John O'Dell - Spring Break

So I had to take a break from turkey hunting to take the family on our annual trip to Fort Myers Beach FL for spring break. My kids school spring break was late this year due to Easter being so late. Even though I was going to miss a few days in the spring woods I was really looking forward to this trip as we always have a blast on the beach looking for shells, swimming in the ocean, just relaxing on the beach, and fishing.

This year in particular was a great year for fishing! Jacob was up early with me every morning by 5:00AM to hit the beach. He had two goals for the trip this year. 1) He wanted to catch a big redfish and 2) he wanted to catch a shark. Early in the trip he was rewarded for waking up early by catching a big Fort Myers Beach redfish. Also by trips end we had hooked and lost several sharks (one giant that almost spooled our line off the reel) and on the second to last day lady luck shinned our way and he caught a nice bonnet head shark. Not to be outdone by little brother Madison got in on the great fishing action as well and caught the biggest speckled sea trout of the trip and the only pompano.

All in all it was a very relaxing trip for the whole family and I can’t wait to do it all again next spring!

Later this month Dave and I are headed to Saskatchewan for Bow Madness to hunt with Black Bear Island Lodge www.blackbearisland.com for my first ever spring bear adventure so stay tuned to the DOD journal to see how we do!