Memorial Wknd St Joe Report
Posted: May 29th, 2007, 4:31 pm
Back down to St. Joe Bay for our 5th annual Memorial Day Weekend trip. overall, it was a trip full of beautiful windy weather, small trout, plentiful flounder......and for the first time ever, NO REDFISH. i couldn't believe it. Usually this is the trip we really slay the reds, but we never caugh the first fish. You guys will be disappointed for lack of pics, but we never really had anything picture worthy for the weekend. i will have to agree with bad behavior's report on the number of people that absolutely have no clue what they are doing on the water. i can't tell you of number of people that ran 22 foot pontoons, flats boats and large bay boats right over some of the shallowest grass flats in the bay and never had any clue what they were doing to the flat. all most of them would have had to do was turn around and look at the 2 mile mud they just made and the shiny white prop scar thru the grass. it was really pretty sad.
on to the report. left athens thursday morning at our usual 6 a.m. time and arrived in st joe around 1 p.m. on the water around 3:30 after we unloaded at our awesome house we rented out on the cape. first afternoon was....well....windy. luckily we had the new 22 Skeeter Bay with us which handled the ruff water very well. we put in at the state park and went to a redfish hole and there were none to be found. went to the south end of the bay and fished several holes. started catching trout right away, however, almost all were 14 inches. I have been fishing the bay around 6 years now and this was the first trip i have ever caught trout like we did this trip. kept having visions of econfina.
lots of flounder around. we ended the day with a beautiful sunset, 3 flounder, and 6 keeper trout (figured we probably caught over 40 small ones). not great, but it was nice to be out.
friday was.....well.....windy also. went to an area we have really caught the reds the last three years and it was so windy we couldn't fish the way we wanted and the water was pretty stained as well. we messed around for a couple of hours, loaded up and headed to the raw bar for a great lunch. hooked up with the girlfriends and my wife and headed back out. caught the heck out of the trout again, but they were small. managed two that were 22 and 20 with the other 5 keepers being 17 and 18. also brought home 3 flounder again and some nice spanish. Good eats and
while watching a great sunset back at the house.
saturday was.....well...windy.....AGAIN. same as the last two days. caught plenty of trout on the south end of the bay around 4 foot edges. lots and lots of shrimp were skipping around and just about all the fish were spitting them up when we caught them. came home with 5 trout, including one that was 21, some flounder and some spanish.
sunday was....you guessed it...windy. the wind essentially was blowing when we got there out of the east around 15-20 and blowing when we left around 15-20 otu of the east. made for great cool weather, but very tuff to fish anywhere except the southend. i can honestly say i have never seen that many boats in the bay before. i believe it was because everyone was clustered around blacks island, but man alive at the idiots that were out. we had one guy that followed us all day it seemed like. the first time he idled from about 300 yards DOWNWIND from us all the way up right straight thru our drift. then dropped the anchor when he got about 50 feet from us. i just kept the line and fished right beside him. you could tell the people with him were embarrassed. it was quite funny. later in the afternoon, the same guy idles between myself and another boat that was above us, right in line with the other boat, stopped and dropped the anchor. the other boat just cranked up and swamped the guy as he left. anyway, we picked up 7 more trout, a flounder, and some spanish.
we decided to sleep in and beach it with the girls monday morning instead of fish. the wind was howling about 20 when we got up and we had had enough. all in all, we caught a ton of fish, they were just small. you could get in 3-4 feet of water on an edge anywhere and catch all you want. the bigger fish were just scattered and not schooled as they usually are. there was also a noticeably scarce amount of bait in the bay. usually by end of may, it is everywhere, but we only found it in three different areas and with the wind, it was hard to find it concentrated. not sure what was going on with the reds, but they were noticeably lacking. hope you guys enjoy without the pics.
a few pics i forgot i took....
and one of those beautiful sunsets....
[/img]
on to the report. left athens thursday morning at our usual 6 a.m. time and arrived in st joe around 1 p.m. on the water around 3:30 after we unloaded at our awesome house we rented out on the cape. first afternoon was....well....windy. luckily we had the new 22 Skeeter Bay with us which handled the ruff water very well. we put in at the state park and went to a redfish hole and there were none to be found. went to the south end of the bay and fished several holes. started catching trout right away, however, almost all were 14 inches. I have been fishing the bay around 6 years now and this was the first trip i have ever caught trout like we did this trip. kept having visions of econfina.
lots of flounder around. we ended the day with a beautiful sunset, 3 flounder, and 6 keeper trout (figured we probably caught over 40 small ones). not great, but it was nice to be out.friday was.....well.....windy also. went to an area we have really caught the reds the last three years and it was so windy we couldn't fish the way we wanted and the water was pretty stained as well. we messed around for a couple of hours, loaded up and headed to the raw bar for a great lunch. hooked up with the girlfriends and my wife and headed back out. caught the heck out of the trout again, but they were small. managed two that were 22 and 20 with the other 5 keepers being 17 and 18. also brought home 3 flounder again and some nice spanish. Good eats and
while watching a great sunset back at the house.saturday was.....well...windy.....AGAIN. same as the last two days. caught plenty of trout on the south end of the bay around 4 foot edges. lots and lots of shrimp were skipping around and just about all the fish were spitting them up when we caught them. came home with 5 trout, including one that was 21, some flounder and some spanish.
sunday was....you guessed it...windy. the wind essentially was blowing when we got there out of the east around 15-20 and blowing when we left around 15-20 otu of the east. made for great cool weather, but very tuff to fish anywhere except the southend. i can honestly say i have never seen that many boats in the bay before. i believe it was because everyone was clustered around blacks island, but man alive at the idiots that were out. we had one guy that followed us all day it seemed like. the first time he idled from about 300 yards DOWNWIND from us all the way up right straight thru our drift. then dropped the anchor when he got about 50 feet from us. i just kept the line and fished right beside him. you could tell the people with him were embarrassed. it was quite funny. later in the afternoon, the same guy idles between myself and another boat that was above us, right in line with the other boat, stopped and dropped the anchor. the other boat just cranked up and swamped the guy as he left. anyway, we picked up 7 more trout, a flounder, and some spanish.
we decided to sleep in and beach it with the girls monday morning instead of fish. the wind was howling about 20 when we got up and we had had enough. all in all, we caught a ton of fish, they were just small. you could get in 3-4 feet of water on an edge anywhere and catch all you want. the bigger fish were just scattered and not schooled as they usually are. there was also a noticeably scarce amount of bait in the bay. usually by end of may, it is everywhere, but we only found it in three different areas and with the wind, it was hard to find it concentrated. not sure what was going on with the reds, but they were noticeably lacking. hope you guys enjoy without the pics.
a few pics i forgot i took....
and one of those beautiful sunsets....
[/img]
hahahahahha 
