Steinhatchee 5/5-6

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Location, date, time, water conditions, weather conditions, baits, techniques, species caught, etc.
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doomtrpr_z71
Posts: 790
Joined: March 3rd, 2015, 1:09 pm

Steinhatchee 5/5-6

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

Since buying the stottcraft in October my wife has complained about not having actually fished out of the boat, in fact she's only rode in it once at lake blackshear, so while I had a small window in between trial plantings we snuck down to the hatch. She hasn't been fishing at the hatch in several years since she developed a deep hatred of the old seapro I had.

Not a bad view for a Thursday night

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After an excellent meal at Kathi's Thursday night to start the trip off right, we set out early Friday morning with a quick stop at river haven to get shrimp. We then ran south to the flats outside rocky creek, 3ft was a ghost town except for pinfish. My wife decided she had had enough feeding the pin fish so she decided to pick up an ultralight and catch a dozen for bait. We moved out to 4.5 ft and drifted to 5 before picking up 3 solid trout in quick succession, all on gulp shrimp. When we hit 6ft, it was nothing but short seabass. Catching seabass made me want bsb and grunts for fish tacos and we hit whodat for lunch right quick and then ran out to the steinhatchee reef. Much to my disappointment the large school of fish on my depth finder was blue runners and after feeding several dozen shrimp to them, we hit the little bank looking for Spanish and finding none. So I ran back to rocky creek and my wife promptly decided to hook a nice Spanish in the side of the head so we had a fight on our hands. I got the net and got it in the boat.

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During the commotion I had reeled in my popping cork but had left it beside the boat, it had been a slow day so I wasn't worried about it. Well I was wrong, apparently the Spanish she caught had a friend and it decided to grab my gulp and pull my rod in the water. After quietly standing on the cooler looking for the cork and seeing none, I accepted that the deep had taken another rod from me, so there's a coastal sv that I upgraded with additional bearings and a type r inducter on a kistler helium rod in almost the exact same spot that I lost a zillion coastal on a st croix avid rod a few years back.

After finding nothing but short seabass we called it a night and had pasta at fiddlers and had enough fish for fish tacos a time or two.

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Then I proceeded to learn a valuable lesson, I sleep light, I had not realized how late fiddlers stays open and realized that I couldn't sleep with the music bumping until midnight. So we got a bit of a slow start Saturday morning, but the flats were empty, the full moon with no clouds seemed to have gotten the fish full through the night. After catching nothing but a remora and a lady fish, we called it, headed in at lunch to miss the tournament crowd, and had another excellent meal at Kathi's before heading back to South GA.

So now I need to break a funk, so far this year I have managed to lose a Daiwa coastal sv, a kistler helium, break a gloomis pro green, break a custom rod from dom, break a custom rod from flatsbroke22, and on top of all that I haven't done that well fishing outside of doing decent on reds.

I'm beginning to think I need to let this boat get as grimey as the seapro stayed to catch fish Image

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Hit-n-Miss
Posts: 3477
Joined: May 20th, 2004, 12:15 pm
Location: Boston Ga.

Re: Steinhatchee 5/5-6

Post by Hit-n-Miss »

Despite the bad luck, sounds like you and the wife had fun. I'm surprised that the flats aren't on fire right now :-D Thanks for posting
doomtrpr_z71
Posts: 790
Joined: March 3rd, 2015, 1:09 pm

Re: Steinhatchee 5/5-6

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

Hit-n-Miss wrote: May 9th, 2023, 8:01 am Despite the bad luck, sounds like you and the wife had fun. I'm surprised that the flats aren't on fire right now :-D Thanks for posting
As am I, we had a good time, I'm surprised with both the water temps and the grass not being fully greened up yet. My Facebook memory this morning was of this same weekend last year and the flats were on fire but these cool nights have definitely given us a long spring.
leonreno
Posts: 710
Joined: June 13th, 2004, 4:18 pm
Location: Southwest GA

Re: Steinhatchee 5/5-6

Post by leonreno »

We fished Steinhatchee the last two Saturdays of April, only one keeper trout. I’m not real familiar with the area so that is some of the issue. But I think the cooler nights we had throughout April has them staging differently than normal. Had a buddy that fished Keaton a few weeks ago, said they fished the normal spots and had nothing, decided to try deeper, around 9 feet, then got a three man limit. We’ve had a very fair spring with cool nights, think it will take some warmer temps to see them move in to there normal patterns.
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