Live Oak Island 10/19
Posted: October 20th, 2009, 4:37 pm
Went solo and launched the canoe out of Live Oak Island at 2:30 in the afternoon. Fished the flats right out front until shortly after sunset catching the later part of the rising tide through the first of the falling tide. Poled out to where I could drift across to the Old Shell Point Channel. Not as windy as I expected. Wind was out of the ENE at about 5 mph when I got there, and very gradually picked up through the afternoon. Picked up a nice flounder on a soft plastic jerkbait drifting across the flats. This was after the pinfish had knocked the tail off my jerkbait. Picked up a few short trout as I worked my way out the channel. Nothing to write home about in numbers or size. Got most of them on jigs, a few on a 7M MirrOlure. Seems lately when the trout are hitting jigs they don't care what color. They like 6" plastic worms, too. The nice thing about a 6" plastic worm is the pinfish can progressively knock it down shorter and shorter and the trout will still hit it. Decided to try around the Old Kelly Channel, so threw out a pair of 7Ms to troll my way over there. The trolling bit was a lost cause, MirrOlures being the grass magnets that they are. Wasn't much floating grass around, but it was enough. Anchored off the edge of the Old Kelley Channel and got a few hits casting around the edge of the channel, but wasn't connecting with anything. Finally did connect with something. Got it up by the boat and ...
"What the heck is that?"
"Two fish? A double? ... On grouper!?"
Two grouper on a 7M MirrOlure. One on the front hook and one on the rear hook. Both were big enough to be worth cleaning, but they went back. I'm not up on the grouper regs. I think they were both gags, but I almost never target grouper so don't know much about 'em ... That is not to say that I know much about anything else.
Got up on the shallowest part of the flats. The long sand (mostly) bar that runs all the way across in front of Live Oak Island and Shell Point, and drifted down that back to the west. Drifted down it as best I could. I did have to pole back into position once in a while to keep the boat in the shallowest water. Connected with a Bi-i-i-g trout doing this on the 7M. Enough trout I thought it was a mid-slot red until I got her up where I could see her. But some incompetent dip-weed saved me the trouble of unhooking her by knocking her off with the landing net. Oh well, not exactly a heart breaker. She wasn't any bigger that any of the other trout I've ever caught that were in the mid-to-high twenties.
Didn't do much after that. One slot trout, and a ladyfish that tried to swallow my whole 7M tail first.
Caught:
trout
grouper
black sea bass
flounder
lizardfish
ladyfish
Kept:
1 trout
1 flouder
Oh; one other thing. Catching stuff like like black sea bass and grouper while fishing inshore for trout and reds isn't really a surprise, but it's not real common either. But it seems this year I've caught more grouper and blacks than any prior year, and some of the blacks were legal. Anybody else notice this?
"What the heck is that?"
"Two fish? A double? ... On grouper!?"
Two grouper on a 7M MirrOlure. One on the front hook and one on the rear hook. Both were big enough to be worth cleaning, but they went back. I'm not up on the grouper regs. I think they were both gags, but I almost never target grouper so don't know much about 'em ... That is not to say that I know much about anything else.
Got up on the shallowest part of the flats. The long sand (mostly) bar that runs all the way across in front of Live Oak Island and Shell Point, and drifted down that back to the west. Drifted down it as best I could. I did have to pole back into position once in a while to keep the boat in the shallowest water. Connected with a Bi-i-i-g trout doing this on the 7M. Enough trout I thought it was a mid-slot red until I got her up where I could see her. But some incompetent dip-weed saved me the trouble of unhooking her by knocking her off with the landing net. Oh well, not exactly a heart breaker. She wasn't any bigger that any of the other trout I've ever caught that were in the mid-to-high twenties.
Didn't do much after that. One slot trout, and a ladyfish that tried to swallow my whole 7M tail first.
Caught:
trout
grouper
black sea bass
flounder
lizardfish
ladyfish
Kept:
1 trout
1 flouder
Oh; one other thing. Catching stuff like like black sea bass and grouper while fishing inshore for trout and reds isn't really a surprise, but it's not real common either. But it seems this year I've caught more grouper and blacks than any prior year, and some of the blacks were legal. Anybody else notice this?
