A unique website dedicated to fishing information from Florida's Northern Big Bend. This includes the area from the Econfina River west to the Apalachicola River
Use this area to post inshore fishing reports from the area. Please try to include relevant information such as:
Location, date, time, water conditions, weather conditions, baits, techniques, species caught, etc.
Got on the water around 7pm friday looking for a red to put in the box. Instead i got broken off and missed a couple other blowups. Then I received a call to let me know my partner of the night had some family issues come up. Ran to the area I wanted to start gigging at and waited for darkness to fall. Around 9pm I dropped the lights and started looking for the bottom huggers. Tide was rising and the moon was already in the sky. Wind was blowing around 10 knots making it difficult to maneuver the boat on my own, plus the ripple on the water made it hard to see. Got on the backside of the bar and started seeing sheepshead. Stuck 6 of them and decided to try another area. This move put me again on the backside of a bar but this time the wind also died so visibility was real good. Stuck another 8 sheephead and 5 flounder on this spot. Stayed around for another hour trying to find some more flounder but the outgoing tide must have moved them to deeper water. Off the water at 3am with 14 sheepshead, the largest at 20" and 5 flounder up to 16". I passed several sheepshead, waiting for the big sheepshead and I found it. Unfortunately my stab hit him right on top of the head and resulted in a bent barb on my gig and a headache for the fish as he swam off. Probably around a 5 pounder. Sheepshead were stacked on every bar I went to.
BTW...I found an easier way to clean the sheepshead. I used my electric filet night to start the initial cuts through the skin and scales. Then I used the filet knife to carve the filet off the bone.
Its hard to take too many pics in the dark when your by yourself. Next time I'll take some photos of the fish in the water and see if you can pick them out.
This is my old setup. It worked fine but I wanted to eliminate the need for the work lights above the water so I reconfigured the pvc design and now have 4 underwater lights that are 1 1/2 foot apart of each other.
I get 6 feet of solid light in front of the boat and then about 3 feet of light off to each side of the boat. The lights being under the water eliminate the glare.
When I first started doing this a few months ago I thought I would need to have a railing installed. Now that I've been out there 4 times, a railing would just get in my way.
You don't really lean over when you gig and if I fall out it's only a 2 foot drop.
Now if this was a guide boat with paying customers, my insurance would probably require me to have the railing for liability issues.
So, when you have the light set up on there, you can't use your trolling motor? If so, do you just pole around or have soemone pole you around. I'm ready to get the Recurve out and do some bowfishing. Just have to get over to Seminole Outdoors and get a few arrows and tips, I already have the reel. They were out the last ime I was in there. I talked to Dale the other day and he is going to try and get some bowfishin stuff in there(Advantage marine). Love the set up.....you are getting me motivated!!
RiverRunner wrote:So, when you have the light set up on there, you can't use your trolling motor? If so, do you just pole around or have soemone pole you around.
I was wondering the same thing myself. Its a good looking set up you got there.
The trolling motor stays at home. A trolling motor in the water would probably make the sheepshead spook.
Plus I'm only in a foot or 2 of water so a trolling motor would just muddy up the water.
You don't need a trolling motor to move down the bars. I just judge the tide and wind and then pick out one of the 100 bars out there that would allow me to drift down it without too much work, using the gig to keep the boat straight and keep it in a foot of water. The back of the boat swings and scrapes the oyster bars sometimes but you just straighten it out and keep on going.
There were a bunch of gar out there. They would just swim in and out of the lights about 4 feet off the bow. Would have been some easy shots. Of course if you missed or the arrow went through them it would probably shatter when it hit the oysters.
, sweet setup on the lights also 
