St. Marks 2008.04.02 - Pre-Fishin on a School Night!
Posted: April 2nd, 2008, 10:48 pm
Headed down to JBT around 17:00 and put some more rod holders on my boat. Rain stopped right before I got there and it only took a couple minutes to screw in some rodholders, so I decided to hit the lighthouse. Drove the boat out the channel, turned, drove a couple miles, turned again, drove another couple or few miles and started fishin. I got a keeper trout on my first cast again, this time with a slightly different Redfish Magic softbait than I been using. It weren't nothin special at about 16". but it's always cool to get off to a good start.
I had my keeper limit in about 20 minutes with none over 20 and started experimenting with some new stuff I've been wanting to try. More on that another day. Also had a trailing Gulp / CT floating out behind my drift. That one also got a trout on the first cast, but not for 3-4 minutes and not a keeper. The pinfish indicator got about the same number of trout as the soft baits I was working, but only one keeper. Lots of shorts on the Gulp though (3" New Penny shrimp and some red curl-tail mullet dealies that last about 5 seconds each if there are pinfish around).
I moved to a new area where the CT was just rattlin on and on so I knew there was good bait there, decided to chuck the Top Dog Jr for a while and see what happened. The water was somewhat choppy and sky was overcast for the most part with low clouds blowing in fast out of the south, but the action was pretty good. I got at least one good blowup on about 70% of my casts. Caught a couple decent trout on it.
So I'm throwing the Top Dog, right? I'd seen a couple of GIANT swirls on the water around me in the last minute or two, and all of the sudden I see a wake behind the top dog. Slow. Like a big fish. Then I see a fin stick an inch or two out of the water. It's not a shark. I slow down the top dog and make it look sick. It gets bumped form behind, really half-arse. I twitch it again a couple times violently then slow it down. SPLOOSH! the water explodes and the rod bends over. Comes in surprisingly easy. It's a not-all-that-big-at-all sail cat. I've caught these things on Catch 2000 before, rarely, and a couple times on various soft baits, sinkers or suspenders. Even caught them on topwater once or twice, but always in shallow water and never seen one just explode on the surface like some kind of non-garbage-bottom-feeder like this one did. When I got it to the boat I figured it must have been a foul hook or somethin, but that didn't really make much sense considering I watched it follow the bait for a while. Nope - perfect hookset - rear hook in lip. Anyhoo, that was exciting.
Water was avg 74 degrees, weather was slightly sporty, low level clouds moving over fast, some advection fog resulting for 20-30 minutes around 18:30-19:00. Overcast most of the areas I fished at the times I fished them but the clouds were patchy and moving pretty fast. I used various softbaits, caught most on chartreuse. New Penny Gulp caught about 5 trout, one keeper. Top Dog Jr got lots of action, lots of short hits, landed the 3 trout to 19" and a sailcat. about a dozen trout total and maybe 8 keepers, first 5 keepers literally within 20 minutes, but two of them were maybe 15.25 - 15.5 so nothing to get too excited about.
You gotta always photograph the first fish of the day no matter how small, because if you don't, you won't catch another and there will be no pictures to share
Changed it up a little and made video. Was going to film what I was using and how it was hooked, but the fish flopped off the hook and on to the floor right about the time I got the camera rolling.
What with the meeting tomorrow and obligations Friday, that's the last time I get to hit the water before Saturday. See y'all there
I had my keeper limit in about 20 minutes with none over 20 and started experimenting with some new stuff I've been wanting to try. More on that another day. Also had a trailing Gulp / CT floating out behind my drift. That one also got a trout on the first cast, but not for 3-4 minutes and not a keeper. The pinfish indicator got about the same number of trout as the soft baits I was working, but only one keeper. Lots of shorts on the Gulp though (3" New Penny shrimp and some red curl-tail mullet dealies that last about 5 seconds each if there are pinfish around).
I moved to a new area where the CT was just rattlin on and on so I knew there was good bait there, decided to chuck the Top Dog Jr for a while and see what happened. The water was somewhat choppy and sky was overcast for the most part with low clouds blowing in fast out of the south, but the action was pretty good. I got at least one good blowup on about 70% of my casts. Caught a couple decent trout on it.
So I'm throwing the Top Dog, right? I'd seen a couple of GIANT swirls on the water around me in the last minute or two, and all of the sudden I see a wake behind the top dog. Slow. Like a big fish. Then I see a fin stick an inch or two out of the water. It's not a shark. I slow down the top dog and make it look sick. It gets bumped form behind, really half-arse. I twitch it again a couple times violently then slow it down. SPLOOSH! the water explodes and the rod bends over. Comes in surprisingly easy. It's a not-all-that-big-at-all sail cat. I've caught these things on Catch 2000 before, rarely, and a couple times on various soft baits, sinkers or suspenders. Even caught them on topwater once or twice, but always in shallow water and never seen one just explode on the surface like some kind of non-garbage-bottom-feeder like this one did. When I got it to the boat I figured it must have been a foul hook or somethin, but that didn't really make much sense considering I watched it follow the bait for a while. Nope - perfect hookset - rear hook in lip. Anyhoo, that was exciting.
Water was avg 74 degrees, weather was slightly sporty, low level clouds moving over fast, some advection fog resulting for 20-30 minutes around 18:30-19:00. Overcast most of the areas I fished at the times I fished them but the clouds were patchy and moving pretty fast. I used various softbaits, caught most on chartreuse. New Penny Gulp caught about 5 trout, one keeper. Top Dog Jr got lots of action, lots of short hits, landed the 3 trout to 19" and a sailcat. about a dozen trout total and maybe 8 keepers, first 5 keepers literally within 20 minutes, but two of them were maybe 15.25 - 15.5 so nothing to get too excited about.
You gotta always photograph the first fish of the day no matter how small, because if you don't, you won't catch another and there will be no pictures to share
Changed it up a little and made video. Was going to film what I was using and how it was hooked, but the fish flopped off the hook and on to the floor right about the time I got the camera rolling.
What with the meeting tomorrow and obligations Friday, that's the last time I get to hit the water before Saturday. See y'all there
....but great day in all mook cant wait for sat