For those of you who are interested, here is one report on the activities that took place on my boat
I was at the Fort on Saturday morning (after stopping at Jerry's for some shrimp and a GREAT breakfast buffet at Savanna's
) and had the boat in the water by 7am. We (the other club members) waited until 8am for the kids and sponsors to gather up. We stayed busy rigging rods, helping other members launch, etc. (Thanks Tom
)Weather turned out very nice
with a slight choppy morning after the Friday evening rain and improving conditions through the day ending up nearly calm. I had two boys Oumon (sp?) (12) and Mark (9 1/2) along with their sponsor Bill Harper. Mark had a good bit of difficulty becoming comfortable with the casting process (his small hands were a contributing factor) but Oumon did very well. I have to say that even though there was the age difference between the two boys, they got along marvelously and were super guests! I took us West from the lighthouse to a couple of spots that I wanted to try just South of Patty's island. We started a drift in 7-8ft where there was a very significant trench that would drop off to 10-12ft then back up. For the first 30 min there was no activity
and it doesn't take long for a 9 1/2 year old, who doesn't fish much, to become bored.
Mark's attention span doesn't cover much length of concentration as it is and he was a very busy fellow.
Checking out the shrimp in the live well..."I'm hungry"... "let's move"...etc. There were a total (for the day) of 2 pair of sunglasses dropped over board
and lost
.... One small minnow dip net dropped over and lost..(mine!) .. One hat over board but recovered...
And for some strange reason... Mark was always involved in the immediate area of the loss.
The fish finally took pity on my plight and showed up.
I had set all three of them up with CT's and jigs but nothing seem to be happening. I had thrown some top water but nothing. I changed to a straight jig and started getting hits on the bottom. I hooked something and handed the rod to Mark. He reeled in something that was pulling hard that turned out to be a catfish. Mark wanted to keep it for a pet
but I convinced him it had to go back. From then on...every fish that came on board was a prospective pet!
If it couldn't be a pet....could he at least cut the head off and put it on his wall!
Mark kept busy all day reeling in fish that either I or Mr. Harper hooked and during lull's in the action was packing around a zip lock bag with either a shrimp or a pinfish (or both) as a temporary pet (didn't matter if they were dead or alive). Oumon caught several short trout and at least one keeper. We all caught lots of short's and cumulatively managed 4 nice legal trout with one being just over 18 inches. Towards the end of the trip with the weather turning calm and very warm there was an escalating interest in "falling in"
We pulled into some 7 ft water and the two boys along with Mr. Harper took a swim. Various cans of soda, sandwiches, bottles of water, candy bars, assorted snacks, chips, etc were consumed in an attempt to keep the hunger pains in check until we could make it back to the Fort and the hot dogs at 2 pm. Did I mention....I LIKE FISH'N WITH KIDS!!
"Good Judgement" comes from experience, ... and a lot of that..... results from "Bad Judgement".
