Joey & Cindy

In the late 1970s my best friend and I were sitting around in his living room reading a fishing magazine when we came across an article about fishing the Santee Cooper in South Carolina. It said that if you go fish it for a week and don't catch an Ark. Blue over 40lbs, you had a bad week! We're from Illinois and we just got done catching the biggest cat we had ever saw. A channel cat about 10lbs. We gotta go there!

I bought my computer in 1996 and the first web page I went to was the page of a guy named Joe Drose. I looked at every page that the search engine brought up but I knew if I went there I was going fishing with that Joe Drose guy! From the pictures,

and that wry smile, he knew those lakes as good as anyone and could help me live out my dream of 20+ years. I looked at that page at least twice a week until around

May of 2002 when my wife suggested that we go there for vacation in July. I was on the phone the next day to set up my fishing trip!

When I first talked to Joe he told me he was pretty booked up for July but wanted to know what day we wanted. The day we wanted to go was the only day he had open the entire month! Was that luck? Fate? Call it what you want, we booked it!

My wife Cindy doesn't really like water as she can't swim. I have to do some very fast talking to get her out in my fishing boat and as we crossed the bridge on I 95 and had our first look at the lakes, she said, "I'm not sure I can do this!" After 3 days of reassuring her it would be allright, she reluctantly aggreed and we were off to Harrys Fish Camp to meet Joe.

We were having breakfast at Harrys when a guy walked in with a smile as big as the lakes. "Are you folks with me today?" After about 15 minutes at the table with Joe Drose, we felt like we had known him since I had first read the article in the 70s

As we walked down the boat ramp I overheard a fellow ask my wife," Are you guys fishing with him today?" " Yep!" "Then you'll be catching some fish!" We were off! We stopped briefly to catch some baitfish and we were off for the big cats.My wife caught the most! (She made me add that!) It wasn't long after we were baited up that we had the first one on. As I was reeling this thing in one of the other rods went down. Joe said "Cindy, Get up here and start reeling. you're not just gonna sit there and take pictures all day!" 5 minutes later he had my wife taking pictures and holding up fish for the first time in her life! Amazing!

For the next 4 or 5 hours we were reeling in fish and talking to a man who made us feel like family. It was odd to us that we had so much in common with a guy who

I guess it isn't really complete! My wife has informed me that we will be going back down this year to go fishing with Joe Drose and we will be going after that big one!

Joey and his wife, Cindy came to Santee Cooper to catch a few fish. We had a great day as you can see from the photos. I had left my glasses home and had the camera setting wrong and that is why the pictures are a little blurry, but I think in the minds of Joey and Cindy the pictures of this day will be very clear for a long time to come.