The base camp for Flood Tide Co is in a cool ass little town on the SC coast, called, Beaufort, SC.  It is like a small version of Charleston and has that quaint, comfortable Low Country feel.  Also, Will Abbott lives there, and it is way to easy for me to get there from Atlanta.  When in Beaufort, the main…”You have to do this,” is going to the Filling Station on a Friday night at around 7 PM.  Here is the draw, a HUGE ASS STEAK, baked potato, corn…..for, wait for it….$10. So, what comes with this amazing grilled, dead piece of meat are the characters that surround you.

Lets go back in time to Cinco De Mayo when we were there to witness an amazing night of karaoke.  There were some standouts such as “Cowboy,” who would always hold his hand to his ear as though he has a monitor and can hear the band better by doing so, there were the usuals that get up there, hand them the mic, and they whisper as they sing…”How to save a liiiiiife.”  Then there were your award winners such as Glen.  This dude would be hogging all 8 teeth to himself, singing classic country tunes from the 50’s and 60’s and come high five us like we were his fan club, little did we know it, we were…especially after having about 13 bourbon and cokes.

Lets get back to the present, we sit down to eat our steaks, and all be damned if Glen doesn’t appear, all cowboyed up and ready to rock.  We get as excited as Tre Miller gets when he hears Lady Gaga, we are star struck.  Will approaches him, “backstage,” and he remembers us and sits on down.  “Boys, we got Glen sitting with us, its gonna be a good night.”  You had Tre Miller just getting into MT for his month long sabbatical, and Dan Joseph up in Wilmington, NC and we were with Glen, we win.

So, Glen got us through the night with some classics, such as “Swingin Doors,” and “Tulsa Time.”  Ol Will and I went double on some “Pancho and Lefty,” and killed it like you thought we would.  We went through the rest of the night suffering through some  awful tributes and some decent stuff, but the highlight was just watching ol Glen work the crowd.  Any bar where there is a picture taken of some girl by herself on the outside couch, Glen holding the mic waiting for the end of the instrumental and a shoeless, shirtless dude at the bar window, I am gonna be just fine….Toby Keith, please stay away.

So, we fish, all my friends and I.  I feel like we don’t catch fish more than we do, but its the journey that I always remember more than the fish, the spaces in between that are awesome.  Kinda like music, its not the notes that make the music, it’s the spaces in between.  Maybe I am just making excuses for the fact that fish haven’t liked me in the past couple years…neither does the weather, conditions, boats not working, broken rods, sleeping in too late…whatever, but those are all the memories that make it what it is, an awesome time with your friends!