It was that time of year again. Time to take the annual fishing trip with my older brother. Since we couldn’t pick and choose our days, we elected to head out of the Aucilla this morning. He showed up at the house around 6am, and headed for the coast. The skyline was full of rain clouds. As soon as I parked the trailer the bottom fell out and the rain began to pour down on us. I quickly rummaged through the forward hold and handed out the rain suits. Once covered, we were on our way. First stop was around Cobb rocks. The fish just weren’t interested. We didn’t have any shrimp, frozen or fresh so squid had to do. It sucked, and it was smelly.
Some how managed to haul in an 18 ½” trout. Lost another big trout boat side. The rain and wind picked back up and we were drifting shallow, so I headed back out into deeper water. No dice. Wind really started kicking in and whipping up 4’ swells.
I decided we’d better head back into the shallows. Managed three big gaff tops. One of them found a way to spear be in the heel of my right hand.
More rain, more waves and now fresh pain and water everywhere. I wanted to head over toward the lighthouse and somehow got disoriented (due to the pain in my hand) and headed east by mistake. More rain kept me from looking forward. I was trying to keep my glasses dry, but it was a lost cause. When the rain cleared off, I finally noticed the GPS showed we were 2 miles east of the mouth of the Econfina. Needless to say I was kind of embarrassed. Ran back to the Ramp at the Aucillia about 1:00pm and a harsh rushing incoming tide helped me miss boating the trailer three times. I finally gave up and used the winch and manually hauled the boat on to the trailer. Home now, and the pain is finally subsided, fish cleaned and boat washed, brother asleep. What a day. We’ll try again next year (Lord willing) and maybe the weather will cooperate.
Time is the most precious commodity we have in life, stay focused.
