Another Inshore Slam and some...St. Marks 1/11/12

[Jhults11]

Had to work today so took the day off friday and fished with doug and josh and took advantage of minimal traffic on the water. It dang sure is nice to have the river to yourself for the first 2 hours of the day. Decided to fish upriver for an hour to allow some water to come into the creeks east of the lighthouse. Pulled up and anchored on the first hole upriver and josh gets bowed up on his first cast with a shrimp. A couple minutes later he put a solid 23" Red in the boat ! We missed a couple more and lost another good fish halfway to the boat on the first spot. Next we went further upriver and had no luck. I will say this, there are no more trout upriver...for now (till the cold weather shows up again). We didnt see any nor had any bites from trout. The other couple boats we saw kept asking us where the trout had gone and our respone was "probably towards the gulf" the freggin water temp uprvier north of shields was 70F.. in January . The last 2 weekends we haven't been able to keep the short trout and barely legal fish off the hook...friday..nowhere to be seen and the water temp was up 6 degrees. At 10 we headed downriver and picked up a 16" flounder fishn a bar near the mouth waiting on the tide to come in a bit more. About 1130 we headed east to a few creeks and landed 3 really nice trout and lost a couple more with big fish going 21". They were all caught near the creek mouths...imagine that with these temps ! At about 2 it was slick and decided to run 8 miles south to some rock bass #s in 23 foot...and they were home. It was tough keeping the little ones away seeing that there were thousands of them below the boat but ended up culling through em and got a dozen nice rockies to 14". At 4 we decided to hit it and ran 45 mph the whole way in...that Scout will move ! Hit our last bar spot in hopes of another red or two at about 430 but only found a lone black drum that joined his buddies in the chill box. Another inshore slam with good friends, cold beer , and perfect weather. Doesn't get any better than that! -Tight lines
Final tally:
1 Keeper Red @ 23"
1 Flapjack @ 16"
1 Black Drum @ 16"
3 Keeper Trout to 21"
12 Rock Bass to 15"

Josh and his Red

Our catch on the day...

[big bend gyrene]

If memory serves, board member Littoral caught a cobia in February a few years back... was doing clean up work in my yard today watching the clouds roll over like they do as the temps heat up, and thought to myself wouldn't be shocked if someone catches one near-shore during this warm spell as some stay in our area and just go deep until temps pop back up.

Extended forecast calls for some much colder weather in about a week, so guessing the trout might be hopping back up river shortly.

Great pics AND great report!

[kenfly]

Jealous sounds like an awesome trip

[fishinfool]

[SS-342]

It is so good to read a FISHING REPORT again and a good one too boot!

Yes, the trout are back out on the flats. Found mostly in 2-3 feet water. My nephew went Friday and caught fifteen nice ones.

Thanks again for the report and picture.

[Greenbone]

you did leave a BIG tip on that last bar ,didn't you??

lol

great SLAM again J