Took 6 guys down this past weekend for a Rotary fishing trip and man What a trip!!!! What was looking very very discouraging throughout the week with the cold weather coming in and forecast for 15-20 out of the east for all three days, turned out not to shabby at all. The weather guys hit the forecast on the nose. We awoke friday morning to 39 degrees and the wind banging the hurricane shutters on the condo pretty hard. I was not looking forward to fishing thinking we would be lucky to catch a fish. But, I put a game plan together and off we went to the "backcountry" of apalachicola bay. I stopped at the first hole and waived my dad on down (in his new skeeter 2200 Bay which was really awesome on the maiden voyage) to another hole. We get anchored up and put a hook on the first rod and a shrimp and the guy throws it out and wham!. Big big sheepshead. Get the other rod rigged for the other guy while the first guy is fighting the sheepshead, get a shrimp on it, hand it to him, net the sheepshead from the first guy and the other guy says i got one. well, it was one of my bigger poles and it was bent double. knowing it is a redfish the way it is fighting i am all excited. gets it halfway to the boat and the hook pulled free. looked to be around 25-27 inches. next cast and he hooks up another redfish and we got that one in. 25 inches on the dime. anyway, these guys proceed to catch sheepshead, trout, redfish and blackdrum for the next two hours to the point i am just exhausted and haven't even wet a hook yet. finally around 3, we had a box full and the fishing had slacked off a little and we go down to dad's boat. we hadn't done anything. they couldn't hardly close the big cooler there were so many fish in it. we ended up cleaning 46 fish (variety of fish, but mostly sheepshead) that night (MUDDUCKER IS WITNESS TO THIS CLEANING FESTIVITY as he was staying in his condo and was taking part in the cleaning party hahahahah). we had several sheepys that were in the 15 lb category. i had never seen them get that big in the creeks. all i had ever caught were small ones.
we debated what to do on saturday cause we really wanted to get into some good reds and trout. everything on friday were small except for the two we had hooked up. however, with the wind still blowing a gail, we hit the "backcountry" again. didn't do nearly as well this day, but still managed around 50 fish (mixture of reds, trout, sheepy's, stripers, flounder, black drum, poagies, and even a largemouth) for both boats. we only kept around 10 however because of the mess we already had from the day before.
Sunday we decided to fish st joe b/c that is really what we had made the trip to do. did i mention the wind before. well it was rolling sunday. we fished the head of the bay and had several hookups before noon when we shouldn't have had a bite. however, they were ultra finicky and kept coming off. we ended up with several trout and a flounder and got in a nice school of bluefish. it was like someone flipped the switch around 11:30 however and the small bite we had just died. dad however managed to catch the largest redfish i have seen caught. he boated a 37 inch monster. that was really all they did on sunday however. it was just too windy to feel anything and the bite was really slow.
so all in all, it was quite a trip given the conditions. i didn't think we would catch a fish all weekend. but it ended up all coming together. this wrapped up my fishing for 2006 and it has been a great year for saltwater. will be working the dogs and chasing mr bobwhite for the next couple of months. i will post the pictures as i get them from the guys.
this first picture is terrible, but since i left my camera at the airport a couple of weeks ago, i am having all the pictures that were taken emailed to me so i can't get very good quality out of them unless someone has some ideas to help.
First Days Catch
Dad's New Ride
Top view of our boats
The Big Red
25 Incher
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