St. Marks 3/13

[sharkboy]

Just not the best day I've ever had.

After a bad night of sleep, left the fort around 7:00 a.m. Had trouble getting one of those cold natured Yammys going, but finally, just before I was ready to loosen the nuts and roll it off into the St. Marks channel, it fired right up, as if it knew when it was about to push me over the edge.

Water was great until we passed the bird rack. The wind was strong out of the east and made a pretty nasty chop. Of course since we were headed south we took a lot of spray over the port side and it was COLD. After about 8 or 10 miles of this, I decided my head was going to freeze into an ice cube so I throttled down and started trolling. Picked up one gag and one red over the next couple of hours.

Here's where it gets bad. The seas were only 3-4's, but they were very steep and close together with plenty of white caps. For the first time in years, I let all this pitching and bouncing get to me. It started while I was sitting down trying to tie on a Stretch 25. I tried drinking a beer to ease the stomach, but it didn't help for long. At least I got to taste the beer twice!

The water calmed down to almost perfect by around 12:30, but I never could shake it and get my legs back under me enough to head out to the hole that I had originally planned for. We just stopped on a hole in about 25 ft. and caught a bunch of grunts and rock bass to take home to the wives (to avoid being subjected to too much ridicule.)

Headed home around 3:00 and I was happy to just hold down the chair on my back porch for a while. Guess I'll just have to try again next weekend.

[dstockwell]

Sorry to hear about the trip, we did not have a good day either. Better luck next time.