Vacation

My cousin got married in Santa Rosa Beach, FL earlier this month which provided us a great opportunity to go on a week long beach vacation.  Baton Rouge has been pretty chaotic lately so it was nice to get out of town for a while.

Our trip started with a stop in Fairhope, AL.  It broke up the drive and we were able to visit another brewery.

Fairhope Brewing Company has some really good beer, but two of their offerings really stood out to me.  Judge Roy Bean is an excellent coffee stout and (Take The) Causeway IPA is a solid IPA brewed with Citra and Simcoe hops.  I’m a sucker for Citra, so I really enjoyed it.

Fairhope is a pretty cool little town, but we learned that Sunday is not the best day to visit as nearly every shop was closed.  We were disappointed, but at least they have a great little community park in town with a splash pad and top notch playground equipment.  These are the things that get me excited – life is much different than it was when I started this blog – I wouldn’t have it any other way though.

Once in Florida I was able to get in a couple of half days of fishing from the kayak.  Most folks would probably fish the saltwater being so close to the beach, but I guess I’m not like most folks.  I chose to fish a couple of different freshwater spots.  The first was one of the coastal dune lakes that are unique to South Walton County.

The water in this lake was very tannic which gave the bass and bream a very dark look, almost entirely black at times.  I ended up catching lots of small bluegill on nymphs, but only landed one skinny bass on a popper.  It felt great to get out in the kayak again, it had been a while.