Met my dad and a neighbor at his house to take them fishing early Saturday morning. We launched from the Aucilla around 6:40 a.m. and seeing as how the tide was falling fast and we are not the slimmest guys in the world, we idled out the mouth of the river. We headed East at the mouth about halfway between the Aucilla and the Econfina. We idled in as shallow (less than 2') as we could go to a bar I like that always seems to hold fish. My dad and I threw topwater and Randy threw Gulp jigs. Randy hooked a nice trout on the first cast of the day, but had the fish spit the hook right at the boat. We continued fishing for a while and Randy put on a show while my dad and I couldn't buy a hit on TW. Low tide came and so we idled out to some rocky bottom with some rock grass around it and threw TSS and Gulp jigs. We caught some 15" trout here and there. Around 1, the tide started coming back in again and we rode it in and fished around a few more bars. Pops picked up a nice red on topwater around 1. In the last few casts of the day, Randy was retrieving his jig when a big jack came up and demolished his lure. He fought the fish for 10 minutes and finally got it to the boat...it was a fat one for sure.
Randy's nice jack (note the NFGFC hat)
10/14
Snatch-N-Reel and I decided to fish the Team Seatrout tournament this morning and got to the Aucilla ramp around 6:30, only to find that the Bass Boys had beat us to the ramp. We idled out in darkness wishing that we had a spotlight that worked...headed West this time to fish around Redfish Point. Idled in to spot 1 and saw JT51 and Tincan. First cast of the day with a jig and I missed a good fish. Nice way to start. We continue fishing just drifting along and I stuck a nice red on a Gulp jig. We picked up a few trout here and there, but none made it over 16". The tide fell out and we moved out to Cobb Rocks and fished around them and caught exactly one trout at 16". By noon, we had 6 trout in the boat with the biggest at 16.5". We moved East to the area I fished yesterday. I knew that good fish were in the area, but didn't have all that much confidence in where we were fishing. We idled in close and made about a thousand casts, Pat with a Gulp jig and myself with the TSS. I caught a nice 19.5" in about 1.5' of water around 1 p.m. By 2:05, we were both looking at our watches shaking our heads. I promptly had my line break and watched my Jerkshad go sailing to Panacea, muttered a curse word under my breath, and said, "Well, I guess I won't be using that one anymore." I wasn't in the mood to re-tie, so I grabbed a rod with a twitchbait that Queen B had given to me at the last meeting. It was a Bite-a-Bait with a Zebra paint job....cool looking lure. Pat looked over at me and said, "Never give up." I replied, "Nice quote Lance Armstrong." He looked back and said, "Dude, it's Mike Iaconelli." About that time I made and cast...twitch twitch BOOM...followed by singing drag. I thought I'd hooked a solid red, but got the fish halfway to the boat only to realize it was a hoss trout - 23.5", 4 lbs. After almost losing it to the drift sock, we netted it and gave a few high fives. We then had four minutes left to fish before we had to run in to be back for the weigh-in. Next cast, nice 19" trout on the Zebra bait. High fives again, followed by throwing the fish in the cooler and hauling butt to the ramp.
Long story short, we came in 2nd and won a little $$. Life is good.
As always, SNR had a great time...nice netting
The pavement shot
Two reds and two nice trout
