In my younger days, I made jewelry for fun, and with encouragement of friends and family, I started selling them off too. Back then, I did not wear jewelry, never liked wearing them anyway, though I loved making them. I eventually wore jewelry to advertise my work.

It all started when my cousin showed me earrings she had made. I was fascinated and started experimenting with whatever I could find to make my own jewelry.

My mom is a whiz with all sorts of handicrafts. Macrame, dress making, crochet, rug making, you name it, she's probably made it. She has a nice collection of craft materials. Beads, buttons, fabrics, strings.. and she let me use her materials.

I started with bracelets. No clasps. Just plain stretchable bead bracelets that were simply wooden beads strung together on elastic.

Bracelet making is about putting together a pleasant combination of beads, both in size and color. Mix and match colors. Mix big ones for focus with small ones as fillers. You can thread them through a string first to see how it looks and measure it against your wrist for fit. Once you are satisfied with bracelet. String elastic through beads and tie a dead knot and hide loose ends of elastic under beads.

Years later, in mid-eighties, I remember an early winter fishing expedition near Oregon Inlet, south of Nags Head, this time with my husband, 8-month old daughter and a Chesapeake Bay Retriever puppy. My husband had come in from duck hunting and had heard big blues were hitting beach! We parked our 4-wheel drive truck nearby on hard sand and with baby playing contentedly in her car seat and puppy chewing on anything he could find, we lined up along surf with a few dozen other fishermen, casting heavy silver spoon lures into churning waters of big blue blitz. Cast after cast we were rewarded with huge bluefish, twelve to sixteen pounds, filling up a wheelbarrow in a pyramid of large fish. Later we filleted, boiled and ate fish in casseroles made with mashed potatoes. Needless to say, we were eating bluefish casseroles all winter long.

Surf fishing is exciting, rewarding and accessible to all. Most locations can be reached either by car or ferry. With a basic understanding of seasons, conditions, equipment and regulations, an angler can get lucky just about any time of year, but typically very best times to surf fish are spring and fall.

Popular and prolific sport fish species you may catch surf fishing along North Carolina coast include:

Channel bass (red drum, puppy drum) The spring season generally begins in April. This run will peak by mid May and taper off in early June. Average size in spring is 35 to 50 pounds. In September smaller drum will enter surf. These fish will range between 2 and 15 pounds. They are more plentiful than larger variety and can be found in most sloughs. In late October bigger drum (40-70 pounds) return and remain until late November. Bait of choice is fresh mullet; rods are 9 to 11 feet with medium to heavy action tips. Size allowed is between 18" and 27" with a daily bag limit of 1 per person.