Miami, Marathon, Key West, West Palm Beach

Hello Everyone!

Jim Baugh Here.

The next several days are quite rushed as I am getting ready for the trip south to the Miami International Boat Show. I will be at the Suzuki Marine booth Saturday Feb. 19th. Afterwards We will leave for Marathon Key and do some more shooting, also hook up with Hampton Fishing Buddy Barry B and Crew.

After Marathon, we will head to Key West to shoot some Suzuki fishing guides, and shoot the JBO Show Corvette. The show Vette will be on display after we return in both the Vetts at Waterside and The Hampton Corvette Show.

My buddy Joe will fly out of Key west back to Amelia Island, and I will drive the Vette back to Hampton. On the return trip, I have a real treat instore for myself. My cameraman of 15 years Wayne Baker will have just moved to West Palm Beach Florida with his wife Susan. They will still keep their condo and boats in Hamtpton, but will be spending at least the next year in West Palm. Wayne got a great job with Lockheed Martin with their 3d animation team. Very exciting. Here, you can see pics of their new house and read their Blog at
http://www.susanwaynetropicaladventures.blogspot.com/

Preparing for this trip has taken some time. First off, the Vette needed some work. I replaced most of the seals on the LT1, and gave her a complete tune up. You can see the most recent pic of our show vette. Just log on to
http://www.jimbaughoutdoors.com/vette.htm
Other items on the list for the complete refurb of the show Vette is a new Opti Spark, Water Pump, leather Seats with new foam, and lastly some quad tips. Complete restoration should be done before the Vetts at Waterside and Hampton Corvette Club Show.

I have also been working on the entire Keys tour. The Florida Keys is just not a place I have ventured to simply because I have not been able to so. Well, now both my kids are in college and with high end lap tops, I can take most of my office with me while I am on the road. So this year I finally took Barry B up on his offer to head down, it also fit in well with the Miami Boat show. Bary told me instead of renting a house to base out of, just rent a nice house boat and stay on the water, so that is what we are going to do on this trip. If all goes well on this excursion, I probably will just buy a nice house boat, keep it in Marathon or Key West, and stay there three to four months a year. The backdrop in that area for shooting footage for Suzuki is just to nice, the annual Miami boat show is there so, it all makes since. We will not actually be shooting shows down there, just mostly footage for our sponsors and special segments as well as features for our year end DVD's

Bassarama & Virginia Beach Boat and Sport Show

The first two shows this year that we appear in were both very well done shows. It had been maybe 15 years since I had been to the Bassarama in Richmond and boy have things changed. I appeared at the Verizon\Sportsmans Channel booth and we really had a good turn out. Many fans came by the booth, had their pictures taken and they could download them from the Verizon site later that evening. Was also great to see Ronnie Bach, had been a while, Ronnie always puts on a good show.

I have just returned from the Virginia Beach Boat show where I was at the Whalens Marine\Suzuki Booth. We had good traffic all day. I gave out 30 packs of Power Shad to the first 30 folks that came by and said they saw our postings on tidalfish.com. Needless to say, the baits were gone in about 45 minutes! The show was very good and clean. There seemed to be a lot more boats than last year. The talk of the show was the Bluewater boats and the 430,000 36 foot Grady. Boat looked nice, but needed Suzuki's!!

Fishing out of Hampton

Fishing news out of Hampton, well with the heavy trade show season, I have not been for a few weeks. I do know the large stripers are not so far north now, and just off the eastern shore. I plan on doing a couple more trips for the monster Rockfish, however this time of year I do a lot of traveling and then Will be locked in the studio editing Jim Baugh Outdoors for our second quarter national broadcast.

In the Galley

New in Jim's kitchen is beef stew in the famous Trojan Crockpot. Here is what you do, simple and fantastic. Buy cheap beef tips, red potatoes, red onions, celery, two cans of low sodium beef bullion, pepper, and let it cook for 10 hours. Fantastic. We fixed it up on the dock last week, had the Hampton Pirates over and had a great dinner.

How about that Casey Baugh

Well most of our viewers know about my son Ben Baugh. He has been on our TV show his entire life, and now is a JR at University of West Virginia and he is doing fantastic. He is already considering his masters degree, and still is looking hard at doing the Coast Guard. Pop is proud of course.
My daughter Casey Baugh has been accepted to several colleges, and recently was offered a $40,000 scholarship to Ferrum in Virginia. She is very excited and will be touring the campus this week. Very proud of her, she is a cutie for sure. And yes it is true, she has her dad wrapped around her finger. Oh well, she is a good kid!

That is about it for now, need to go check on the Vette. Be sure to also see what is happening in our monthly columns in the Chesapeake Angler Magazine and the Nor Easter Magazine. A complete trade show and appearance schedule is on our home page at
http://www.jimbaughoutdoors.com/

I will be reporting back here after the Miami Boat Show. Also will talk about the bite in Marathon. We should be fishing the first day we get there.

Tight Lines!

Jim Baugh