Jason's pink and silver fishing rod.

Sharks, Beer and Friends, Cont'd.

Scott and I were the last to "bed" on Friday. Jason had dragged a sleeping bag into the dining room and sprawled out on the hardwood floor while his fishing rod turned on the dryer above his head. I took the couch in the living room and Kevin took the single fold-out in the guest bedroom. The plan was for Jeff, Jason and Kevin to take Jeff's boat out to Combahee Light and for me and Scott to meet them out there in Buss's 35 foot Egg Harbor, which would serve as the "mother ship." When Jason and Kevin left for Jeff's, the air temp was in the low 60's and the wind was starting to kick up. Scott and I left the house at about 9:00 and made a stop at the Publix for beer, ice and rations. Kevin had made a bag of sandwiches, Jason had brought some Bubba burgers and hot dogs and Buss had a bag of frozen mahi-mahi. We kept pulling cases of beer out of the store cooler, finally stopping when the cart could hold no more. Going without catching fish-maybe. Running out of beer-never. When we got to the mother ship docked at Lady's Island Marina, the wind was honking out of the north. The wind chill was probably in the high 40's and the boys in Jeff's boat had a haul down the Coosaw River directly into the wind and the current. They called and said they couldn't hack it-they were coming in and would go out with us on the big boat. We waited till they got there, loaded all of their stuff on the big boat and about 11:30 we decided our best course would be to head out Port Royal Sound and fish the Broad River. By noon we were underway-tunes were cranked up and beer tabs were popped. We had a 90 minute cruise to the rip in the Broad River where the cobia are supposed to be thick this time of year. The state record was landed there the week before.