BigBendFishing.Net

Just open'er up and go. Sooner or later you'll find just about everything you shouldn't hit.

That's what we (my brothers and I) did when we were kids growing up around here, but then somebody else (Dad) was paying for repairs at the time.

Seriously though, probably the best thing I can think of to suggest is share trips with some of the folks on here that know the waters.

Awhile back I was fishin' with somebody, who shall remain nameless, in his boat. We're planed off, changing locations and coming up on an oyster bar. It's one of the bars that's kind of off by itself, no other ones around very close. I'm thinking he must know it's there. We're getting closer. Now I'm thinking he must want to fish it. We're getting closer. I start wondering, "If he wants to fish it, why is he not slowing down?". I finally said something in time to commence evasive maneuvering.

Now I'll tell one on myself. Years ago, I was with a close friend, we've known each other many years, in a 14' fiberglass skiff powered by a 15 horse 'Rude. We're running up the Ochlockonee Bay Channel. He's sitting on the middle, bench seat. I'm driving. Middle of a cloudless, no wind, summer day. All of a sudden one of the big channel marker posts flies by, inches from the port side. I asked him why he didn't warn me. He said he thought I saw it and was trying to scare him. The scary thing was I really didn't see it. We figured out, on the angle of our approach, he was directly in my view of that one channel marker.

That was a close call. Mere inches from being real embarrassing for both of us.

Mr. Pulley: Some of those stories remind me of that "swapping ends of the boat at 50mph" thing that I ain't too crazy about. I've fished the mouth of the Ocholochnee a couple of times, and those oyster bars give a whole new meaning to the word "maze"! They're mighty trouty though.

Mr. 2 liter: I wanna rethink this Chalk situation. Half of ya are eager to get rid of him and the other half think he's more trouble than he's worth. Hmmm ... a couple hours on an oyster bar ain't all that bad (if the gnats aren't out), maybe I can't use him after all.

And that's another thing, in P'cola we had one high and one low every 24 hours. A 2 1/2 foot tide was a whopper over there. Heck, here if we don't get 3' of movement twice a day people call it "slack". Makes for some interesting fishing though - it's starting to grow on me.

Thanks again for all the good advice.

My folks live in Gulf Breeze and I retired from the Marine Corps at Pensacola NAS.

They have diurnal tides over that way. The ones here are semi-diurnal.

I'll be the first to admit I don't know where all the hazzards are, and I've done my fair share of runing where I shouldn't.
Best advice I can give you, is to mark the numbers given here, and the rest you learn through osmosis. In other words the more you frequent this area, the more familiar you will become.

Hey Rocket...you gonna fish Keaton on the 25th?

Jumptrout51 wrote:Hey Rocket...you gonna fish Keaton on the 25th?

I'm taking the family to the new Atlanta Aquarium, and we are coming back on the 25th.
One day JT I'll fish another one of these tournaments. When, and where is the next one after that?

April is out of JBT..a draw tournament.