. What better to do than squeeze in a few hours of fishing? Stopped by Jerry's around 3:30 and picked up a few shrimp. Pulled into the LH lot, which looked like a saturday afternoon--not a Wednesday (with at least 15 trailers)! Headed over to the west flats, which is where most boats seemed to be fishing. I picked up one sailcat and six trout--with the biggest being just over 18". After about an hour and half, I decided to head to the east flats, just inside the first stake. I started in about 4-5' of water and only picked up one small bluefish. I realized that with the wind and incoming tide, this might be my chance to finally try and fish the shoreline for some reds, which is something I have been very apprehensive about doing--I'm just so afraid that I'm going to end up harming my boat since I'm fairly new to this whole fishing/boating sport--though I can't seem to get enough of it. At around 6 o'clock, when I moved in toward the shoreline, I noticed a boat heading into what I think is horns creek (it is the second major opening east of the lighthouse). So I decided to go west a little, toward the mouth of Big Cove. I could see mullet jumping along the shoreline. I tilted my motor up in about 2' of water and put my trolling motor down--but my trolling motor didn't respond. I just had it checked out (for this very reason), and I was told it was working fine
, and my batteries had a full charge. Anyway, I decided to just let myself drift in with the water and cast as I drifted in. Next thing I knew I was going over a small bar, which the very bottom of my motor scraped 
. I pretty much panicked at this point (stumbling over rods and net trying to reach the tilt)--but once I drifted over it, I lowered my motor down just enough to get out of there. Headed back out to 7'--between the bird rack and and the first stake--and caught a nice (and fairly fat) 19" trout, which is my biggest trout in a very long time. I fished there for another half hour with no luck before the sun went down and I headed back to the ramp.
All in all, a nice quick mid-week quick fishing trip (save the scare in front of big-cove). Now I just need to get my confidence back up
(and my trolling motor running) to go look for some reds! 
