On the way in saw gator prints, not real fresh, they had been covered by at least one tide, but still distinct.
Caught a slot red almost as soon as I got there, then everything shut down for the high tide.
Picked up a slot trout a couple hours later, that promptly stuck a treble hook in my right index finger.
We got that sorted out and went back to fishing but didn't do anything else. Did get a couple strikes on a 5M MirrOlure. Missed them both.
Took my castnet this time. Loads of mullet and something feeding on them, but so many small mullet is why I think it was so slow on artificials. A few big mullet around, but most of the ones I threw over went through the 1" mesh of my net. Four gilled in the net. Big mullet are a little cagier than small mullet.
Biig gator hanging around this time. Way too big to be the one that made the tracks I saw. Me wading around with a castnet after sunset, biig gator hanging around. Over that-a-way, something raisin' a racket, two wild hogs either fighting or mating. Just as it was getting good dark the gator disappeared. Stalking me? Highly unlikely, but it was a big enough gator. It's about a mile through the marsh and woods back to the car. About 8 it was time to saddle-up, pick up my walking stick and head out.
On the way out I ran across some fresh hog tracks. Turned on my flashlight to see how fresh.
"Hmm, these are recent. They were made since 4:45."
"Hey, your better at tracking than I thought. How do you know that?"
"Elementary my dear, Watson. These tracks weren't here when we walked in."
Followed the 2 sets of tracks, in the dark, most of the way back to the car before they turned off into a point of woods. Rounded the point and found where one set came out.
"Hmm, now we've got one in front of us and one behind."
"Know any good bacon recipes?"
"Leave'm be. We're on the refuge. Besides, it's black dark and we already have a few fish to clean."
When loading the car on the refuge at night use a decoy light.
Turn off the dome lights in the car. Turn on another light a little ways away. Use that light to get the car loaded and all the quadmillionzillion bugs will go to the decoy light. When everything's loaded, turn off the decoy light and quickly hot-foot it to the car. Jump in and lock the doors to keep the bugs from jackin' yo' ride.
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Them's my two favorite activities too!