here and saw some posts about it. To be honest, I woulda gone fishin anyway. I caught my last
fish December 14th in thick fog and haven't had a trip since that didn't include either
freakishly low tides, fog so thick you can taste it, gale force winds etc. I haven't been but
about 5 times this year so far and today is the first time since I think early November that I
had the time to spend the whole day on the water. I haven't been so pumped for a fishin trip
in years. Didn't end up having a banner fishing day, but it was an awesome day overall, and
don't y'all know how good it felt to be on the water all day after being seriously deprived
for the last couple months.
So here's my long-arse report (see last paragraph and photos for ADHD version).
Mojo and I decided to go ahead and make the trek to Keaton today for the second time ever for
either of us and go exploring for a couple spots for next weekend. Grandmaster Mojo swung by
my house around 5:30 and we hit the road. We stopped at the Shell station down the road for
coffee and boat gas. The gas pumps were out of order and they had no coffee brewed yet - an
excellent omen for the day. Stopped again at the Twice-the-Ice. Dodged deer all the way down
27 from Tallahassee to the outskirts of the booming metropolis of Perry. Stopped in Perry,
gassed up boat and picked up the hottest, worst tasting cup of coffee I've had in at least the
last hundred years (I swear it must have been oil-based because it was way hotter than 212
degrees and tasted about as good as I'd expect motor oil to taste). After a ridiculously long
trip down, we finally got the boat in the water and hit the channel a little before 8:00. We
drove somewhere between 1 and 10 miles out the channel and then turned left either 90 or 270
degrees (sorry, I'm not a good estimator).
Stop number one: check out the area of spotty bottom where we caught all our keepers in last
year's tournament. Last year we drove to the end of the channel and flipped a quarter to
decide whether to go north or south, then looked for interesting features on the GPS map for
about 10 miles of coastline, picked one we liked and headed there. That spot was the only one
where we caught anything in last year's tournament. When we got there this morning, it was
loaded with baitfish, and we were getting quite a few short hits - nothing good though. After
about 30 minutes we decided to call that one and move on, glad to see it was still holding
some sea life. Played the pin-the-tail-on-the-GPS-chart game again and picked a first new
spot of the day.
Stop number two: On the way to scheduled stop number two I thought I caught a glimpse of some
really interesting looking bottom. Throttled down, circled back and found interesting
features. We drifted it for about 20 minutes saw a lot of much larger bait fish, got a
hundred or so more short hits, couple of 'real' hits there, no hookups. Marked spot and
jetted.
Stop three: Went flying in to water with 1 foot soundings pushing 45mph en route to planned
destination. Mook looks down in water and thinks to self "wow I really hope we don't have to
come off plane anywhere near this sandy area here cause we surely ain't gettin back on it
within a mile of here." Mook finds the free prop polishing station about 100 yards away from
destination. Mojo's once dull-looking prop is now organically polished stainless steel - you
can now see your own reflection in lower skeg portion of porter rock guard as well if you
squint properly. Still an hour and a half until low tide, decide to cut losses and spend the
next 30 or so minutes back-tracking out of the sand bar at speeds up to a whopping 0.8mph. It
would not be a day on the water for team Diehard without getting stuck at least once. This
time we weren't technically stuck so much as generally Munsoned. If you ain't getting stuck
on a regular basis, I say you ain't giving your best effort. Freak of nature occurrence
number one of the day happened during the crawl out of there; somewhat large seagull kept
crashing the water in the same spot over and over. finally noticed it was trying to yank up a
fish somewhat larger than itself - but it was only getting the head out of the water then
dropping it. I'd estimate the fish was proabably 15-20 inches and I'm pretty sure it was a
trout. It started thrashing around in the water pretty violently. After several failed
dive-bombing attempts by the bird, I see it coming down for another try - this time when it
was about a foot or two from the surface, the fish jumped maybe 6 inches out of the water head
first with an open mouth and nailed the bird. Bird flew a few feet away and landed on the
surface. I see thrashing in the water going toward the bird. Bird pecks at it a couple
times, then takes off and flies a few hundred feet away and lands back in the water floating.
I'd be hard pressed to believe this was an intentional attack on the bird, but from all
appearances, the fish injured the bird and then went after it some more. Fish got away. I'll
have to send an inquiry to Al Gore about this as it surely was a direct result of global
warming.
Stops four through x: we spent the rest of the outgoing tide and first hour or two of the
incoming combing the edges of the dangerously shallow water looking for holes and running
short drifts around those that looked promising. Mojo picked up the first trout of the day at
about 18" on one of those runs. Bites on every cast, few hookups. We did this for maybe 4
hours and covered several miles of coastline. The wind picked up to probably 15-20 as soon as
the tide turned, and it was blowing water in, resulting in a quickly forming flood tide. We
decided we could reach the grass lines, rocks and creeks so we shifted in to that mode just
running the cost line checking out all of them we saw.
Stop x+1 / aka another freak of nature: We found a particular creek with some abnormally
intriguing cuts and patterns near the mouth. It was less than a foot deep at the actual mouth
but after trying from several different angles we finally made it in. About 100 or so feet up
the creek, the bottom dropped out and it ranged from 5 or 6 feet to 'way too deep to see the
bottom.' Lots of exposed limestone, and the further we got down it, the faster the current
got. At some point the drift sock on the bow cleat passed under the boat and became a
hydro-sail. Boat was completely uncontrollable without serious throttling and we reached
speeds of several miles per hour sans-engine. This creek was probably 10 feet wide with
occasional areas barely wide enough to turn the boat around. It was completely unfishable due
to the speeds but it was so dang interesting we rode it out thinking every next curve would be
an impass for an 18 foot boat. We whizzed by a funny plant like the one pictured below (which
we found in another freakishly fast-flowing creek). We finally reached the impass about 2
miles or so down the creek. It kept going but split in to three tiny creeks, one of which was
still several feet deep but only about 1 kayak wide. After taking a few moments to utter
explicatives of amazement, we noticed that surrounding the closest patch of trees were several
more of those funny plants, only much bigger (some of them looked at least 4-5 feet tall) and
in better health. How abnormal (or not) is that for the Keaton area? I thought those didn't
grow in them parts but then it's only my second trip there.
Stops # I-lost-count to sunset: We hit up a few more creeks and decided to chek out some oyster
bars and rocks that weren't too far away. Dismal clouds brewing several miles to the north
and south. Wind was up to prolly a steady 20 and gusting really bad. We ended up caught in
some pretty massive seas trying to run deep for the rocky stuff. Decided it would be safer to
be LESS than 20 miles from the truck, and to NOT approach unknown oyster bars and rocks in 3-5
foot chop with a 20mph tailwind, so we turned around. We did decide to try a couple random
shallow areas in the midst of the deeper water. We had a 10 minute or so bluefish
extravaganza during which we each broke the cherry on new Falcon rods, and I caught my first
ever fish on a Captain Mike's slightly-fewer-weeds-than-regular spoon (a classic Made in USA
model!). I know they're excellent lures but I lost confidence in them after watching several
nice tournament sized reds hit them multiple times each and fail to get a hook in two
consecutive redfish tournaments early last year. Consequently I have rarely used them since,
but still always keep them on hand figuring some day I'd get over that hump and slay reds with
em. I know a blue isn't a 'real' fish, but it's a start eh?
Spent the rest of the day heading back toward the ramp stopping at spots we wanted to check
but couldn't get to in the lower tides earlier. We decided around 4pm to check on two spots
and head home. The first of those two yielded non-stop trout action for over an hour with
only one short. I think we boated 7 keepers there between the two of us, and each of us broke
the cherries on additional Falcon rods, both with 'real' fish this time, leaving no remaining
virgin rods. We had none over slot so far on the day so I tied on my favorite garnet and gold
top dog and I hooked up the whopper. Unfortunately it caught my line well above the leader and
thrashed it. I was way more upset about losing that top dog than the fish, just because I've
only seen that color in stores twice in my life, bought out the entire stock both times and
had pretty good luck with them. I tried an orange/gold skitterwalk for about 10 minutes and
got not a bite. Then a chart/white super spook for about 20 minutes without a hit. They were
still hitting the zulus and mojo got a couple nice hits on another top dg jr. So about a half
hour after losing my prized lure, in another part of the creek, I'm looking at a funny rip
current in a bend, and alas! Before my very eyes, my garnet and gold top dog pops up from
below and hangs itself up on the grass. I quickly went over and retrieved it, tied it back on
another rod and caught my last keeper on it about 2-3 casts later. With impending doom in the
sky and the tide swiftly outgoing, we headed for the hill about 6pm amid ridiculous winds and
light drizzle.
Temps ranged from about 50-75 - we had no functional therm-o-meter for water temps. winds from
almost nothin to almost not in Kansas any more. skies from sunny and clear, to overcast, to
moderate surface fog, to certain inevitable death. creek currents from 1mph to ~8mph. 1 prop
organically polished. 1 seagull owned by a fish. Don't know exactly how many trouts we
caught, but I think about 10 keepers and maybe 4 shorts, 5 bluefish, 1 pinfish. Dang near 75
miles on the odometer. All fishing stops between St. Marks light-house and Steinhatchee. Fish were
biting the ultimate trout bait (the strike king zulu) and a little bit of action on topwater
early and late as usual. All pinfish caught on top dog jr. ...and it wouldn't be a Mook
report if I didn't conclude by saying that all fish were caught in front of the St. Marks lighthouse on 3"
new penny Gulp! shrimp under Cajun Thunders.
First fish o'the day went to mojo
I got frustrated with all the pinfish buggering my zulu so I tried topwater with hilarious results (this is the top
dog I lost and later recovered)
Are these funny plants supposed to be all over the place around Keaton?
Mojo slayin em on the Zulu
Me not letting Mojo have the only trout pic in a report I spent so much time on
Perfecting my 'Mooking a fish' technique for the upcoming NFGFC trout tournament series
Looks like the Pelican Trees around Keaton Beach Marina are about ready for harvest
