I stopped by JBT around 5:45 or so, not in any huge hurry to get to the ramp, shot the s**t with Scott for a few, picked up a crazy spoon and some soft baits, four times the ice and decided to head on down to the fort, still dark out. I went to put the main plug in the rear of the boat lest I forget, only to find that the 'better' one the seller gave me than the one that was in there when I test rode it din't fit. After trying to cram it in there for a while and getting motor grease and 2 cycle oil all over my arms, I went searching and found the original in the livewell. went back inside and washed off in the sink and headed out.
Just about to pull up to the fort at sunrise, trying to make sure I had all the necessary paperwork aboard since I haven't changed over title and registration, thinking about all the things they could ticket me for. Quick equipment check confirmed that I had everything, and that the flare kit and fire extinguisher included in the sale were both expired by magnitude of years. Happened to have an in-service unopened signal flare kit in the truck so good there. I called shields to inquire about fire extinguisher while driving to shell island. $25 at shields, $19 at shell island, so I got one, no sweat ready to go.
Loading out the boat at the fort, good time to realize the larger dry box I bought didn't fit in either of the two rear storage compartments, so I offloaded some life jackets and threw it in the bow, finally got everything in there, put the boat in the water. It started right up after 30 minutes and I was merrily on my way out the channel. Somewhere around Indian Pass, the motor died as expected. Big relief, just out of gas, dual gas tanks and I filled the other on the drive down there. Swithced over hoses and it started right up no sweat. Soon came a little fishing...
I drove out a little ways past the rock of gibraltar - normally most people call it either black rock, cobb rock, gray mare area - I'm really not sure because I'm GPS-less and the water is so shallow there are multiple rocks sticking many feet out of the water. It looked like the rock of gibraltar so that's where I was. There was still a good 3 feet of water a little south of the rocks, so I idled around there looking for the deep part for a while, realized I was in it, cut the motor and started fishing. I hooked up on some trout right away. They were plentiful but small. Mamma and Poppa trout kept flinging my spook up in the air but didn't want to bite the delicious hooks. The wind and current were moving opposite each other at the time, so I drifted probably only about half a mile in about an hour and a half.
Water was getting a little shallow around me, so I decided it was time to head south. I had to prime the motor to get it to start, and just happened to notice the little float fuel meter was about dead center; a little closer to empty. I figured the float must be bad/stuck etc, but wanted to play it safe since the other tank was already empty, and drove east southeast until I got to water I could run in, and shot off due east back toward the channel.
The tide turned about that time so that the drifts got a lot faster and were pushing me west west southwest. After my little run out and around the shallow water, I notice the fuel meter float is now definitely pointing more toward empty than full. sh*t... Since the wind was pushing me basically the right direction, I drifted and fished almost all the way back to the channel. I threw the spoons a while and got some monster ladyfish, then switched to some assorted mirrolures and got the mystery fish, and more small trout. Pretty consistent action but not one decent fish.
When I neared the bird-rack, the sand bar was all dry land, so I cranked the boat back up and headed straight for the lighthouse through the 'deeper' water toward the first pylon. I ran another long drift up there just trying to go as far as possible without burning another gallon of gas. The fishing was starting to get a little better, but I was to the point where I was concerned that even running the motor to restart a drift was going to eat up all my gas.
I decided to head back to the hill and refill both tanks. Well I ran out of gas right before the no wake zone. I swapped over to the other tank which was now bulging with fumes form the heat. That one ran me almost to shields before I was dead in the water. I got out the siphon pump and pumped the drops out of one tank in to the other and made it to the gas pump, where the motor died as I was throwing the dock line. $50 and an hour and a half later, I got two full tanks and I'm back where I started.
By the time I got on plane in the channel, the wind had really picked up severely, nice little rip current going in the channel by the lighthouse. By this time I had figured out how to get the boat to run another 30mph faster (thats another story) and got back out there pretty quick, not surprised to find that the action had slowed down quite a bit in the hour and a half it took me to go get gas. caught a few more small trout, one that was probably a keeper but barely, and had to head home to catch the FSU Bama game.
Spent way more time dealin with the boat than with the fish, and prolly wouldn't have even posted a report, but I thought you could all use a good laugh at my expense. The boat is a glorious POS, and I love it. I paid almost nothing for it, it's comfortable, and I can go fishing on it. Just need to get bigger gas tanks until I can get some performance issues worked out.
Also, I want to see everyone's take on identification of mystery fish pictured below. Before you give the obvious answer, let me describe a few things you may not be able to tell from the photo...
*The darker upper portion of the fish was green to dark green to brown. *The lower portion was a dull trout-ish silver and not the metallic-chrome-type silver
*The pectoral fins were dark green in the 'shoulder' and faded to yellow-green toward the tips
*It had two dominant pointy teeth in front upper jaw
*There are faint brown spots in the upper portion of the body middle to rear
*There is a near horizontal lateral line form front to back
So what is this mystery fish?
My shadow caught a trout:
All trout on the east flats anywhere near my boat were this size:
That's about all I have to say about that...
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Cut the gill slits and bleed them before throwing them on ice and they are edible. They are fun to catch though and generally where you catch one there are many more. Post some pics of the new boat. It takes some work, but you'll get all the bugs worked out. 