4/19/03 St. Marks
Posted: April 19th, 2003, 8:40 pm
Carl Connell and I were easing out of the canal at daylight. Stopped and caught about 40 pin fish. It was a little rougher than I had expected. opted to go west a short distance rather than a long run east. Anchored up and put out the chum block, and flung a pin fish out the back of the boat. The cork never stopped. I set the hook and thought I had a good fish. It was a large ladyfish. On the next cast the cork sat for less than 5 seconds. Missed the bite and came back with half a pin fish. re-baited and put it out again. 15 seconds later i hooked a 27" shark. Long story short we caught several ladyfish and shark, and 1 17" trout at the first stop. The wind laid about mid-morning so we headed east. Trolled for spanish for 2 hours. Carl caught 1 spanish about 14". About 2:30 we got tired of that and headed to shallower water to try for trout. We drifted about 10 minutes with no bite. THEN...... The bite was on. We caught over 75 trout between 2:45 and 6:00. There was a 30 minute period that produced a fish every cast. Most were shorts but there were at least 20 keepers, the largest measuring right on 20". The water surface temp was 67 degrees at daylight this morning. By 6 this evening it was 75 degrees. The trout were caught on chartreuse grubs 4' below a Cajun Thunder worked slow. We didn't get the cobia we were after, but had a lot of fun with the trout this afternoon.