’m back and we can return to our regularly scheduled rants.

So, how do I kick off the new year? Hmmm, how about recapping the fishing I did on my honeymoon in the British Virgin Islands? Sounds good to me.

The new wife and I spent a week on the beautiful island of Tortola. No, not the pirate island from Pirates of the Caribbean. That’s Tortuga. We were on Tortola, an island with as many chickens walking the roads as people. But it’s gorgeous. And the fishing isn’t bad either. Long ago I made a deal with my wife that allowed me to fish on our honeymoon. Well, she held true to her word and we chartered a boat for a little deep sea action just North of the island.

Now, I’ve done my fair share of chasing marling, sailfish, tuna and monster mahimahi, which means I know how INCREDIBLY boring it can be. And the last thing I wanted to do was take my wife on an 8-hour boat ride where all she did was stare out at the ocean, get sun stroke and dream of drinks on the beach. No, I wanted to catch fish. So we chartered a smaller boat for only 4 hours in hopes of staying closer to shore and going after quantity instead of quality. The move kind of worked.

We didn’t overload the fish box, but my wife managed to wrestle in a small kingfish (she was very impressed with herself afterwards, haha) while I caught a skipjack tuna, or bait, and a decent-sized mahimahi. So all and all not a bad trip. We caught fish and my wife wasn’t completely bored out of her mind. I put that one in the win column.

Hopefully I’ll be doing some fishing in the next few weeks so I will report back. Oh, and “The Lure Shelf” blogs will get back on track next week.

Slam the hooks!