When the wife got home from work this morning I threw all the pre-staged gear in the car, hooked up the trailer and away we went. A brief stop at Stop-n-Save on Spring Creek Hwy/Hwy 98 for drinks, PowerBall ticket, and ice put us at Live Oak Island at 10. Launched the canoe with a NE breeze and the tide just starting to rise, and poled on out to the old Shell Point Channel looking for trout. If I had any sense I would have rigged us with topwaters and drifted out to where we wanted to go. I knew that on the rising tide the trout would be moving out of the deeper water and onto the flats feeding on the pinky size shrimp that are currently somewhat prevalent in the grass. The ladyfish were tearing it up when we first got out there. Fun, but she was looking for something for the grease. No trout. We moved around the area a couple of times, and still no trout.
A little before noon I decided that we definitely needed to be in shallower water. So we pulled anchor, cranked the motors (paddles) and headed for the mouth of Walker Creek. Anchored off the west point of Live Oak Island. Her still throwing a white Gulp 5" jerkbait and me throwing a 4" Gulp shrimp. A hit here, a hit there, nothing spectacular. We moved about a hundred yards west. Not much happening here, we pulled up anchor and started drifting toward Shell point. I was worried about drifting too fast, but the tide coming in against the wind has us moving at a decent pace. Picked up a small trout. Dropped anchor, and started catching pretty steady. All small, but at least it was something. Occasional surface strikes popping in the area, I toyed with the idea of tying on a topwater, but stuck with the shrimp and the jerkbait since they were working.
About 1:30 I hooked a bigger trout. Played her carefully. Got her up beside the boat. About 18". One for supper. Just about to slide her into the landing net. Ka-Bloosh!! A 5' bull shark comes from under the boat and blows up on my trout. Got the side-to-side head shake thing going on so close I could have reached out and poked it in the eye. And this shark doesn't just cut the trout in two and leave me the front half. Oh no, the greedy bustard has my whole trout in it's mouth. Then it takes off, stripping 12 lb. test Ande off the Citica 200D. I clamped my thumb down on the spool, broke it off and commenced to re-rig another shrimp. There went a fresh trout supper.
We decided it wasn't really the shark's fault. Everybody is feeling the pinch of this recession.
She says next time she goes she's taking a golf club.
