St. Marks report August 8

[Ted in Tallahassee]

Got to the ramp at the crack of dawn, fellow board regular was there with his 22' Carolina Skiff too (sorry forgot his name ). Weather was nice, tide was incoming and about an hour from dead high so the day had much promise. A couple weekends ago I got my trout limit, one was 20" and the others just over 15". All on Gulp jigs under poppers. It took 6 hours, but I got a limit. Every trout I got was a keeper--no shorts. Well this time I got NO trout. Nada. All I caught all day was three flathead cats & 4 or 5 sharks. Oh and some pins, for bait on a Sabiki and two foul hooked on a trout jig too. I used rubber shrimp & rubber grubs this time--no Gulps a/k/a gourmet pinfish chew toys that give three days worth of stink finger. Well I don't know if lack of Gulps had anything to do with it or there just weren't any trout. Nothing doing in the early morning creek mouths either, Skitterwalk and jigs had no takers.

The wind was calm at the ramp (fort) but by the time I got near the lighthouse it was blowing from the NW pretty hard. Later in the day it slowed to zero, it was like a mirror for about 20 minutes. Then it started blowing towards shore, harder & harder. Time to run the ol' Tin Can back towards shore before too many sheep are around (whitecaps). Man it can be punishing riding around in a flat bottomed 15' jonboat in heavy chop. If anyone finds any tattered pinfish-pecked grayish round things floating around, those are my lumbar disks, please save them for me, thanks.

Shoulda went scalloping instead. Saw a couple of the critters on the bottom when it was calm.

Saw a guy in a yellow kayak just off the lighthouse as I threw a jig & a plug some, to no avail. Was that someone here?

Anyone else have better luck?

[cast-n-stone]

Thanks for the report!

[DixieReb]

Shoulda used the gulp again! Sorry about the crappy bite, it happens. How was the water color? We were at Keaton Beach Sat. and it looks like coffee there.