Fishing Out of St. Marks on 10/17

[John21:6]

Yesterday, I had time to fish, and wanted to see what conditions were like down in St. Marks as well.

My first stop was Shell Island Fish Camp, which is where I normally keep my boat. The fish camp is still in clean-up mode, and the staff expects that it will be up to a week before they resume marina operations. Next, I went down to Shield's where one of its two boat ramps was operational. The docks at the Shield's ramps are in fine shape, but a 28' cabin cruiser beached itself on one of the ramps. It appears that damage to the floating docks at the fort is the reason for the closure of the boat ramps there.

After launching from Shield's, we headed down the river toward the lighthouse. I was happy to find that there really was not much floating debris in the river. However, the buoys marking the channel from St. Marks to the lighthouse were all over the place. Beyond the lighthouse, the buoys seem to be where they are supposed to be. There was a small Coast Guard Boat on the river which had a small hoist aboard. The presence of the boat may mean that the buoys are in the process of being reset.

Once we made it a couple miles offshore, we found large floating mats of grass mixed with debris. A small 2' x 3' piece of plastic bobbing at the surface turned out to be the lid to a recycling trashcan with the whole trashcan attached and lurking below the surface.

The sea conditions on Wednesday were flat and glass-like. We fished hard to put three seabass, a Spanish mackerel, and a flounder in the cooler. On the flats with popping corks, we couldn't buy a bite.

[silverking]

Thanks for the report and update. Better times and fishing are ahead.

[DixieReb]

Thanks for the report, glad you made it out and back safe. There's probably lots of debris out there further out.

[FTReelty]

Thanks for the Heads-Up. Shell Island is my go to place too...Hope they can recover and get back up and operational soon-they good people and have done it many times over the years. My son still out of school and was thinking of going tomorrow, but will probably wait til things settle down a little.

[Srbenda]

Yesterday, I had time to fish, and wanted to see what conditions were like down in St. Marks as well.

My first stop was Shell Island Fish Camp, which is where I normally keep my boat. The fish camp is still in clean-up mode, and the staff expects that it will be up to a week before they resume marina operations. Next, I went down to Shield's where one of its two boat ramps was operational. The docks at the Shield's ramps are in fine shape, but a 28' cabin cruiser beached itself on one of the ramps. It appears that damage to the floating docks at the fort is the reason for the closure of the boat ramps there.

After launching from Shield's, we headed down the river toward the lighthouse. I was happy to find that there really was not much floating debris in the river. However, the buoys marking the channel from St. Marks to the lighthouse were all over the place. Beyond the lighthouse, the buoys seem to be where they are supposed to be. There was a small Coast Guard Boat on the river which had a small hoist aboard. The presence of the boat may mean that the buoys are in the process of being reset.

Once we made it a couple miles offshore, we found large floating mats of grass mixed with debris. A small 2' x 3' piece of plastic bobbing at the surface turned out to be the lid to a recycling trashcan with the whole trashcan attached and lurking below the surface.

The sea conditions on Wednesday were flat and glass-like. We fished hard to put three seabass, a Spanish mackerel, and a flounder in the cooler. On the flats with popping corks, we couldn't buy a bite.

Thanks for the update on Shell Island-

I thought the flats would be producing trout by now!

[procraftwes]

Yesterday, I had time to fish, and wanted to see what conditions were like down in St. Marks as well.

My first stop was Shell Island Fish Camp, which is where I normally keep my boat. The fish camp is still in clean-up mode, and the staff expects that it will be up to a week before they resume marina operations. Next, I went down to Shield's where one of its two boat ramps was operational. The docks at the Shield's ramps are in fine shape, but a 28' cabin cruiser beached itself on one of the ramps. It appears that damage to the floating docks at the fort is the reason for the closure of the boat ramps there.

After launching from Shield's, we headed down the river toward the lighthouse. I was happy to find that there really was not much floating debris in the river. However, the buoys marking the channel from St. Marks to the lighthouse were all over the place. Beyond the lighthouse, the buoys seem to be where they are supposed to be. There was a small Coast Guard Boat on the river which had a small hoist aboard. The presence of the boat may mean that the buoys are in the process of being reset.

Once we made it a couple miles offshore, we found large floating mats of grass mixed with debris. A small 2' x 3' piece of plastic bobbing at the surface turned out to be the lid to a recycling trashcan with the whole trashcan attached and lurking below the surface.

The sea conditions on Wednesday were flat and glass-like. We fished hard to put three seabass, a Spanish mackerel, and a flounder in the cooler. On the flats with popping corks, we couldn't buy a bite.

That 28' cabin cruiser was 4' up on a stand in front of the barn.. Surge floated it and when the surge retreated the boat attempted to as well and got hung up on the ramp.