A little of everything

[konrad]

Saturday morning woke up early and decided to take the kayak down to Wakulla Beach. Arrived at the landing just before sun rise and paddled to the opposite shore since that seemed to be the most sheltered from the wind. The tide was dropping pretty good and the mullet were everywhere. Once I got up next to the shoe I spotted a decent red with its back half out of the water. He was swimming very tight to the shore. I put a 3” gulp shrimp on a 1 odd circle hook and dropped it write on his head. I have found when they are this shallow you pretty much have to hit them on the head or they can’t find it. Sure enough he ate it and the fight was on. I didn’t bring a ruler but guessed him to be around 24 inches. I picked up two more along the shore before I went into one a small creeks. I was hoping to find some reds holding up in one of the holes. Some times when I am fishing in my kayak in real shallow water I put the paddle down and just use my hands to push myself along. This has always worked well for me in the past but I am not too sure if I will do it again. As I was creeping down this creek I started to hear what I thought were rocks scraping the bottom of my kayak. No big deal until I put my hand on the rock and it started to move. My kayak was on top of an alligator head and I just pushed off his back with my hands. Keep in mind when I say a small creek it couldn’t have been much wider than a one lane road. For some reason, thank god the alligator didn’t freak out and roll me, bit off my hand or something else but I dam sure had to check my pants after that one. Needless to say it took me a few minutes to get my nerves back. After I settled down I picked up 4 small trout and one pup red in the creek.

I told my wife I would be back around noon to help set up for some guest we were having over and decided to call it a day. I was back at the landing at 11 am. And home by 12.

Sunday the weather man was calling for 2-3 subsiding to 1-2 by the afternoon so the wife and I decided to take out the center consol. We brought our tanks along too. Since the weather man said the afternoon was better there was no need to get an early start. Got to the Fort at St. Marks around 10:30. We headed out to the outside bar west of the bird rack to pick up some pins for bait. The 2-3 were more like 3-4. The water looked dark brown but I was able to pick up about a dozen pins before I was out of sebiky rigs. The Spanish kept hitting them. On the way offshore I stopped by one of the buoys and caught two small cobia around 30 inches. Let them go and proceed to head out to the shoals. Once there we noticed a school of blue fish. There must have been a thousand of them. I could resist and put a small top water plug on a light spinning rig. Had a blast catching a few and also landed some hound fish. The water was much clearer so it was all sight fishing. From there we proceed out to 24, no cobia so we went out to the 24 barge. Anchoring was a pain with 4 foot seas going one way and the tide going another. I finally got the boat positioned where I wanted it and did a little bottom fishing. Got taken in the rocks several times and landed two short grouper. The waves were getting to us so we decided to put on the tanks and see what was below. The water visibility was 20 feet. The wife and I dived this site a few weeks ago and only saw two small grouper and one jew fish. This time there was a lot more life. We saw three jew fish between 150 to 300lbs. a ton a bait and a decent number of grouper. I end up shooting a nice 30 incher with my spear gun. Once we surfaced the seas had settled down to two feet and it was time to start heading in. On the way 3 miles south of the bird rack the Bonita and Spanish were going crazy. There were thousands of them. Again I couldn’t resist and put a small stingray grub on my light spinning rod. Sure enough the Bonita hit it as soon as it hit the water. It ran out 150 yards of line in 20 seconds. Finally gained it all back only for it to do it again. We caught 3 of them in the 6-8lb class. Could have caught a lot more but needed to head to the hill. What a great way to end the day.

Weekend catch;
4 reds
4 trout
2 spanish
3 hound fish
3 grouper
4 blue
3 bonita
2 cobia

[lizbeth]

OH Crap the Gator....I would be checking my pants too !!!!!

[DixieReb]

Wow, what a catch. Sounds good, all but the part about the alligator. I would have peed or sh-- my pants for sure! My wife and I have been scared out of 2 fishing holes by big gators, the last one charged our 15 ft. boat and almost made me hurt myself trying to get away from him.

[cmccord]

Nice Weekend Konrad!

[lizbeth]

Dixie Reb, you need to tell the location, so I can stay way away from those !!

[Reel Cowboy]

Sounds like an eventful weekend.