St. Marks, Wednesday Dec. 29

Post by **Aucilla** » December 30th, 2004, 10:44 pm

I think I'll do an off-shore report for a change.

With "Captain" Rick and his boys Carlton and Mitchell alternating at the helm, and my son Benjamin and I keeping a lookout on each side of the boat, we crawled out of Shell Island Marina at around 7:30 AM, through very dense fog. There were hardly any other fisherman there, when we arrived. And few were leaving in that stuff. We went very slow, not able to see the next channel marker until we were half-way to it, untll the fog started to burn off a ltitle near the light house. Then the sky cleared up real nice.

We headed out about 23 miles, Ricky using his new auto-pilot to head us to the first numbers.

It was co-ooold!

Seas were maybe 2, maybe 3 at times, at first, but within a few hours went smooth.

We fished in about 52 feet, and in our first spot Rick pulled in a short red grouper and Ben a short gag. And the other two got some grunts, and I began to talk about how those grunts were [supposedly] good to eat.

It was real slow and the low, slack tide at 9:30 am got the blame.

We moved just a couple of miles to spot number two, and we could see maybe 8 or so boats fishing on the horizon, one clump of 5 or 6 together.

Anyway, Rick got a keeper red around 10:30 or so. And then Your Humble Narraor, in yet another dramatic stroke of beginner's luck, landed the catch of the day:

Then, my mind went numb.

Oh now I remember. I had the REAL catch of the day, but I oughta keep it a secret. Many of you surely know what a "grass bass" is.....

Well, I felt like I had Mother Earth pullin' on my line, but unfortunatelyI didn't know that that's all it was!

I was fooled so bad by the snag, and I fought it so hard, that I fooled everybody on the boat. "Capt." Rick told me that is musta been a shark. One of the boys asked me if I wanted the fighting belt! Thank goodness it got away.

So we had a great time. And I got a pic of my oldest, who caught twice the keepers as anyone else on the boat, and half the fish!

We had a blast!

Tally of keepers? One gag and three reds. All caught between 10:30 and 12:30. And we had the best fried fish dinner here at my place since summer.

Post by **Chalk** » December 30th, 2004, 11:03 pm

Super Gag Aucilla......Nice report....

Post by **RodBow** » December 31st, 2004, 8:13 am

Oh dude! I guess a bigger boat is in the works now.

Grouper fishing can open your eyes - can't it?

Post by **Sir reel** » December 31st, 2004, 10:32 am

NOW THAT"S WHAT I"M TALK"N BOUT!! Great job Aucilla, thanks for the pictures and the report.

Post by **qoutrage** » December 31st, 2004, 12:27 pm

Hey Aucilla, sounds like y'all had a great time and the pictures are really good.
I took the time to check out your picture site, too- Awsome.
What kind of cam are you using? Must be at least a 3mp or better.
Happy new year to you and yours..

Post by **Aucilla** » January 1st, 2005, 9:58 am

qoutrage wrote:Hey Aucilla, sounds like y'all had a great time and the pictures are really good.
I took the time to check out your picture site, too- Awsome.
What kind of cam are you using? Must be at least a 3mp or better.
Happy new year to you and yours..

Glad you like the pics. The ones on the website were taken by all sorts of cameras. The ones in this post I took with my new FujiFilm. It is my second one of this kind of camera for me. This one is 4mp, and it is small, has 3X optical zoom, and cost just under $200. My earlier FujiFilm was great, the same camera basically, but with 3 mp: It was a Consumer Reports Best Buy last year and can be had online for about $110 I think. But it's LCD went bad on an airplane for some reason, beyond warranty.

The pics on my picture site, as you could tell, span a lot of time at first. The ones of me that look fairly poor quality were mostly taken in a pretty funny way. I carried a cheap waterproof disposable film camera in my tackle box, and also in my "Flats Caddy" when I went wading, and I did these arm-outstretched "self portraits." My favorite ones are where you can see the stringer and not the fish! I also like the surreal look of some.

What amazed me was that any of those turned out at all! I carried that camera around for a year maybe, letting it bake in the sun in the tackle box, etc.; and I finally took it into see if the pictures were still anygood after a great day on the Aucilla. I never expected to see those old wading pictures.

There is one shot on there, the Chinese kids crabbing, that I took with my camera that I would not take out on the water, a 5 mp Panasonic.

But all the rest, except the obvious oldies of my Dad and brother fishing, and of my wife pulling mullet lookin' like the teenager I guess she still was, were on the FujiFilm.

Do I sound like I like cameras? I am wanting an underwater one now! The diving pix on there were all taken by buddies.

Happy New Year!

Post by **qoutrage** » January 1st, 2005, 12:29 pm

Yeah, I like cameras, too. 'Have a variety of old 35's, I dragged with me hunting and fishing over the past 40 plus years, 'til digitals came out.
My first digital was a Casio with a fraction of a mega pixel. I wore out two of them.
My wife has a Nikon CP4500, 4 or 5mp, I forget. Too expensive a camera in my book- The reason she won't let me take it fishing..
Right now I only have a Panasonic DV camcorder for utility, and it's mine to do with as I like. I can pull stills off it, which works real good, since there is a good selection, generally, of the moment. I'm wondering, if the short movie feature of most digital, wouldn't be a way to get a better selection of still. Seems if you could take 15 or 20 frames of a particular scene, that would be the case.
I bought my oldest daughter a Canon A75 or with 3mp for her birthday. The idea was, if it turns out a nice product and is easy enough for her, I'd buy the other 2 one. And, maybe one for myself. It was about 200 bucks at walmart. I see now that particular camera can be pruchased online for less than that..
Pictures are fun.