Flatfish
St Marks Scallops 7-9-07
Moderators: bman, Tom Keels, Chalk
St Marks Scallops 7-9-07
Loaded all the girls up and went east of the lighthouse. 42 minutes later we had the limit and had to throw back two bags. Then back to SGI for the dreaded shuck. Will post some pictures later. At this rate, I am going to struggle to get any time to fish as we are loading up as I write this to try St Joe for scallops again. Will report again later.
Flatfish
Flatfish
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Hit-n-Miss
- Posts: 3533
- Joined: May 20th, 2004, 12:15 pm
- Location: Boston Ga.
Time with the family on the water is worth more than lost fishing time. Do any good in St Joe? I was there for 4th - 7th hit up black's island 2 full days and it was the thinnest I've ever seen since I made the scalloping/camping trip an annual tradition about 7 years ago. We tried a whole bunch of different spots on the last day and all of them were even worse.
I heard a lot of radio chatter all trip about how nobody could find redfish, and people were getting their scallop limits...in a "full" day. After fishing St Marks on the first and hearing "We uhhhh...we already got our limit so uhhh...I dunno...prolly gonna go swimmin at the bird rack or somethin...we just got out here...cain't go home yet" around 11:00AM, I spent most of my trip to St Joe thinking -- Wow we drove a long way and spent a lot of money to not get scallops! Finished the trip with only about 3.5 gallons total in close to 24 hours of scalloping. On the bright side, I caught a decent redfish in Eagle Harbor in pitch darkness a couple hours after hearing the charter captains complaining back and forth that they hadn't got any of their charters a single one in the last couple days. I brought the mask and snorkel out to St Marks today for the first time this year, and compared to our experience in St Joe Bay, it was like scallop heaven. I can say though, that in St Joe, not a single boat went blowing through the gaggle over idle speed at any time. Today we were only in the water 15-20 minutes before the storm came, and although scallops were everywhere, I was a little afraid to dive down because in that short time, 3 or 4 boats blew by between us and another boat less than 100 feet away while both of us had dive flags up and there were even children in the water with infaltable toys and stuff. Coastie Aux boat even got way too close to us while throwing a wake.
I heard a lot of radio chatter all trip about how nobody could find redfish, and people were getting their scallop limits...in a "full" day. After fishing St Marks on the first and hearing "We uhhhh...we already got our limit so uhhh...I dunno...prolly gonna go swimmin at the bird rack or somethin...we just got out here...cain't go home yet" around 11:00AM, I spent most of my trip to St Joe thinking -- Wow we drove a long way and spent a lot of money to not get scallops! Finished the trip with only about 3.5 gallons total in close to 24 hours of scalloping. On the bright side, I caught a decent redfish in Eagle Harbor in pitch darkness a couple hours after hearing the charter captains complaining back and forth that they hadn't got any of their charters a single one in the last couple days. I brought the mask and snorkel out to St Marks today for the first time this year, and compared to our experience in St Joe Bay, it was like scallop heaven. I can say though, that in St Joe, not a single boat went blowing through the gaggle over idle speed at any time. Today we were only in the water 15-20 minutes before the storm came, and although scallops were everywhere, I was a little afraid to dive down because in that short time, 3 or 4 boats blew by between us and another boat less than 100 feet away while both of us had dive flags up and there were even children in the water with infaltable toys and stuff. Coastie Aux boat even got way too close to us while throwing a wake.
Mook
We got to Presnells around 10 on the 11th. There were five of us in the water. I looked hard in my old spots and found nothing. When I moved to the end of the channel south of BI, where it dead ends into the shallows we started finding them. Still, it took us 3-4 hours to get our limit, which is 3-4 times longer than St Marks. We went back to St Marks on the 12th, rented another boat for the overflow of family and got our limit in around an hour. It was a longer ride from SGI for us, but worth it since we only get down there once a year.
Now I am thinking about how much those scallops cost me. 1851 miles round trip from Greensboro NC pulling a boat. 150 gallons of fuel. I think I really don't want to do the math. They are REALLY expensive. But we had fun as a family and look forward to next year.
Flatfish
We got to Presnells around 10 on the 11th. There were five of us in the water. I looked hard in my old spots and found nothing. When I moved to the end of the channel south of BI, where it dead ends into the shallows we started finding them. Still, it took us 3-4 hours to get our limit, which is 3-4 times longer than St Marks. We went back to St Marks on the 12th, rented another boat for the overflow of family and got our limit in around an hour. It was a longer ride from SGI for us, but worth it since we only get down there once a year.
Now I am thinking about how much those scallops cost me. 1851 miles round trip from Greensboro NC pulling a boat. 150 gallons of fuel. I think I really don't want to do the math. They are REALLY expensive. But we had fun as a family and look forward to next year.
Flatfish