This past weekend, we wrapped up another MAD (Military Appreciation Day) fishing trip out of Southport. For those who haven't followed, this event brings local captains, professional and recreational, together with active duty military from all branches. To show our thanks, we volunteer to take these guys out for a day of fishing. By the way, if you have a boat and you don't participate, I highly recommend it. There are events in Morehead City (June), Southport (Sept.), and Charleston (Oct), so you have options. This year, I had a crew of four US Army troops aboard the Canyon Wren, with my brother JD playing the role of mate. The weather looked iffy (yes, that's a waterspout over Oak Island), but somehow the storms held off and we were able to get out. The seas were a little sloppy, which kept us from running out to the deep water, but the nearshore fishing was on fire! I put lines out just out of the river mouth off Ft. Caswell. There was bait everywhere, and the predators were waiting. We had the first bluefish aboard within a couple of minutes, and then we picked at the fish one by one as we went down the beach. The blues gave way to Spanish mackerel, and we started pulling them aboard at a pretty regular clip as I cut figure-8s through the productive areas. By about 13:00, the seas had started really calming down, but as we had to have the guys back to the dock in two hours, there really wasn't time to run offshore. I'm not sure they cared too much though, as we had 50 Spanish mackerel in the ice, and had probably fought and lost at least that many more. We had stayed busy! Back at the docks, volunteers cleaned the fish for these guys and set them up with heavy bags of filets to take back to base. I expect there will be some serious fish fries going on in Fayetteville this week. As always, the event was big fun, from the Friday night captains' dinner to the post-event banquet. There's a reason I look forward to it every year.