St Marks River 11/25---11/27/13

[Poopong McPlop]

I stayed the last 3 nights down in St. Marks on the 35' Nautaline. We were only planning on staying a night, but with the weather ruining a day of fishing yesterday we ended up staying another night. On monday (25th) we arrived around 2pm and launched the small boat at the fort and drove it back up river to my slip. There was very little wind, and the temperatures were in the high 60s and it felt like there was a pressure drop. The tide was incoming with high tide at 8:15pm, which was about 2 hours after sunset. After pushing off from the big boat around 3:30pm, we headed up river to the closest good spot. I ran sonar to check to see if anyone was home, and saw some marks. Like usual, I pitched a shrimp off the stern over the mark, and dragged it back through slowly. I was instantly rewarded with a 16" sea trout in the cooler. We circled back and quietly anchored, and began bottom fishing parallel to the steepest part of ledge of the channel. I like this spot particularly because it allows the bow man to cast parallel to the ledge, and theres 2 ledges for me to cast parallel to in the back. There's also an large area of currentless area nearby, and a underwater point within casting range as well. We both bottom fished frozen shrimp in the deepest part of the channel, and then bottom bumped our ledge with another rod. We ended up catching about 30 fish over the course of 2.5 hrs. We ended up keeping about 6-7 Sea and Sand trout all around 16", 5-6 12-14" Mangrove Snappers, and 3 15" Sheepshead. The sheepshead were the last to come through, and we missed hooksets on about 2 of the hard mouthed bastards but managed to boat about 6 of them. Not everything was a keeper, but we did not catch any trash fish. New guy lost a big red in the channel, which would have made the afternoon even better.

Today (27th) was blisteringly cold with a strong northern wind. The river was 65, and the water was very dark from all the previous days rain. There was a large storm surge, and the water was up 2 foot or so higher than it normally would be. I was nearly certain there would be no saltwater fish up river of our slip, and I was right. We checked 3 great, up river spots, and didnt even get a nibble. We drifted and dragged baits behind the boat, all the way from Shields to the Fort. It used 30 min of my life, and we didnt even get a single bite. After passing the dock at the fort, we caught a pinfish at the bottom of the ledge near the "submerged objects present" sign. Since this was our first fish of the day I anchored us, and we fancasted the area until I located a school of trout on a ledge on the other side of the channel. I wasnt sure exactly where he took the bait since he took the dead sticked pole, but I had an idea. The problem with the spot was it would force us to take the full and constant brunt of a 20mph cold northern wind coming down the Wakulla. Prior to this the cold was bearable with the trees on the point at the fort shielding us from wind. But hey, you gotta go where the fish are. So we pulled everything in and moved from behind the trees and anchored within casting range of the point. Sure enough, we froze our nuts off, but sure enough we began to boat lots of trout. The sun came out around 3pm and made the cold more bearable. On the day we caught about 40 fish (30 trout, 7 pins and an 18" lady fish" I'll have pics up tomorrow.

[Rhettley]

Interesting report and a good catch.

[SS-342]

I love it! Do it McPlop!

Thanks for the story and report.

[tallykenj]

Great report. The conditions and fishing will improve. I hope it starts happening tomorrow.