St. Marks 2008.05.31 - trout are out deep now
Posted: May 31st, 2008, 8:15 pm
Headed out from the lighthouse wiht mojo this morning at about 7-ish. Initial plan was to troll the reefs until about high tide and then, weather permitting, try a little red huntin on the outgoing. Just wanted a little change of pace and hadn't been to any of the reefs since last year. Many snafus in our plans throughout the morning, the worst of which is probably that the sonar quit working due to broken cable when we got about 500 feet from St Marks reef - out the rest of the day. Drove around aimlessly for a while trolling stretch 25's. I got a nice hookup, drag on senator failed, line broke. No more bites for me. Mojo got a fish or two but overall we got about 5 bites in as many hours.
Headed northeast from there and hit up a creek. Got in to a good topwater trout bite right away - that lasted for about 5-6 casts and as many failed hooksets until we ended up smack in the middle of the floating grass factory. Couldbn't get more then 2-3 twitches out of any surface walker before they were fouled beyond movement. catch 2000's, 52M and even a couple different sofbaits could not solve that problem. idled to another spot about a mile away, rinse repeat...same thing happened there.
Got up to a good creek mouth and wind picked up a few miles per hour when we got about 100 feet from there. After experiencing equipment problems during 70% of this time span, mojo dug in and hibernated in the bow. I wandered around some creeks I've never really fished and found what I thought was a good spot. beached the bow on a sand bar and started working zulu, spook and top dog. took the reel from the combo I won at the SJB tournament which is now spooled with 8lb power pro and attached to a tiny light action rod and threw a small gulp minnow out to see if there were bait fish around. That thing got tore up quick. I left it sittin there in one of the flush mounts while workin the other stuff. Mojo emerges from la-la land and throws some sort of mirrolure surface walker (td jr I think) right down the line I've been throwing for half an hour and gets a nice blowup on his first cast, no hookup, no second hit.
I started chuckin around some other areas thinkin I must be wrong about this spot but it just looks so perfect...about to call it and head out of there and happen to spot a nice slot red easing by...then another one a few minutes later. OK...we'll stick it out... I start getting some hits on the zulu..mojo has baclup equipment problems...we're working on one of his busted up lines and reels and all of the sudden mr light action 8lb line rod is bent over almost to the water. I got the most entertaining fight from a 22.5" red of my life. Good eatin size - he's in the box. I'm a little embarrassed that I'm working this magic zulu and the dead-sticked Gulp (with only about 40% of the original bait still in tact) catches a red, but hey it was fun and I got a nice eatin red - right?
ok so this tiny gear redfish thing is fun - I chuck it back out to roughly the same spot, which is a run I thought reds might take in and out of the creek near the mouth. I set it in the rod holder and throw the zulu back out - that gets nailed, I hook up but lose it. little pole bends over real nice - I set the zulu in rod holder #2 to pick up little pole...nothing...but hey zulu pole is now bent over. I carefully replace little pole in rod holder #1 and pick up zulu pole...nothing...oh but hey little pole is bent over...$#|7 do I have my lines crossed? ... pick up little pole zulu pole bends over thrice...grab one in each hand and they both get hit - I swear I'm not making this up and I really wish I had a video of it so you could all laugh at me...I tell mojo this is quickly becoming an episode of the 3 stooges, minus larry and curly. put little pole back down and start working the zulu again to see if I can entice a bite - get nailed hard but it lets go - turn around and little pole is bent over to the water - brought in another red at about 22.
Realized about that time that the boat was on nearly dry land. Time to get out of dodge - still 3 hrs till low tide and I'vfe spent enough nights out there already thanks, don't feel like campin' tonight. well we had three possible routes of egress - 2 were definite "no" so we took the third. Had to idle about 5 miles sticking in tidal runs, traversing creeks etc to get to a place that we barely got out of afloat, decided to call it a day...a $%*%#$#@% weird day...
Tally for the day - 2 nice eatin size reds - both caught on light tackle and new penny 2.5" gulp minnows of some sort in 9-12 inch 86 degree water in a creek
and
1 slot trout for mojo - and again I swear I'm not making this up - on a firetiger stretch 25, in 21 foot deep 85 degree water - take that deep water stake-line-trout-fishers!
Headed northeast from there and hit up a creek. Got in to a good topwater trout bite right away - that lasted for about 5-6 casts and as many failed hooksets until we ended up smack in the middle of the floating grass factory. Couldbn't get more then 2-3 twitches out of any surface walker before they were fouled beyond movement. catch 2000's, 52M and even a couple different sofbaits could not solve that problem. idled to another spot about a mile away, rinse repeat...same thing happened there.
Got up to a good creek mouth and wind picked up a few miles per hour when we got about 100 feet from there. After experiencing equipment problems during 70% of this time span, mojo dug in and hibernated in the bow. I wandered around some creeks I've never really fished and found what I thought was a good spot. beached the bow on a sand bar and started working zulu, spook and top dog. took the reel from the combo I won at the SJB tournament which is now spooled with 8lb power pro and attached to a tiny light action rod and threw a small gulp minnow out to see if there were bait fish around. That thing got tore up quick. I left it sittin there in one of the flush mounts while workin the other stuff. Mojo emerges from la-la land and throws some sort of mirrolure surface walker (td jr I think) right down the line I've been throwing for half an hour and gets a nice blowup on his first cast, no hookup, no second hit.
I started chuckin around some other areas thinkin I must be wrong about this spot but it just looks so perfect...about to call it and head out of there and happen to spot a nice slot red easing by...then another one a few minutes later. OK...we'll stick it out... I start getting some hits on the zulu..mojo has baclup equipment problems...we're working on one of his busted up lines and reels and all of the sudden mr light action 8lb line rod is bent over almost to the water. I got the most entertaining fight from a 22.5" red of my life. Good eatin size - he's in the box. I'm a little embarrassed that I'm working this magic zulu and the dead-sticked Gulp (with only about 40% of the original bait still in tact) catches a red, but hey it was fun and I got a nice eatin red - right?
ok so this tiny gear redfish thing is fun - I chuck it back out to roughly the same spot, which is a run I thought reds might take in and out of the creek near the mouth. I set it in the rod holder and throw the zulu back out - that gets nailed, I hook up but lose it. little pole bends over real nice - I set the zulu in rod holder #2 to pick up little pole...nothing...but hey zulu pole is now bent over. I carefully replace little pole in rod holder #1 and pick up zulu pole...nothing...oh but hey little pole is bent over...$#|7 do I have my lines crossed? ... pick up little pole zulu pole bends over thrice...grab one in each hand and they both get hit - I swear I'm not making this up and I really wish I had a video of it so you could all laugh at me...I tell mojo this is quickly becoming an episode of the 3 stooges, minus larry and curly. put little pole back down and start working the zulu again to see if I can entice a bite - get nailed hard but it lets go - turn around and little pole is bent over to the water - brought in another red at about 22.
Realized about that time that the boat was on nearly dry land. Time to get out of dodge - still 3 hrs till low tide and I'vfe spent enough nights out there already thanks, don't feel like campin' tonight. well we had three possible routes of egress - 2 were definite "no" so we took the third. Had to idle about 5 miles sticking in tidal runs, traversing creeks etc to get to a place that we barely got out of afloat, decided to call it a day...a $%*%#$#@% weird day...
Tally for the day - 2 nice eatin size reds - both caught on light tackle and new penny 2.5" gulp minnows of some sort in 9-12 inch 86 degree water in a creek
and
1 slot trout for mojo - and again I swear I'm not making this up - on a firetiger stretch 25, in 21 foot deep 85 degree water - take that deep water stake-line-trout-fishers!
