The water was 70.5 and dark and deeply stained like espresso, the wind was 15-19 out of the north. I made the eastern turn and headed east towards the flats. There were only a couple of boats there by this time. At the first stop I broke out the drift sock and set up a good drift. First two casts produce two keeper Spanish macks in the cooler. I was using a popping cork with a gulp jig underneath it and my neighbor was just jigging with a gulp. It was so windy I had trouble following my cork as it slipped under waves and foam and occasionally zipped off. The bite was “on” even though the wind was “on” to. The water temp where we were fishing was 71.5. The wind was such that I could hear it whistling through our lines on the extra poles we had rigged and brought along on the vertical rod holders. To say the bite was on would be an understatement. It was wide open. I made the command decision we weren’t going to put any trout in the cooler that was less than 16 inches. Within 20 minutes we had 5 hogs in the cooler, biggest was 21”, 16” being the shortest. For those of you who know about this time of year, THEY are BACK. We slammed the trout; releasing several limits and a few more big’uns (literally the ones we were releasing were 2”-3”above legal size). We only kept what we were going to keep, clean, and eat. Here is my neighbor with a "hog"..
We moved a couple of times to re-start out drift before the upper level clouds broke and let the sun shined directly on us. The water surface quickly warmed up to 72.5. Around 1100 the wind died down and we continued to catch trout.
Me with another "hog" -
By 1130 the bite shut down. We decided to go and jig in some deeper water out in 8 foot and picked up some short rock bass and after a decent fight, strangely, a keeper Blue fish (into the cooler). About then we decided to head south and troll for grouper. I laid in a course for Ballard Reef and was giving my partner a quick lesson on how to troll for grouper. Once we got in 20’ of water I put out the stretch 25’s and noticed that some commercial fisherman or crabber had those round Styrofoam floats strung out about every 25 yards or so in every direction. I don't know what they were thinking but those floats were everywhere. I told my partner to watch the poles and lines and lemme know if we get hung on one of the crabbers lines. The funny thing was, I had “assumed” that he “understood” that the stretch 25’s were deep running hard baits. While I was dodging those round Styrofoam floats strung out about every 25 yards or so my fishing buddy didn’t say anything to me about the lures skipping across the top of the water. I didn’t look back until we were almost 2 miles from Dog Ballard Reef. After giving him a quick lesson on the baits and how they are deep-diving-runners, I decided to turn our trolling towards Wakulla Reef. So I was driving the boat and glancing back once in a while….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz one of the poles went off. I shut off the boat and told him to reel in the other pole while I checked the one that appeared to be hung on one of the crabbers lines. I’d pull, and the float would move…. I was a little upset on the inside but controlled and calm on the out side. The line was obviously hung and we had to go back and at least try to retrieve the lure. After giving him a quick lesson on how to drive the boat, we went back over toward the float and magically the float let go, but still my lure had become hopelessly lodged in a rock on the bottom. After circling a few times, we decided it best to just cut the line. That was when I let the line go completely slack (to get the cutters) and just gave it a last vigorous snatch, and it tugged back at me (with vengeance) and we both were awestruck at the same time. After a good fight I had landed this 24” Gag. .....
Then into the cooler he went.... - 
Incredible day on the water at least for us. Let everyone know the Trout are back and in great numbers. That trip wore me out, arms sore, and fixing to take nap after lunch.
.... 4/14/2013 - Today's Lunch...
Can't wait to do it all over again
What color gulp were they likeing?
