Carrabelle 9/7 - 9/8/07
Posted: September 9th, 2007, 1:27 pm
Reel Slow had other duties Friday so it was up to me to find us a few fish for Saturday. I launched from Lanark around 7:00. To a beautiful sunrise but howling winds.
Fished the east end of Lanark reef for a couple of hours but the wind was making it nearly impossible. I headed down to the west end of the reef and stuck the nose of the boat into the Sound. It was rough but not too bad. I made it across to Dog Island with only a couple of brushes with death.
Started fishing the backside of the island trying to stay tucked in outta the wind. Found some reds pretty quickly and snapped a pic of the best....
Picked up a few solid trout, lost a few more....finally connected with a good one....
sure could have used her on Saturday.
Ended up with 4 or 5 trout on Friday...not spectacular, but they were decent fish. Hoped to come back on Saturday with Reel Slow and squeak out a limit.
Saturday morning began deceivingly, a light breeze was gently moving the flags at the Moorings. We thought just maybe the wind had laid somewhat. Wrong..
We launched again from Lanark at 6:15, ran down to the west end of the reef and turned into the Sound. We were met by good 3 footers once again. Decided we could handle it though and throttled up to a slow plane. Just after we cleared the channel markers, a blacked out offshore boat materialized not 50 feet in front of us. The fools did not have a single running light on the boat and they were at dead stop. The idiot driver, I wouldn't call him a Captain, had stopped to light a cigarette and his lighter flame was just enough for us to see him in time to stop.
We continued on to Dog Island, set up a drift and on the 1st couple of cast landed a snot cat on a Bite-a-Bait. He turned out to be way too small, but it was good to have a keeper in the boat. That would be the last keeper we would put in the boat until around 12:30 or so.
For the next 5 hours RS and I hooked and lost 6 or 7 good trout on topwater baits. A couple of the fish were easily 22" or better. It was painfully discouraging.
Late morning we were fishing the bank along the airstrip on DI. In the distance we could see a small single engine plane lining up for an approach. I mentioned to RS we got a plane coming in. The plane came on closer and as he reached the end of the runway I heard RS say he sure is high and fast. Rs figured he was just going a do a flyby. He had hardly gotten it out of his mouth when the plane just dropped and dropped fast. It hit hard 2x and on the 3rd bounce, he planted the nose in the runway and the whole plane flipped end over end.
RS and I were looking at each other in disbelief. I pulled out the cell and called 911. The 911 operator took my number and FWC called me back. They wanted to know if the plane was on fire and if everyone had gotten out. There was no fire and it seemed everyone had gotten out. They said they would send someone over to check it out. Maybe they did , but we never saw anyone.
There were 3 women, a young child, and a man onboard. They seemed okay. They seemed to pull some bags from the plane and started walking down the runway kinda like it happened all the time.
RS and I were stunned but it seemed they were okay so we went back to fishing. We were in a tournament after all.
Here's a couple of pics, the bushes and marsh grass were blocking our view somewhat so you have to look close.
We finally landed a couple of good reds with 1 being good enough for the box and 1 just a tad too long.
I told RS we were leaving at 2:30 regardless of what was happening. I had had enough. In the last 15 minutes he buckled down and put 2, 19"ers in the box. We packed it in. Back at the Moorings, we discovered everyone had a terrible day and it helped us to feel a little better. We ended up 4th with a little over 4 lbs. and our red was good enough to tke the redfish cash.
Congrats to TC and Chalk, that was a nice win for a crappy fishing weekend.
I appreciate you fishing with me Reel Slow. Can't wait til nextime.
Fished the east end of Lanark reef for a couple of hours but the wind was making it nearly impossible. I headed down to the west end of the reef and stuck the nose of the boat into the Sound. It was rough but not too bad. I made it across to Dog Island with only a couple of brushes with death.
Started fishing the backside of the island trying to stay tucked in outta the wind. Found some reds pretty quickly and snapped a pic of the best....
Picked up a few solid trout, lost a few more....finally connected with a good one....
sure could have used her on Saturday.
Ended up with 4 or 5 trout on Friday...not spectacular, but they were decent fish. Hoped to come back on Saturday with Reel Slow and squeak out a limit.
Saturday morning began deceivingly, a light breeze was gently moving the flags at the Moorings. We thought just maybe the wind had laid somewhat. Wrong..
We launched again from Lanark at 6:15, ran down to the west end of the reef and turned into the Sound. We were met by good 3 footers once again. Decided we could handle it though and throttled up to a slow plane. Just after we cleared the channel markers, a blacked out offshore boat materialized not 50 feet in front of us. The fools did not have a single running light on the boat and they were at dead stop. The idiot driver, I wouldn't call him a Captain, had stopped to light a cigarette and his lighter flame was just enough for us to see him in time to stop.
We continued on to Dog Island, set up a drift and on the 1st couple of cast landed a snot cat on a Bite-a-Bait. He turned out to be way too small, but it was good to have a keeper in the boat. That would be the last keeper we would put in the boat until around 12:30 or so.
For the next 5 hours RS and I hooked and lost 6 or 7 good trout on topwater baits. A couple of the fish were easily 22" or better. It was painfully discouraging.
Late morning we were fishing the bank along the airstrip on DI. In the distance we could see a small single engine plane lining up for an approach. I mentioned to RS we got a plane coming in. The plane came on closer and as he reached the end of the runway I heard RS say he sure is high and fast. Rs figured he was just going a do a flyby. He had hardly gotten it out of his mouth when the plane just dropped and dropped fast. It hit hard 2x and on the 3rd bounce, he planted the nose in the runway and the whole plane flipped end over end.
RS and I were looking at each other in disbelief. I pulled out the cell and called 911. The 911 operator took my number and FWC called me back. They wanted to know if the plane was on fire and if everyone had gotten out. There was no fire and it seemed everyone had gotten out. They said they would send someone over to check it out. Maybe they did , but we never saw anyone.
There were 3 women, a young child, and a man onboard. They seemed okay. They seemed to pull some bags from the plane and started walking down the runway kinda like it happened all the time.
RS and I were stunned but it seemed they were okay so we went back to fishing. We were in a tournament after all.
Here's a couple of pics, the bushes and marsh grass were blocking our view somewhat so you have to look close.
We finally landed a couple of good reds with 1 being good enough for the box and 1 just a tad too long.
I told RS we were leaving at 2:30 regardless of what was happening. I had had enough. In the last 15 minutes he buckled down and put 2, 19"ers in the box. We packed it in. Back at the Moorings, we discovered everyone had a terrible day and it helped us to feel a little better. We ended up 4th with a little over 4 lbs. and our red was good enough to tke the redfish cash.
Congrats to TC and Chalk, that was a nice win for a crappy fishing weekend.
I appreciate you fishing with me Reel Slow. Can't wait til nextime.
We did have a fix on the sailcats though.....almost good enough for the boy to buy me a new reel 
