Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

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doomtrpr_z71
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Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

After trading my honeydo list to Saturday after a Monday night phone call, I was Keaton bound to fish with my ex neighbor and his free boat. We had high expectations after reading HitnMiss's report and this would be the first time I've been fishing in the salt since selling my Seapro and my first trip to keaton in 3 years.

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After a quick stop to Wilsons, we were in the canal with beautiful weather to greet us

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After a quick run just south of spring warrior we started our first drift and 3 shorts came in quick succession in 3.5 ft

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Now these three shorts were all fun and games because they were close to being keepers so I was feeling froggy, then disaster struck, my fairly new Edge rod snapped in half on the cast

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Following that tragedy we moved out to 6ft of water and started drifting from Spring Warrior, during which my partner was catching some fish and the bite had cooled for me, so a quick switch to the trusty trout trick and a push from the wind to 5 ft of water had me back in business, unfortunately my business was pufferfish, so I switched colors from margarita lime chicken to iguana daiquiri and bam...a nice 17in keeper. Now my partner had three keepers by now and I was only up to one, so that had to change. I switched to my brokeback corky and proceeded to catch a trout no larger than the plug, unfortunately I was laughing so hard I couldn't take a picture but I kept the faith. The next cast proved to be quite sporty....I proceeded to make a perfect cast and twitched the bait twice....BAM...a gator trout slams itand I can see this fish and this fish would be the biggest trout I've ever caught....except it was only hooked in the side of the head and as soon as it figured out it was hooked it took off and slung the plug. Instead of fussing, I didn't give up and worked the plug back to the boat and BAM... another biggun slapped it and this one was hooked good...

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So there was our one over 19, a solid 21in fish and then I proceeded to reel em in right and left, next cast was a solid fish pulling drag but I knew it wasnt a trout it was trash :-D

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Fun none the less, next cast was a hard hit and another bite I knew wasn't a trout but I had hoped was a spanish, but it was a rather large hardhead cat that decided it wanted a corky for lunch. But then I waded through the trashfish and found the trout again... solid trout. I did not catch the numbers I expected to on this trip but the fish were consistently solid, I caught two 18inchers back to back and then proceeded to catch another that was 17in. My partner was reeling them in himself and while he never caught anything over 18, he caught a good bit more numbers wise on his new penny gulp shrimp. Its always a good trip when you have the confidence to throw 15in keeper trout back and wait for something better in the slot. Well this lasted from 1:30 to 2:30 and by this time we had drifted from spring warrior to little spring creek and we had a limit of trout, so we decided to fish for reds near spring warrior with no luck which I wont complain about at all and we called it a day.

A solid mess of fish to clean and it looks like the big trout actually had just eaten a baby bluefish.

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As a bonus I also managed to sneak away for a few hours to blackshear and catch everything but what we were after, but no complaints from me at all, a boat is a good place to take the phonecall to let you know you have a job interview on Monday.

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I definitely am torn now, we were planning to get together as a group and take two boats down in early April....but now I'm torn whether to go back to Keaton or fish Steinhatchee as we had planned. For sure the fish preffered 4-5 ft with deeper water and shallower water being far less productive and colors with fleck like new penny were best under the corks, the plug color I don't remember but I think its time to retire this one.

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Salty Gator
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by Salty Gator »

Great report, thanks for posting
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Hit-n-Miss
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by Hit-n-Miss »

:-D Sounds like a great typical day to me. If I don't break something it's unusual. The pics won't come up for some reason. Awesome report! Thanks for posting. :-D
doomtrpr_z71
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

They are direct links to my dropbox so it takes a minute for them to load, I'll post them with tapatalk. I have broken more rods in the last 6 months than I ever have and it's always on a cast.ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage

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Hit-n-Miss
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by Hit-n-Miss »

:-D Very nice :-D Great trip. I always lose, break or mess up something every trip. I can't wait to get down again. Probably april 10th. :thumbup:
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Hit-n-Miss
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by Hit-n-Miss »

:o missed the interview part good luck. :thumbup:
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

Hit-n-Miss wrote::-D Very nice :-D Great trip. I always lose, break or mess up something every trip. I can't wait to get down again. Probably april 10th. Image
There's about a 95% chance were going to be down 4/8-10

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Hit-n-Miss
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by Hit-n-Miss »

Good you will have them dialed in and can tell me what they bitin. :-D
doomtrpr_z71 wrote: March 26th, 2021, 2:17 pm
Hit-n-Miss wrote::-D Very nice :-D Great trip. I always lose, break or mess up something every trip. I can't wait to get down again. Probably april 10th. Image
There's about a 95% chance were going to be down 4/8-10

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doomtrpr_z71
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

Hit-n-Miss wrote:Good you will have them dialed in and can tell me what they bitin. :-D
doomtrpr_z71 wrote: March 26th, 2021, 2:17 pm
Hit-n-Miss wrote::-D Very nice :-D Great trip. I always lose, break or mess up something every trip. I can't wait to get down again. Probably april 10th. Image
There's about a 95% chance were going to be down 4/8-10

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I'll do what I can and thanks for the good vibes on the interview

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kenfly
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by kenfly »

Wow ! Great trip, well without the rod snapping, why always gotta bring a lot of them lol, I take as many as I can hold , was just up at blackshear camping a couple of weeks ago and we caught some nice bass and a few good specks


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doomtrpr_z71
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

kenfly wrote:Wow ! Great trip, well without the rod snapping, why always gotta bring a lot of them lol, I take as many as I can hold , was just up at blackshear camping a couple of weeks ago and we caught some nice bass and a few good specks


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Just left after a couple hours, the rain knocked the bite back this morning. Hopefully they warranty the rod.

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BloodyChamp
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by BloodyChamp »

I could tell way before I was finished reading the long report that that was the report of a man who enjoyed himself, and that that would have been the case had he not gotten a bite.

I tell you what about losing big fish. We seem to be born with the belief that when we lose a big one that’s the last we’ll see of 1 for gosh knows how long. Obviously there are more smaller ones than big ones, and obviously there are days we don’t see or catch a big one. That belief that we are born with is just plain wrong though. When you lose a big one it just means the big ones are biting. This story proved it and the 1 time I went and we lost several Gator Trout proved it.

And anybody who knows my bass fishing stories knows I’ve lost more than 1 bucket mouth in a day before.
doomtrpr_z71
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

BloodyChamp wrote:I could tell way before I was finished reading the long report that that was the report of a man who enjoyed himself, and that that would have been the case had he not gotten a bite.

I tell you what about losing big fish. We seem to be born with the belief that when we lose a big one that’s the last we’ll see of 1 for gosh knows how long. Obviously there are more smaller ones than big ones, and obviously there are days we don’t see or catch a big one. That belief that we are born with is just plain wrong though. When you lose a big one it just means the big ones are biting. This story proved it and the 1 time I went and we lost several Gator Trout proved it.

And anybody who knows my bass fishing stories knows I’ve lost more than 1 bucket mouth in a day before.
You hit the nail on the head, it takes a lot to get me bent out of shape and I try to look on the bright side of things.

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RobaloMan
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by RobaloMan »

Great report! Thanks for sharing it with us
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procraftwes
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Re: Keaton 3/24: A sporty trip

Post by procraftwes »

What kind of fish is that halfway down in the pictures? The gray one.
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