6/15 I decided to "take a soldier fishing" and so I made arrangements to meet SPC Dustin Newman at the Wakulla Bank on 98 and the road to St. Marks on Friday morning at 5:45 a.m. Dustin rode over from Carrabelle with two other soldiers who were going to fish with another guy out of the Aucilla River. Around 6:35, after many minutes of pacing, the soldiers finally made it to the Bank and we headed towards the Aucilla River. Met up with Crocker and enjoyed talking with him. Made small talk on the way over and found out that Dustin had never fished before in his life. We went out of the river and started in front of the Pinhook, but the fishing was slow there. However, on the first cast of the day, Dustin hooked a trophy ladyfish on a "Jerry's shrimp and a CT". We moved over East of the mouth of the river and caught some nice trout. Brian caught the first big trout of the day at about 8:30 and it went 23". At 9:30, I was chunking a topwater lure around an oyster bar and caught a nice 25" trout that weighed 4.05 lbs. on the BBSC scales. The rest of the day was pretty slow as we picked up a few trout and redfish every thirty minutes or so. Brian caught a nice 23" red that is pictured below. We took it to the house around 3 p.m. and had to drive the soldiers back to the Wakulla Bank. As I pulled up to the stop sign leaving the bank, Jared, one of the other soldiers, was following in his car and not paying attention. As I stopped at the stop sign, he proceeded to drive into the back of my boat with his car. I was pissed. Luckily, only the wire aerator cover was screwed up, but his car had a nice baseball sized dent on his hood. Dumbass. A fitting end to a frustrating day. We made it home in time for steaks, baked potatoes and lots of beer which helped my mood considerably.
6/16 Dustin spent the night at my house so he wouldn't have to drive over from Carrabelle. We got up and drove to Jerry's and shot the bull with TC for a while before heading over to the Aucilla. We started out East of the Aucilla in about 2' of water. The first fish of the day was a nice red, probably 23"-25" that straightened the back hooks on my topwater lure at the boat before we could get the net on him. Brian then caught a solid 24" trout on the TSS that went into the box. The rest of the day was a struggle to find fish under 20". We caught 6-7 trout over 20", including 3 23.5" +, but just couldn't find the ones in the 17-19" range. Dustin did stick a nice 19.5" trout on the TSS, but the other three that we weighed were runts, right at 16". We went over and fished around Rock Island, but didn't have much luck. At the end of the day, we had 10 lbs of trout, all caught within a mile of the mouth of the Aucilla.
I had a great time fishing with SPC Dustin Newman. While he was a quiet guy, I felt he had a good time, even though the fishing was fairly slow. The highlight of the weekend was when we gave him a Blind Hog Fishing Team shirt with his name on it. He had a big smile on his face and didn't take the shirt off for the entire day. It was a good experience and a great weekend.
I enjoyed seeing everyone at the weigh-in, wish we could have stayed for the fish fry, but we had to drive Dustin back to Carrabelle. Congrats to Sea Spot and White Trash, those were some good looking fish.
Dustin with his first trout ever.
Alphabet Man with a nice red
A shot of the Blind Hog
Boom goes the dynamite.
about the boat. Sounds like youve got my luck!! Good report.