Sunday, August 14, 2011

beach vacation... bait and crab boil

So... Back to my beach vacation (after our news flash regarding the heat wave)...

The first full day at Mobile Bay... after we went to the Foley area outlet maul mall, got home and had our naps, Momma instructed us to go find us some bait so we could fish later that night while she watched Gabey and prepared our crab boil fixin's.  Liz and I drove towards Foley in hopes of finding the bait store we spied on our way back home.  We were driving a while and hadn't seen the bait store that was so close... Me, 'we should have seen the bait store by now...'.  Liz, 'Yeah, we should have seen it... I hope we find something before too long!'  Me, 'let's pull into this service station and ask if there is a bait store near.'

So, we asked at the filling station.  The two ladies that worked there looked at me like I spoke a foreign language.  However, the nice man (about 30 ish, African American) who was buying his filling store sundries, informed us that there was indeed a bait shop right across the cross street of said filling station!  Really? I ask... Oh sure, he informs me.  There will be a little sign.

Hmmmm.  (cue the theme song from 'Deliverance'.)

So, Liz and I, laughing at the hilarity of the situation, proceed into the driveway of this house with this sign in the front.



...um, ok, really??


Here's the back of the house where the entrance is.  We were a little apprehensive about the situation, except there was a car already there with people buying their bait.  When we enter the store, we find this nice man with his son (about 7 years old, telling us of all the fish he's caught on his vacation including a red drum (yum!) and a pompano he caught last night!  Promising!  We visit a minute with the nice bait man, purchase our bull minnows, which is guaranteed to catch us a flounder off the pier at our house.  Then he goes back to get his pet...



POT BELLIED PIG!  OMG!


You can't make this shit up!

So... on we go, with our bait, back to the house to commence on our crab boil.




Here are the 30 crabs we caught!  It was a little difficult catching the crabs out of the crab traps without them freaking you out and going after your fingers or toes.  Woo!  They are elusive little bastards!



Here I am with the crab pot... getting ready to add the goods.



We had some corn, potatoes, and sausage with the crab.  YUM!



Here is the finished product!  WOW!  What a feast, and we had twice as much crab as we could eat... meaning a GREAT crab meal would follow at some point.  It was so delicious!


After dinner was cleaned up, We decided to give our luck a try.  We fished late into the night... fed the fish many minnows, and I actually caught a fish...



Damn croaker baby.  You can see his full size next to my minnow.  Really???  Well, maybe the fishing wasn't so great, but the crabs were out of this world!

More to come tomorrow... the beach and best crab cakes ever!

-P


1 comment:

  1. That pig was crazy huge. :) Can't wait to see what your crab cakes recipe was. I really like the one from Dean & Deluca for ease and general fantabulousness. ;) LOVE my Sissy!

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