We got out of the channel as soon as possible and the chop in the flats was a meager 2-3 feet. We hit a couple holes in the flats, the rock Garden (Raymarine said it was 77.8 degrees there and almost everywhere we fished) and Cobb Rocks, then worked our way back from Cobb hitting spots near shore west of the rock garden until it was time to go to weigh-in.
Me and my fishing widow both got several shorts in the general flats first thing in the morning. She got the first fish of the day:
Over by the rock garden I landed a decent keeper at 19.25" that weighed in at 2.34 I think. Too wet at the time to take any pics. I figured it was gonna be a tough day but that we would do alright. I was happy with the knowledge that me and mojokoko have fished at least 8 or 9 days in similar weather already this year and had learned quite a few things about how to handle it. I figured that gave us a little bit of an advantage over lots of people who wouldn't normally venture out in such weather. Also thought for sure no more than 10-12 teams would show up to weigh-in (sure was wrong about that! I still can't believe how many people toughed it out)
Mojokoko finally boated a fish around the rock garden too:
Fromt he time the outgoing tide went slack, the bite was pretty sorry for the rest of the day. A few spots had the short bite on non-stop, but all that was doing was destroying our lures. Current was so swift that I was only able to work topwater for 10-12 casts at a time before my back and shoulders got sore from all the fast reeling and jerking. We got some blowups on topwater but couldn't hook anything up that way. We finally got in to a spot around Cobb where the short bite was on and I could feel that I was getting a big bite off and on. And HERE comes the most embarrassing, worst, most uncomfortable part of the day, that I will not let myself live down for quite some time. After seeing the results of the weigh-in, I feel even worse about it. I landed a NICE one, quite a bit bigger than the one I already had in the box, didn't measure it exactly but it was bigger than the 22" stick I put up to it. Figured all we had pics of so far was a tiny trout and a tiny black bass, and the way things were going, there wouldn't be much more to photograph. Stopped to take a couple pictures.
So about 10 seconds after this picture was taken, the thing flopped out of my hands. I'm sitting in almost the dead center of the boat, not too worried about dropping it. Well it flies up in the air, lands on the rear fishing platform. My heart skips a beat and I almost let out a *phew* it's still on the boat. I lunge to grab it, but it sloooowly slides right off the back, lubricated by a puddle of trout slime. Splashes to the water about a hundreth of a second before I can tackle it.
I knew the jinx was on as soon as that happened. No keeper fish in the boat for the next 3 hours (only landed about 3 more shorts from then on) and back to JBT for weigh in with one fish, which was actually my small keeper of the day and still good enough for 7th place in 23 treams There is no doubt in my mind the one that got away was the big fish of the day, but the picture wouldn't weigh in. I've lost them AT the boat a million times, but this is the first one I ever lost IN the boat. $%^#$^!!!!!
So I learned that Chalk is right; no more pics on business day. Sorry...
Oh yah and btw - Mooksfishingwidow asked that I mention one more thing in my report: Although neither she nor mojokoko had any keepers on the day, she caught more trout and more fish overall than mojokoko. I"ll let him respond if he'd like
