My friend Robert Webster of Hamlet, NC gave an open invite for our Pastor Sam Abee and his young men to go fishing with us on Lake Tillery, NC.  Robert has a camper at the Lake Tillery Family Campground right off highway 24/27 near the Swift Island Boat Landing about 1/4 mile +- from the boat landing. 

A date was set for July 20, 2017 and everything worked out whereby the fishing trip materialized.  Robert advised me to be at the boat landing by at least 0600 hours; 6:00 A.M. for you non-military people........grin if you must!   I advised Brother aka Rev. Sam Abee he would not have to bring anything, except themselves and I would take care of the morning snacks, water, grapefruit and apple juice, etc., and pick them up at around 0500 hours. 

WAKE UP CALL FOR BILL PORTER

I set the alarm clock for 0400 hours, hit the sack around 11ish or so and don't think I woke up until around 0347 hours, turned the alarm off and got up.  I took a "bird bath", clean version, got my clothes on and read the 11th chapter of Hebrews which is the faith chapter of the Bible in my humble opinion. 

I put a 1/2 pot of coffee on using the ole antiquated Mr. Coffee machine, filled an Igloo stainless steel lined thermos bottle with hot tap water while the coffee was brewing, started loading up stuff in the truck of the car and later filled the thermos with the steaming jet black coffee. 

I waited until the last minute or two to load the small cooler with cold bottled water, fruit juices and put a frozen ice pack in there to keep things cool.  I made a check list the night before and went down the list to ascertain that nothing was left off from being loaded into the cooler and a tote bag and placed into the truck of the car.

ARRIVED AT THE ABEE HOME

I arrived at the Abee home a little before 0500 hours and Brother Sam Abee, Josiah and Daniel were on their porch waiting for me.  In a minute or two, we were all in the car and headed toward Lake Tillery, NC.  The traffic on Highway 109N was nil and also highway 73 until we reached Highway 24/27 and there wasn't hardly any traffic on that main road either.  There was some construction going on near the the bridge, but that didn't affect us at all.

ARRIVED AT THE WEBSTER CAMPSITE

According to Robert Webster, I arrived at his campsite at 0530 hours, being 30 minutes early and he was still moving around and appeared to be a little lethargic by his motions.  We got out, kicked back on his covered porch/deck and talked until around 0615 (estimated time) and then headed to the Swift Island Boat Landing which is very close by.

Robert "ran me under the bus" and asked the Preacher to do a sermon on "Instigators" and we all got a good grin out of that one.  The only thing being, Robert will fit right into that sermon as well, since neither one of us cuts the other one any slack, but it is all in good clean wholesome fun!

ON THE LAKE

It didn't take long before the boat was off loaded and we were headed out into the Lake going underneath the Lilly Bridge Road to access the "big water."  The morning was fairly clear and I am sure the temperature was already into the mid 70s.

I checked the time stamp on the above pix and it was 0645 hours with the sun still behind the trees on the eastern side of the lake, although sunrise was at 0621 hours per the weather prognosticators.  Robert went to some of his normal hot spot fishing places, but the fish were breaking water feeding on small shad, either up river or down river from our position.

FISH ON

Daniel landed the first fish of the morning and captured the event with the ole Canon 35mm DSLR camera at 0733 hours.

Daniel had a pretty good grin going and he continued to catch fish pretty regular.  We had at least six or more rods out, rigged for White Perch using small Shad King lures, cut bait for Catfish and a combination rig of a larger plug and lures for whatever took a notion to consume them.

Josiah with a keeper White Perch on, following behind Daniel at 0734 hours.

Daniel and Josiah were catching fish pretty regular, but most of them went back into the lake, being on the smallish order.

After the first fishing frenzy, it was time to hit the morning snacks.  Daniel opted for some Vienna sausages and we opened the breakfast bars, fruit cups, Fig Newton bars, Chips Ahoy Chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter crackers aka nabs, Grapefruit and Apple juice, water, etc., while I sipped on some hot thermos bottle Maxwell House, "Good to the last Drop" black coffee.

After Daniel got energized, he was in gear like the Warner Brothers cartoon character Speedy Gonzales when a rod started bouncing from a fish on, regardless of which side or the back end of the boat the rod was located, Daniel took possession of the fish on rod like greased lightening.....grin if you must!  I think we might rig up a leg tether for him on the next fishing trip!

At 0744 hours, Rev. Sam Abee landed a keeper White Perch and the fishing was still slow to what we have seen in the past.  The fish were on the move and ahead of us, but we kept picking them off, sometimes a couple at a time on the Shad King lures.  I said we, but I was the first mate and camera man, but I reeled a couple in when I could beat Daniel to the Rod, even though it was mere inches away from me....another grin is in order.  It was a humongous amount of fun watching Daniel and others crank those fish in! 

LARGEST FISH LANDED SO FAR

Daniel landed a good size Crappie at 0801 hours and we got a good amount of chin music from him about that fish being the largest caught.  His Dad reminded him that the day was still young.

Brother Sam Abee took a nice close-up shot of Daniel's crappie with his Obamaphone...NOTE:  I call all cell phones Obama Phones.  I think Rev. Abee picked up some pointers from Captain Robert Webster on the importance of camera subject matter foreground predominance......go ahead and grin Robert!

BIGGEST FISH OF THE DAY

Josiah landed this 15 plus (estimate) pound Catfish and he put up a serious fight.  Bill Porter aka The First Mate, attempted to get the catfish into the fish landing net two times with the catfish evading capture each time.  I received a large amount of "chin music" aka verbal harassment from Captain Robert Webster about the rookie mistakes I was making trying to get the landing net underneath the catfish.   However, Josiah continued to put pressure on the catfish and the third time, Bill Porter got the large net underneath his humongous head and he went head first into the net which is the correct way to do it.

Also, we had a couple lines get tangled up earlier from a rod off the back of the boat and a nearby rod.  Robert had to break out his pocket knife and cut the hooks off the line on one of the rods.  When he tied the swivel back in place, I noticed that he had the two ends of the line tied to the same eye on the swivel which voided the usage of the swivel all together.  I showed the rig to him and reminded him that he had two pair of Walmart brand reading glasses and still can't see.  I barely got a grin out of him on that one.  Robert gave some type of rebuttal excuse to no avail; it was too early to be water headed......another grin is in order.

After getting that Catfish in, Daniel seemed to get a little quieter as if the wind had suddenly been removed from his sail, since that Catfish was now, The Biggest Fish of the Day.

Captain Robert Webster with a good grin going.  I think I mentioned to him in not too much of a subtle way not being couth about that several day old beard growth.  Gillette razor blade company is losing money on Robert for sure! 

We continued to fish on until around 11ish or so, but the fish were biting real slow.  Robert, the previous day landed some very large catfish, but the weather was overcast and fish tend to bite much better.  Including the large Catfish, we kept about 30 fish per Robert.

A couple striped bass were landed, but they were too small to keep and released back into the lake to get larger.

We headed back to the Swift Island Boat Dock, loaded the boat onto the trailer and headed back to Robert Webster's campsite.

FISH FRY

The culmination of a fishing trip with Capt. Robert Webster is going to be some fried fish along with the various trimmings.  Below are some pixs taken and I will thumbnail them, therefore click on them for a larger screen view.

Check out those wonderful golden fried Catfish and White Perch filets along with the condiments.   Rev. Sam Abee blessed our food and it wasn't long before our plates were filled.

Rev. Sam Abee getting ready to sample some of the fresh caught fish from yesterday that Robert had in the refrigerator waiting to take a swim in the hot cooking oil!

Josiah really enjoyed the fried fish and wasn't shy about going back for seconds, which is a good thing; lets Robert Webster know his culinary skills are fine.

Daniel isn't too much of a fish eater, but he worked on the French Fries for sure.  I broke out another can of the Vienna Sausage for him.

Captain Robert Webster with his plate loaded about as heavy as mine was..  Notice, I didn't take a pix of my plate.  It must have been an oversight on my part, but when it comes to VITTLE time, the camera has to play SECOND FIDDLE.  

I commented to Robert that he had changed the breading mixture on this batch of fish and he used more of the Zatarain's Crispy Southern Fri seasoning in combination with a fish breader, either Moss or Lakeside brand and it really brought out of flavor of the catfish.  I told him, this was the first time that the Catfish filets out shined the White Perch filets, in my humble opinion!

Robert's Fishing buddy, Bob McLean came by for a short visit after finishing off some good home cooked groceries prepared by his Sister and Bob brought out his Obamaphone and showed a few pixs of some large strippers and catfish that he had landed in the past.

At the conclusion of our meal, Captain Webster delivered my Bushnell Laser Range Finder in front of Rev. Sam Abee as a witness.  I loaned the range finder to Robert on January 11, 2017 and have had a good amount of fun reminding him about returning the range finder, of which was all in fun.  I recently had my No. 1 Brother Law and Bob McLean call Robert up on the phone and call him range finder, of which Robert broke out into a robust audible grin.  When I got home and unloaded the car, I didn't notice the range finder and thought maybe that Robert had high jacked the range finder as a prank.  I called Robert and he said that he had witnesses that he gave the range finder to me and we both fell out into another grin.  I looked again in the trunk of the car and it was hidden behind a watermelon that Rev. Sam Abee had forgotten to unload when I dropped them out at their home.  

In closing, we had a wonderful fishing trip today.  Didn't catch a pile of fish, but Robert said he put 3 large quart bags of filets in the freezer.  He gave me two large containers of Shellcrackers and a large bag of White Perch filets to bring home for later usage. 

The fellowship and friendship we shared was awesome and that is what it is all about; enjoying what God has created and provided for us, if we will only take the time to do so.

As I post throughout this website at every opportunity, "Two of the Greatest Ships that ever Sailed, Friendship and Fellowship", of which we definitely sailed today.