MY OFFICIAL COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN

Sure the 2011 mini season is still about 9 months away, however last night my own personal countdown trigger was pulled.

Every year leading up to mini season, and yes I do consider 9 months away leading up, I will start to have incredibly vivid dreams about the upcoming trip. They are always almost identical.

• We are out on day 1 catching bugs.
• We realize too late that we missed the first slack tide (which would be my fault).
  
• We don't get our day one limit.
• We struggle to limit on day two.

No joke, I have had this dream more times than I can count on my fingers. Obviously this is an incredibly stressful dream for me. I will then undoubtedly wake up from the dream and my mind will begin to race, making plans for the upcoming year. I think about what our strategy will be to start the opening day this year, what we can do better than the prior year, what new techniques or tools we need to bring down with us, how do we need to change our budget, etc.

I also start to worry about the logistics of the trip. This year already has two big question marks:

1. When am I going to be able to make it down.
2. Who will be our 8? We only have room for 8 on the boat (and that is stretching it) but this year we are likely going to have at least 9 guys that want to come. Those guys that are on the waiting list are going to be pissed if they can't get back in this year.

I legitimately woke up at around 5 am last night after this dream and thought about this stuff until I got out of bed around 7. Moral of the story: a lot of thought goes into mini season on our end, so come prepared.

I am also guessing that I am probably the only one in the entire world that begins to strategize in November for the upcoming mini season the following July.