BigBendFishing.Net

Also Took A Kid Fishing.

Jumptrout51 had swallowed his pride and agreed to accompany me for the TAKF event. We met at Savanna’s for some breakfast and then headed to Shields. " I " backed the trailer down the ramp and then turned the vehicle over to JT51 after making sure we both were on the same page as far as when he was to pull away. In the water with no problems, we traveled down to the Fort and waited for the group to arrive.

The weather didn’t look to bad although the longer we waited, it seemed the wind increased a bit.


We met our new angler and took off down the river towards the light house. I’m glad that some of the other reports have documented how rough the conditions were and that several of them experienced a “wet ride” and were not in a Carolina Skiff nor had me at the helm. Perhaps that will serve to reduce the responsibility both I and my craft were assigned for Mr. Taylor’s moisturizing during our trip. The conditions were just right to produce spray that blew back onto us when ever we moved, and as other’s have reported it didn’t make any difference what your speed was adjusted to! But enough whining. We made our first stop East of the Light House and started our drift in 5 ft with the South wind moving us toward shore. Drift sock was out, water temp was 73-74 degrees, and our young angler immediately had lots of action with stuff that had teeth in their heads!! He became disconnected from terminal gear 3 or 4 times and it was obvious that we had mackerel all around us. We managed to put two nice mack’s in the box before heading back out for another drift. The mack’s were attacking the floats on the CT’s so I tried some top water but didn’t have any success. I believe it may have been so rough that the top action from the lures became lost in all the chop that was on the surface. A very large top water might have been a good choice if I’d had one. We moved just West of Grey Mare for a couple more drifts and then move again out deeper looking for a better bite but really didn’t find one. Getting close to time to leave, we headed West to our first spot of the day and had some more success for 30 minutes before we had to head back. Our Club President was standing and riding the bow deck as it moved up and down and casting all at the same time. He threw hard jerk baits and a CT with the smaller lime green float and had some success with that. However, he did his best work with a white grub and hooking it through the nose rather than running the hook back through and out the body. That produce several bites, fish lost at the boat, and one very nice trout that was not measured but certainly went over 20 inches.

Speaking of loosing fish at the boat we all seemed to have problems (more than usual) with fish coming unhooked. Our young angler had the most success with gulp new penny under the CT. We were able to make it back to the Fort about 10 minutes after 1pm and after dropping off our angler and depositing our fish into the community pot, we loaded up just as the rain started. I appreciate Steve going out and working the event with me. I enjoyed his company and I really need to offer him another trip with drier conditions if I can ever get him back into a Carolina Skiff Thanks Steve!

Thanks for the report Sir Reel. I know I mentioned our guest anglers were using Gulp too, but forgot to mention that I brought natural, lime tiger and new penny, all 3" shrimp. The new penny got by far the most bite. As much as I don't really care for Gulp most of the time, I have to admit that on those sort of weather days, the new penny color is great. SWA makes some blurp in a really similar color as well, can't remember what they call it, but the orange isn't quite as orange as the gulp (still works pretty well though!). It makes a great contrast to the sky when it's overcast, white clouds or blue sky, so on those days when it goes from one to the next to the next every 10 minutes, I really do like that color. The spanish were definitely out; our chaperone on our boat hooked up one close to two feet, but unfortunately it swam under the boat, around the motor and got away, all too fast to get a net anywhere near it.

I'm glad to see so many of the recent reports mentioning losing fish at the boat. I've been beating myself up over the disproportionate number of fish lost at the boat in the last few weeks. I've rarely ever had that problem, and in the last few weeks it seems I've lost slightly fewer than to twice as many as I've boated, depending on the day. Also had the experience that topwaters are getting nailed left and right but rarely hooked. I think it's a combination of thousands of shorts out there biting aggressively and bigger ones still just hitting soft. Hopefully that will all clear up in the very near future.

That was a really great day on the water and kudos to you and Grumptrout for participating. Double kudos to you for tending to the children AND Grumptrout at the same time

Ya'll done good taking them kids out.

The KID we had was great. he had been fishing before. Handled the rod like a pro. Net too.
Since Sir Reel has never had a 24 inch trout on his boat before, all he knew was it was over 20.
Yes, SR, I would go with you again, but only if we fish shallow.
Good fish hold on structure...ROCKS IS STRUCTURE.
P.S. My back should heal in a couple weeks.