Towed my canoe to the lighthouse early yesterday morning with one of my bikes. Made a stop for ice at the corner of Hwy 98 and Woodville Hwy. Checked the GPS. "Dang, only about a quarter of the way there." Twice the distance of the longest tow I've made prior. Over half of it is Lighthouse Rd. Took me an hour-and-a-half. Almost there and got drizzled on. Beautiful vivid rainbow out over the bay when I got there. The wind was whipping out of the SW toward a storm that was moving across to the north of me, but I went ahead and put in anyway. Berating myself for forgetting my wading booties and wanted to keep my sneakers dry for the ride home. But fortune smiled on me when I stumbled across a used, but still good, pair of flip-flops that were left near the parking lot. By the time I got around to the mouth of East River the wind was laying down. The water slicked off before the wind started up again. This time out of the SE, which made it nice for me to just drift up the St, Marks. There were mullet everywhere on the bars and saw lots of small sharks. Every once in a while something, probably the sharks, bluefish or jacks, would bust a school of mullet. I caught 1 keeper trout on a Catch 2000 and should have stayed in that area, but I had planned on taking out at Lower Bridge so I wanted to get moving.
Should have stayed at East River. As I went up the St. Marks toward the fort I did nothing at all. When the tide started falling in the early afternoon, it really started ripping. To the point that even with the wind behind me I had to constantly paddle to keep moving up river.
Planned on taking out at Lower Bridge, but with having to paddle and not getting any fishing done, I decided to take out at the fort.
St. Marks is doing some nice work on those ramps and docks. A single width ramp on the right and a wide double width on the left. The double width is wide enough for three trailers at a time if everybody were friends and knew what they were doing. Plenty of room for two.
For all the riding I've done around here, that's the first time I've been on the St. Marks Trail. Pretty nice trail. Wider would have been better, but I guess most folks that use it aren't towing 3+' wide canoes. And I only saw a small section of it, from St. Marks to Hwy 98.
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