St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

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doomtrpr_z71
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St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

Due to the recent scare we are teleworking and decided to take a day trip to the wonderful place that St Marks is. After leaving Warwick at 630 and phone conferenced until 930 upon which we arrived at the lighthouse to be greeted by a mostly empty parking lot. We eased out with the tide being low and noticed there were as many people Wade fishing on the long bar as there were trailers in the parking lot. With someone already fishing the end of the long bar at low tide we proceeded to run out to the rock garden. I was pleasantly surprised that the marine forecast was off and it was a bit calmer than predicted. Our first stop proved to be a good one and we stumbled upon a school of Spanish as soon as I cut the big motor off.

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It was all fun and games until our luck ran out and our 20lb fluorocarbon wasn't up to snuff and I lost my favorite Poppin mullet to a large Spanish. However, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I changed colors and and on the first cast I caught a nice 22in trout.

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And I proceeded to catch the biggest ladyfish I'd ever seen as well, and while they may not be edible unless you're quarantined for longer than so far, a school of them makes a good time. We also got a good overflight by a c130 as well.

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We drifted in with the tide and I finally caught a good doormat, flounder have eluded me as I seem to only catch shorts and this alone made my wife pleased about me taking a day trip instead of finishing my honeydos.

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Well after the tide started coming in, the weather man's call for 15mph wind came as well and it got fairly rough, at one time on the drift we were doing 5mph just with the wind and things got much rougher. Tragedy struck soon after as my beloved legend inshore snapped in half during a cast, guess when things are normal I can see how good their warranty is. We decided to call it since we had a decent box of fish and had not stopped to get breakfast. The Karen's didn't have to worry about us buying up all the local supplies, we didn't stop anywhere ahead of time and our supplies consisted of 2 packs of crackers and 4 bottles of water so we didn't complain too much about calling at 230 and heading to Riverside cafe to grab a bite to eat. The only thing in our way was the fact that somewhere along the road from 98 to the light house is a bearing buddy that my trailer decided to sling off. Thankfully Shields was open and got me squared away, their ramp was being used a bit more than the one at the lighthouse. All in all a solid day:

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No complaints for a day trip, that was for sure, however after pulling back into Warwick at 645, I was greeted quite poorly
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a quick lift with the backhoe confirmed the worst, the bearings are on the way out so I'll gladly take pleasure in rebuilding a
hub in my pasture and not on the side of the road.

All in all a solid day, 5 keeper trout, 2 Spanish, a bluefish, a flounder, a couple of catfish, and who knows how many poor man's tarpon made for a great day on the water and got our heads clear. We didn't catch many short trout, the trout were solid as we had two that we were worried when we were measuring then we're going to go over 20 but were 19 and a few tenths. We caught pretty much everything in 5ft except the flounder was in 3ft. The pink and yellow popping mullet did the best, we had a few bites on a pink pro dog, margarita lime chicken worked the best for trout tricks under a popping cork. The plugs worked better as we got a lot of short strikes on the popping cork from Spanish and trout hitting the orange tails on the trout tricks. The Spanish didn't care for spoons surprisingly as I tried my mackerel rig with no takers. I also had no luck with my chatterbait and pretty much no luck on suspending plugs, even when they were worked fast.
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Srbenda
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Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by Srbenda »

Nice mixed bag of fish there!

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fishinfool
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Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by fishinfool »

Just a heads up, you might want to review the current Spotted Seatrout regulations. At this time you are allowed 5 fish per ANGLER between 15 and 19 inches with ONE over 19 per VESSEL .
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Juan
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Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by Juan »

Good job! :thumbup: Those are HUGE fish. Oh wait, it's the picture size. :)
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Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by Salty Gator »

fishinfool wrote:Just a heads up, you might want to review the current Spotted Seatrout regulations. At this time you are allowed 5 fish per ANGLER between 15 and 19 inches with ONE over 19 per VESSEL .
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Red Beard
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Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by Red Beard »

Awesome trip sir. Looked like a good day on the water and a cooler full of groceries.


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rockyg
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Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by rockyg »

I know this is that classic smart azz unnecessary comment, but that pic of the center console compelled me to mention that Shields also sells soap and a scrub brush too. lol
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doomtrpr_z71
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Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

rockyg wrote:I know this is that classic smart azz unnecessary comment, but that pic of the center console compelled me to mention that Shields also sells soap and a scrub brush too. lol
Wouldn't do a bit of good, until my tractor is back running the boat sits under pecan trees and they have made quite a mess in it.
doomtrpr_z71
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Joined: March 3rd, 2015, 1:09 pm

Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

fishinfool wrote:Just a heads up, you might want to review the current Spotted Seatrout regulations. At this time you are allowed 5 fish per ANGLER between 15 and 19 inches with ONE over 19 per VESSEL .
I'm glad you brought that up, I forgot it was 19 instead of 20, for once shrinkage in the cooler would have been beneficial, only one would have been over 19 by a smidge. As many 15in trout as I've threw back that we were scared would shrink from.being so close, Id hope that good karma would have kept us from trouble for the oversight.
Last edited by doomtrpr_z71 on April 11th, 2020, 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
doomtrpr_z71
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Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

Juan wrote:Good job! :thumbup: Those are HUGE fish. Oh wait, it's the picture size. :)

I normally don't post them direct from Dropbox but I tried it this time and the pictures posted full-size here and the gon forum resized them automatically.
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FishWithChris
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Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by FishWithChris »

Solid trip man, nice work out there.

A little less HDR on the pics tho lol

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doomtrpr_z71
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Re: St Mark's 2/9: teleworking and social distancing

Post by doomtrpr_z71 »

FishWithChris wrote:Solid trip man, nice work out there.

A little less HDR on the pics tho lol

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Lol, that was the only way to clear them up a bit, a ladyfish scale got on the camera lens of my phone and made everything a bit fuzzy.
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