Whatta road trip! I arrived at the Port Clinton area bright and early in the morning (note: if you are coming up here, get a good nights sleep instead of driving all night, trust me) and blew some time driving about. I had been here many years ago and was excited to see what it looked like in the day time.

I piled my stuff out of my car and immediately started to brush mayflies off of everything. They're in the middle of their big hatch. Why is this important? It's important because I'm taking the Sports Fishing class at Stone Lab! This is something that will affect my fishing success. Apparently the next emergence is the midges. That, however, is not important today. Today, I am heading over on the ferry to Put-in-Bay and then to Gibralter Island on Lake Erie.

Today I feel like I'm heading into a new phase in my life and education. It may sound cheesey but I honestly can't remember the last time I've been this excited. And besides, how can you beat fishing for college credit?

Gibralter Island is surprisingly tiny. If you sneeze while walking across it, you'll fall off the other end it's so tiny. (Okay, that's stretching it a bit.) It's a short row boat away from Put-in-Bay and things like Perry's Monument. If you look at this photo on the front page of the Put-in-Bay photo site, you can see the island next to the sail boat "parking lot" and the light house looking thing is Perry's Monument.

This fishing class is a week long class so we started things right up. Fred Snyder's, one of OSU's extention agents for the Ohio Sea Grant, homework for us for the week is "Fish hard and make every cast count."

Well, I brought my pole and some tackle and I've already caught some rock bass so I think I'm off to a good start. We go out on the boat to explore the wild waters of Lake Erie bright and early in the morning tomorrow. I can't wait!