How to Do Florida

BIG RED FISH!

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:59:43 +0000

Chad Crawford, Larry Meador and Mr. Red

The next best thing to catching a big fish is watching someone catch one for the first time. After a 30 minute fight on light tackle, Larry Meador a close friend of mine hauled in a massive Red fish this Summer. We bounced hand sized blue crabs on the bottom as we drifted the outgoing tide. Summer months are great times to catch BIG fish in Florida’s many inlets and deep waterways. A few tips, Fish the outgoing tide/use big bait/don’t get frustrated if you have to re-rig multiple times from snagging the bottom, that’s part of it.

enjoy florida!

Chad Crawford

Surfing the Concrete Pond

admin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:53:51 +0000

Last week I joined a group of guys to surf the waves at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon. We had a blast, but If you’ve never surfed in man made freshwater wave, it takes some getting used to for sure. Unless you’re on the pro tour riding a short performance board at TL makes for somewhat of a mushy ride in my opinion. I used a 8 foot longboard, the extra buoyancy seemed to help with speed and longer rides. They offer classes to teach beginners how to surf as well. Typhoon Lagoon is an awesome experience, one every Florida surfer should have and as bonus they have a “no shark guarantee”.

Enjoy Florida, Chad Crawford

Here are some of the details for renting to Lagoon:

Times- You can surf before the park opens or after it closes.(times vary based on time of year)

Cost- Weekdays are cheaper at $1200 instead of $1400 for the weekends.

Surfers- 8-12 is ideal

Number for reservations and more info- 1-407-939-7873

Below are some pics we snapped, thanks John.

Citrus and Shrimp, welcome to yummy town

admin — Sat, 30 May 2009 03:06:17 +0000

I wanted to share a recipe that I prepared for my family a while back. Let me be clear, by no means am I a cook. Most of my cooking involves a blend of raw invention and a lack of proper ingredients. If you start with something that already taste great, then it’s harder to mess things up. Not to say I’ve never botched a meal. So, I stick to cooking Florida seafood and try not to get in the way of its naturally gorgeous flavor. This recipe is the infusion of two of my favorite things, citrus and seafood. The recipe calls for 2 lbs of the biggest Pink Gulf Shrimp you can find and variety of citrus and a grill.

Grilled Citrus Shrimp (serves 4 adults)

Ingredients:

2 lbs of big pink gulf shrimp
2 cups of ginger & garlic marinade (I purchased from publics or you can make your own, try this link for a simple recipe)
4 Florida Oranges
2 bell peppers
1/2 of a pineapple

Directions: Soak the shrimp in the ginger garlic marinade for 30 minutes. Cut oranges, bell peppers,and pineapple into large quarter. Keep in mind all of this is going on skewers so keep the sections large so they don’t fall off. Make sure you sandwich the shrimp between an orange and a pineapple. Use plenty of olive oil on the grill so your seafood won’t stick making it harder to rotate your skewers. If you are using wood skewers, use two, this will help keep the food in place. As you grill keep brushing the ginger & garlic marinade on the shrimp, I also squeezed the oranges as I grilled for flavor. Your are done when your shrimp are snow white and pink, don’t over cook them. Serve over a bed of your favorite rice and enjoy.

Here are a few pictures taken during the process. One is the kid-sized shrimp I used and the other is a finished skewer, you will see mango on my skewer, but I don’t recommend it, it kept falling off and just didn’t taste good grilled. The final picture is my seafood cooking timer, seafood typically cooks in about the same time it takes to drink one glass of beer or so I’ve noticed.

Enjoy Florida!

Chad

Fried Trout!

admin — Sat, 23 May 2009 16:39:16 +0000

Last week, my son Chase (age 5) and I went Trout fishing in the Indian River. Having not caught much all day, I was quickly approaching my limit with Chase. Anyone fishing with small kids knows that after 2-3 hrs they are done. To complicate matters I was trying to catch fish, which is another mistake. Just as we were about to leave we hooked a nice fish. At first I thought it was a Redfish but as we reeled it closer to the boat I noticed it was large Seatrout, the biggest I had ever seen much less caught. When I first hooked up I was going to let Chase net the fish but I quickly took over that job once I saw how big the trout was. Looking back, it was not my finest moment. The beautiful fish was 27 inches long and weighted right at 5 lbs. I asked Chase to hold the trout for a picture, he said no way!

Ok,Now for the fried part of the story, I love to fry fish, I have a restaurant grade frier on my porch, so yes I’m serious. I had never fried seatrout so I did so research and found this recipe that turned out awesome. If you like heavy crunchy batter, this recipe will not disappoint and it will work great on any fish so please fry away.

Fried Trout Recipe

4 8-to-10 ounce speckled trout fillets (or bass, redfish, grouper, catfish, etc….)
3/4 cup finely crushed saltine crackers (21 crackers)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon snipped parsley
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon pepper
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 beaten egg
3 to 4 tablespoons shortening or cooking oil
Lemon slices, halved (optional)
Thaw fish, if frozen. In a shallow bowl, combine the crushed crackers, grated Parmesan cheese, and snipped parsley. In another shallow bowl, combine the flour and pepper. Place lemon juice and egg in separate bowls. Dip fish in lemon juice, then in flour mixture, then in egg, and finally in the cracker mixture.

In a 12-inch skillet heat shortening or cooking oil. Add fish in a single layer. Fry over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes or till brown. Turn fish; fry for 5 to 7 minutes more or till fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Drain on paper towels. Serve fish with lemon. Garnish with parsley, rosemary, and dill if desired.
Serves 4.

I got the recipe from, fishingworks.com, which a great resource for all things fishing.

enjoy Florida! Chad

Thank you Sanibel!

admin — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:20:32 +0000

We just wrapped up three days of filming in Sanibel Island on the west coast. On our last day we learned how to catch snook with Captain Sean Davis and how to experience the Calusa Blue-way kayak trail with Betsy Clayton. Chef Tai from Timbers Restaurant showed us how to make one of my childhood favs, “Periwinkle Chowder.” When you go to Timbers, make sure you order the Crunchy Shrimp. The people at Island Vacations set us up with a beautiful ocean front condo that we found difficult to leave. I got a chance to film breathtaking sunsets as well as some of the island’s wildlife. Sanibel has such a great vibe! It’s chill and at the same time it’s exciting. Not sure how they do it, but they do. Anyone who wants to experience a Florida island getaway that is sure to find a place in your photo album, Sanibel will not disappoint. I don’t use this word a lot, but Sanibel is one of those xanadu places in Florida.

Enjoy Florida!

Chad

Large Eagle Ray jumps in our boat!

admin — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:08:13 +0000

Yes, a 70 lbs eagle ray jumped over the bow and landed in our boat. We where filming a segment on “how to catch a snook” when a the ray launched into our boat and scared the guide and myself half to death. Ten minutes later, we finally figured out how to get the big fish out of the boat and back in the water. The ray eventually swam off with quite a story to tell - as do we. One for the books. I’m not a lotto fan but maybe today I’ll give it a go.

Chad

You can see the local Ft. Myers news report from WINK NEWS also look for footage from this in our “how to do Sanibel” show which will begin airing in July.

Filming in Sanibel

admin — Fri, 08 May 2009 03:10:52 +0000

We just wrapped our first day of filming on Sanibel island. We have had an absolute blast filming here. This island is full of the most gracious people that have gone above and beyond to accompdate our filming needs. Kathleen form the shell museum, Mark from Timbers restuarant, and Katie at the Lee County visitors bureau, we want to say thank you. It’s peple like you who make this show possible.

how to Do florida web team

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:02:39 +0000

Purple Rock Scissors is the best web development company in the entire galaxy. They fully built our website which launched last week and we have gotten nothing but solid reviews. We celebrated with lunch at The Celt Irish pub in downtown Orlando.The waiter asked if we were in a band. Thanks guys!

purple rock scissors

how to Do florida

Hello Florida!

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:19:54 +0000

When my producer told me I would need to create a blog, I told him to watch his mouth. I said their will be no blogging from this young man and then he looked at me and I knew he was going to get mad like he does so I decided to just go with it. So here I am Florida, let’s blog.

This blog, I imagine, will be a mix of how to Do florida production experiences and random personal excursions. Here are a few personal nuggets to get us going.

-Born in Winter Park Hospital on Feb 8, 1973. Pink Floyd released ”Dark side of the moon” that year.

-Graduated from Seminole High School in 1991 and left for the U.S. NAVY shortly after. Spent three years stationed in the Caribbean on the island of Antigua and, yes, I worked hard protecting our country.

-Received a film and video degree from Full Sail in 1995.

-Married Kristy, the love of my life, in 2001.

-Started the Crawford group in 2005.

-Currently, we have 3 children and live in Lake Mary, Florida.

I’m a third generation Floridian and I have lived my life in pursuit of all Florida has to offer: lobstering in the keys, surfing the coasts, wake-boarding the lakes and fishing the flats, to name a few. Unless your my Mom your not following this blog because of me, the real star here is Florida. It’s the most traveled to destination in the world, over 50 million people come here every year. Most of them go home, but, for the ones who loathe the snow shovel and decide to stay, this show’s for you…soak it up.