First day on the water this go round was Friday the 4th. I feared bedlam at the ramps due to scallop season, but was shocked to arrive at Econfina to a near empty parking lot. Granted we got there before 6:30 AM, but still couldn't believe we had no traffic to fight.
Made a quick trip out to 8' depths so I could catch pinfish while the Robbins fished artificials. While I loaded the livewell they proceeded to catch a few trout, many rock bass, and the greenest juvenile grouper I've ever seen. Darn thing was exactly the color of the grass... pic doesn't do it justice with it turned the way it is, but can still make out a bit of green...
Didn't get a picture but Jacob also caught a really nice 14" black bass that quickly went on ice. Once we had enough bait we went to cobia spot #1. First two casts we got to watch our baits get taken before being cut off... definitely got our hearts racing but sadly no more cobes show up. Move on to spot #2, and Papa John Robbins snags a really nice cobe. Just a quick note here that I'm sure many of you will understand --John Robbins and I like to tease each other unmercifully about almost everything in life, so when I tell him, "Wow, John, kinda worried we hooked him with my lighter rod that has old 20lb mono on it and a reel with poor drag", he gives me a look like he's about to cry. Have to give him credit where credit is due, though, he fought the cobia like he was trying to catch a 200lb tarpon on a zebco and over the span of about 30 minutes finessed it to the side of the boat, where it started doing 4' circles. I grab my boga grip to lip him and see that the hook has worked it's way out to where the barb is not even through the lip. Just about 1/32" of the hook point holding a bit of pressure on the inside of the lip. I'm thinking to myself that I'm never going to hear the end of it if I lose his trophy fish. So with the greatest of care I make my attempt and TA-DA...
Might wonder why young Jacob had to hold the fish after John caught it -- well this picture shows why... John's getting a bit feeble as he approaches his mid 40's and we were worried about him keeping his balance while holding the fish. Think the old man might need a cane
Glad to report Jacob also hooked up with a cobe at spot #2...
Tried some red spots on the way back in but only had a missed strike or two and no hot school action, despite careful approaches to a number of nice bars. With temps baking we headed to the house around 5:00 to get rest for day 2.
Day 2, Jacob put in a morning order for a shark. We had tried a bit of shark fishing on day 1 but only had stingrays come to our spot. Luckily day 2 was different. While approaching an oyster bar with thoughts of putting a red or two in the boat, Jacob spotted a shark crusing the flats. Started chunking some cut baits out, and in short order Jacob catches a pretty darn nice bonnethead.
Highlight of day 2, however, had to be scalloping! Ashamed to admit, but despite a lifetime of fishing the gulf I had never given up the fishing to do any scalloping. Was so blistering hot by around 10:00 AM that I threw the idea out to John and Jacob that we give it a try... and we had a BLAST
Can't say we were the most productive scallop hunters in the world, but in all honesty I don't think the area we hunted was loaded thick with them. Good news is we had no boat traffic to fight and were honestly COMPLETELY alone on the East Econfina flats all day. We tied a couple of life jackets to a rope and let my drifting boat pull us along as we spied the bottom, leaving the floats to make our dives when we spotted a scallop. In a matter of a few hours we pulled up right at 2 gallons in the shell. For what it's worth, while we didn't find any spots covered with scallops, the ones we found were decent sized with only a few smaller ones. Depths we worked were between 3' to 6'. Did have one brief scare, when I had a curious stingray about the size of a card table swim directly underneath me while I was in about 3' of water. Couldn't help but think of the ol' crocodile hunter and you better believe I stayed pretty still until the ray had cruised on by. Still, at day end we were SO MUCH more refreshed than the previous day when we only fished.
Report wouldn't be complete if I didn't share two humorous moments from the scallop report. First one relates to my single step fold down ladder. Man, that thing was a bit tough to climb, and only got tougher as the day progressed and we took turns jumping out to be the lookout / spotter man. Still, I can proudly say I always was able to pull myself up... UNLIKE my feeble ol' pal John Robbins
The first time he tried, he made about 3 attempts before swearing to us he couldn't get out... HAD TO ACTUALLY use the tilt trim of my motor to give him a boost up 
Did learn a bit later that pulling my camera out worked even better than the tilt trim in helping speed up his attempts But as the old saying goes, payback is heck. After a while in the water, I asked ol' John if he minded spraying some sunscreen on my back so I wouldn't get blistered and get a resulting lecture from Doctor Pam. Well, let me just say I might have been out of the Marine Corps a few years now but from the look of my back and the 2" wide chevron stripes he painted on my back it looks like I've been promoted to Master Gunnery Sergeant 
End with a picture of supper last night
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As for the scallops, glad to see you enjoyed but don't do too much good eating before your next trip down, as I don't know what weight the motor trim tilt is rated to hold 
