Fish Fry

Last week Louie managed to entice me out of bed at the crack of dawn one morning to go white bass fishing.  (White bass are different than regular bass.  They are more like stripers.)  When we're at the lake, I don't usually get up before the sun rises, but on that particular morning I was glad I did.  Here's the view as we pulled away from our dock.  It was worth getting up early just for a view like this of God's handiwork!

We met a friend of ours out on the lake in the "secret" spot and started fishing....

Within an hour we had a nice bucket of fish....

We took them back to the dock and Louie cleaned them up right away.  He uses an electric knife and he's quite good at it!

The dogs like to come down to the dock and inspect things....

But our little guy always likes to try to steal the fish...

We soak the fish in cold water all day and then that night we had a fish fry.  We bread them with Louie's homemade breadcrumbs and then fry them up, nice and crispy....

We also take some fillets, season them, add a little margarine and some lemon juice and cook them on the grill for about 20 minutes....

Either way, they are ummm ummmm good!

Easy White Bass on the Grill

Since we've been kickin' butt in the White Bass department this past week, we decided to have Darryl make his special "White Bass on the Grill" for dinner.  It doesn't get much easier than this.

First, make a little tin foil bowl like this.

Then slice up one fresh lemon for each tin foil bowl.

Toss about 20 white bass fillets into the foil and add the lemon slices.  Season with a little salt, pepper, garlic salt and a dash of basil and oregano.  Toss in 1 sliced up stick of margerine.

If you like onions, chop some up and just add them.

Pinch the tin foil bowl closed and place it on your grill for about 20 minutes.  Remove from grill and you have this....

We served it with some rice, roasted corn, egg salad and french fries.  The whole meal took less than half an hour, was quick, easy and best of all.....  YUMMY!!

That's all folks!

The Rock Quarry aka Party Cove

We've spent a lot of time the last 2 days at The Rock Quarry, aka Party Cove, on Kentucky Lake.  Lots of lakes have that popular cove where everyone likes to hang out and The Rock Quarry is the place to be on a hot summer day.  The quarry is about 105 ft. deep.

Most weekends you can barely even get into the cove because of all the boats and jet skis that are lined up and tied together.  It's one huge party and I can tell you it is definately not rated PG13.  This is not the place to take the kids on the weekend.  But early on a weekday morning it's usually pretty empty, so we headed over to swim, rock climb and jump into the water.

Over the years people have painted the rock face with pictures.   Some of them are actually pretty good.  Jumping off the high ledge of the cliff is sort of a "rite of passage" on the lake.  But I don't know which is more fun - climbing and jumping or sitting in the boat and egging on those standing at the top.  People of all ages have made the climb.  Some people get up there, look over the edge and immediately take the plunge.  Others get up there and stand.  And stand...  And stand.   The longest I've ever timed a stander is about 1 hour.  This poor girl got up there and just could not take that first step.  Everyone down below was shouting up tips and encouragements.  "Hold your nose,"  "Don't close your eyes,"  "close your eyes,"  "climb back down,"  "You can do it!"  When she finally gathered up her nerve and made the leap, a collective round of applause went up from the boaters below and when she broke the surface, she had a grin on her face the size of Montana.

 Yesterday when we went Tony decided to be the first one to swim over and  venture up...

You have to shimmy up the rocks and there is also a thick rope to help you along some of the more difficult places.

 Here's Tony walking along the top level, contemplating the jump.

And here is Tony taking the plunge.  This is the first year he's done the climb and jump!

For years we've been trying to find the beach that had this tree rope and this year we finally found it.  The kids enjoyed climbing the tree, grabbing the rope and swinging out over the lake.

Afterwards we headed back to Party Cove because Tony wanted me to climb the cliff and jump with him.  I've done it before, but never with my son, so we decided to go for it...

Here we are sitting at the top...

And here I am plunging towards the lake. 

Jumping from the cliff is an "at your own risk" adventure.   I'd advise against it if you don't feel comfortable with heights, climbing or jumping off cliffs. 

Tonight we had another evening of white bass fishing.  Darryl caught a few really nice ones.

And Barb finally caught a nice bass and will get this picture hung on the "Bass Wall of Fame" at the house..

Tomorrow I'll show you the pictures from Maggies Jungle.  It's just getting too late to load them tonight.

I'll leave you with another nice sunset.  See you tomorrow!

Summertime Fun

We have been blessed with some beautiful weather, so we've been spending all our time on the lake.  Now that Tony finally started skiing, I can't keep him off the ski's and it turns out my son is a chip off the ole' block - he's a natural waterskiing demon!

Even though she prefers to wakeboard, we talked Chablis into skiing a little...

Louie even got out there.  Not bad for a guy who hasn't skiied in a few years.

And I NEVER have to be asked twice - I am the original waterskiing hot dog in this family!

After spending the day skiing, we hit our favorite bay at 6 pm for some white bass fishing.  Abby caught a nice one on her first cast and there was no stopping her after that.  She does really good for a 7 year old.

I have to say the fish were really jumping!  We were catching them like crazy and Louie had all he could do to keep up with us.  It was his job to take the fish off the hooks and get them in to the live well.

Apparently Abby had a great time!

Our friends from down the street followed us out in their boat.  They had never fished for white bass before but they caught on very quickly.

After filling our live wells and coolers with fish, we headed back to our dock to clean them.  All the guys helped, including Cameron who got to try his hand at filleting a fish with an electric knife like Louie does it.

Afterwards we started a campfire and roasted hot dogs and polish sausage.  After catching all those fish, we were starving!

It was a perfect way to end the day!