St. Marks 4/18

[tin can]

My son and I decided to go about 10:00 this morning. I suggested we make it interesting. We had four new hard baits we had never fished. I numbered them 1-4, and had him pick a number, not knowing which bait was which. He numbered the remaining baits 1-3, and I picked a number. The rules for the day were, you could only fish with the bait you picked, but you could take two rods, rigged with the same bait, in the event of equipment failure, or breakoff.

We were on the water by 11:30. We headed east from the lighthouse to a spot I picked up a few fish yesterday. Within a half hour we were catching fish. Most of the fish came in clear water, 3.5 feet deep, and 71 degrees. We steadily caught fish until the tide turned, about 3:00. After that the bite was very slow. We did, however have 5 cobia chase our baits, but only 1 taker. My son landed a 29.5" cobia, and released it unharmed. Total trout count for the day was somewhere in the neighborhood of 40. However, keepers were few and far between. We probably caught 8 keepers, total. I'm not posetive of the count, because we released everything we caught today to fight again.

The day proved very interesting. We learned many ways to present the baits. Being locked into 1 bait makes you try different techniques. Both baits caught fish. I don't think one was any better than the other.We both agreed we will do this again.

Oh, you want to know what baits we were using? My son was using a Renegade floater/diver, a cheap copy of a Yozuri. I was usng a Matzuo folater/diver.

[Chalk]

Kewl fishing trip with a twist....

[dstockwell]

Made for an interesting day..

[CSMarine]

Sounds like fun TC.

[ALMAR]

Hey Tin Can, did you to down where you,Carl and I went? We worked that area about 10 days ago and nada, not even a strike. We hope to go to Econfina inthe morning, hope we catch a bunch as we are having a fish fry this coming Friday night and I only have about 40# of fillets in the freezer.
Pa

[tin can]

Didn't fish that same area, Pa. Went a little further east. Hope ya get enough fish for your fish fry.

[dolphinatic]

ummm......fish fry

[Sea Gurl]

Hey Tin Can,

Sounds like ya'll had a better day than I did. I found fishing to be really slooooow. Liked the way you mixed it up for fun.

Went of the lighthouse about an hour after low tide. Went east. Tide was really low, some folks had trouble getting out of l.h. channel. Caught fish here and there, never got into a real "bite" period. Fished along shore back towards l.h. and ended the day with four trout (2-19"), one 18" flounder, 2 macks (one 21.5") and a smaller one caught trolling (which was my first mack trolling - figured that fish cost me about $8 in gas!!).

As I said the whole day stayed slow but ended up enjoying beautiful weather, clear water and enough fish to eat and share. That was enough for me.

Fish on....

Sea Gurl

[Old Dog]

John, I like your suggestion and think it has to be a good way to really learn a bait. I wonder if I have the discipline to stay with it on a slow day though?

od

[tin can]

OD, good to hear from ya.

I would probably never have the discipline to stay with one bait if I were by myself. That's why I chose to play this game with my son. I knew I wouldn't give in with him on board.

[Old Dog]