Steinhatchee...cuz no water at Keaton
Posted: March 18th, 2007, 7:45 pm
Took some scouts for a flats trip this weekend. Pulled up at Keaton Beach Marina at 7:30ish. No lift operator. Go inside. No launching until 11:30 AM because she doesn't think there is enough water to get out. I told her my boat didn't draw much, but I might as well have been talking to the wall. 
Headed to Steinhatchee. What few marinas left were slammed, so I went to ramp on 1st Ave where water is mostly fresh and launched boat. Tried to troll river, but discovered real quick that you can not troll through a circus.
Ran out river and turned into big wind...really big wind. Eased out to sandbars north of river and set drifts to drift through the cuts in the bars. Landed a flounder and short trout pretty quick and thought...man, this is gonna be the day. An hour later we caught a keeper trout to go with the flounder. Some shorts here and there. At 12:30 after I was SURE there was enough water to get into Dallus Creek, I headed up that way, expecting to find the rest of the armada. Swung past the creek on the north end and headed back in like I've done a hundred times before. Found myself on a shallow mudflat that should have had 2 foot of water. Unzipped the legs from my pants and pushed the boat back out a ways. Mud was only knee deep
Anchored up and fixed lunch while waiting on the some more tide. Finished lunch and eased back out to the bars. Nada. As the wind died down some, ran to a cut just south of the river channel. Caught a couple of shorts and then one of the crew lost a real nice trout. Been watching too many bass shows I think 
Ran further south, but only a couple more shorts. Pulled lines at 4PM and ran in.
Pulled the boat out and found I had a flat tire on my trailer. Changed the tire pretty quickly. Something made me doubt why it was flat, so when I found a air machine, I filled it up and it is still full. Guess I got a Ga Cracker welcome from some stupid Steinhatchee redneck. Good thing they weren't there when I got in. Might have lost my religion
Cleaned and fried both of those fish (along with a couple of ponds of back up shrimp I had brought) and we pigged out.
I won't even start to tell ya'll about the grounded out areator pump that killed my batteries on Friday and Saturday or about the new battery I bought from Ace Hardware (where all batteries are $72) to get out or even about how the areator suddenly came on while the Y switch was switched to the washdown position with no wash down hose hooked up and would not respond to the switch to turn off or how the mechanic had left one fo the waterproof hatches back there cracked partially open and nearly sank us on the flats out of Steinhatchee. Ya'll just don't need to know everything
I am contemplating an old method of changing my luck....years ago, I was told to break out of this luck, one had to split a black oak.....nah...I'll get a rabbit's foot...after all, it was lucky for the rabbit...right
Headed to Steinhatchee. What few marinas left were slammed, so I went to ramp on 1st Ave where water is mostly fresh and launched boat. Tried to troll river, but discovered real quick that you can not troll through a circus.
Ran out river and turned into big wind...really big wind. Eased out to sandbars north of river and set drifts to drift through the cuts in the bars. Landed a flounder and short trout pretty quick and thought...man, this is gonna be the day. An hour later we caught a keeper trout to go with the flounder. Some shorts here and there. At 12:30 after I was SURE there was enough water to get into Dallus Creek, I headed up that way, expecting to find the rest of the armada. Swung past the creek on the north end and headed back in like I've done a hundred times before. Found myself on a shallow mudflat that should have had 2 foot of water. Unzipped the legs from my pants and pushed the boat back out a ways. Mud was only knee deep
Anchored up and fixed lunch while waiting on the some more tide. Finished lunch and eased back out to the bars. Nada. As the wind died down some, ran to a cut just south of the river channel. Caught a couple of shorts and then one of the crew lost a real nice trout. Been watching too many bass shows I think Ran further south, but only a couple more shorts. Pulled lines at 4PM and ran in. Pulled the boat out and found I had a flat tire on my trailer. Changed the tire pretty quickly. Something made me doubt why it was flat, so when I found a air machine, I filled it up and it is still full. Guess I got a Ga Cracker welcome from some stupid Steinhatchee redneck. Good thing they weren't there when I got in. Might have lost my religion
Cleaned and fried both of those fish (along with a couple of ponds of back up shrimp I had brought) and we pigged out.
I won't even start to tell ya'll about the grounded out areator pump that killed my batteries on Friday and Saturday or about the new battery I bought from Ace Hardware (where all batteries are $72) to get out or even about how the areator suddenly came on while the Y switch was switched to the washdown position with no wash down hose hooked up and would not respond to the switch to turn off or how the mechanic had left one fo the waterproof hatches back there cracked partially open and nearly sank us on the flats out of Steinhatchee. Ya'll just don't need to know everything
I am contemplating an old method of changing my luck....years ago, I was told to break out of this luck, one had to split a black oak.....nah...I'll get a rabbit's foot...after all, it was lucky for the rabbit...right
