Blackwater Camping trip 6/18

***Just got my desktop fixed. this trip was done over 1 month ago. Great to have my computer back working good.!****

What a great way to spend a weekend. Camping with my son on the Neuse River and a black water Creek.
Back  in June we decided to camp at one of our favorite spots as the last few times  when coming home from there I could hardly make that 3am drive back to Cary. I was so tired one night I was pulled over in Johnston Co. by the highway patrol! The time before that I had to pull over and sleep for 30 mins. Getting old sure does suck.  We arrived at lunch, set up the tent, unloaded everything and then cooked some hamburgers on the Weber grill.   Sweet!

This is the first boat we saw on the creek,  Randy aka "Ole Rebel

Here is the tent and a view of the water.

After eating and speaking with Randy we headed to one of our favorite Bream spots. Not a lot was happening today with the Bream. We caught right many but not near as many the big ones as last month. They have probably headed to deeper water. A nice site today was 3 big Tom Turkeys walking right past us on the bank. One of those gobblers was a beast, his beard almost dragging the ground. While Bream fishing we also put out some bottom rigs for Bowfin and caught 4 nice ones.
Here are 2 of them.

Later that afternoon we ran into Alan,  aka "Tarheel Flyflinger" and his wife. They had also caught some nice bowfin and Alan gave me 3 very nice flies to try at a later date. Thanks Alan!
That evening we set up to catfish on the main river and had to head for the tent as a massive storm was rolling in. Mack N. caught 1 small flathead  apox 6lbs before we headed for cover. Luckily it never hit an we got a good nights sleep.
We woke up early and were eager to  hit the river again.  We caught some more bream and about the same number of bowfin as yesterday.
Look at the size of this cypress knee!.  I have always wanted to take a picture of this  knee as it is at least 20' tall and I finally  convinced Mack N. to climb out of the boat and stand on one of the smaller knees. Some of these cypress trees are surely over 500 years old.

We made it back to the ramp at lunch and Ran into Alan again, this time his partner was his son. They had caught some big bowfin and were headed home. We cooked some steaks and potatoes on the Weber grill and chilled out for a few hours.We then packed up and headed home.  Not our best catching trip but that is not what it is all about.
A weird side note is how can we be camping and surrounded by swamps and I think I only had 2 mosquitoes get after me the whole time down there????.  Then I arrive in Cary and while unloading my stuff in my yard I am attacked by what seems like thousands of mosquitoes????.  Dang  things.