St. Marks Manatee and Fishing, Oct 23-24
Posted: October 27th, 2014, 9:08 am
Looked to be perfect tides and perfect weather, but some high pressure.
Fished west flats and ended up with 7 keeper trout over the two days. Fish were thin for their length with nothing in their stomachs except one shrimp. Mostly 16-17 inchers, but slow fishing. Even slow on lady fish, shorts, and sail cats. We were using gulp in new penny and white, fishing in 3-5 feet of water.
But beautiful time to be out on the water and of course, we had to take in the Stone Crab Festival in St. Marks on Saturday.
Highlight of the trip was a manatee that surfaced right at the boat. Thought we were drifting over a bar or a turtle and up pops a manatee. No prop scars, but a barnacle or two and algae. Very cool event! Looked to be a young cow maybe 6 or so feet long, but what do I know. She hung out for maybe 5 mins and off she goes.
Fished west flats and ended up with 7 keeper trout over the two days. Fish were thin for their length with nothing in their stomachs except one shrimp. Mostly 16-17 inchers, but slow fishing. Even slow on lady fish, shorts, and sail cats. We were using gulp in new penny and white, fishing in 3-5 feet of water.
But beautiful time to be out on the water and of course, we had to take in the Stone Crab Festival in St. Marks on Saturday.
Highlight of the trip was a manatee that surfaced right at the boat. Thought we were drifting over a bar or a turtle and up pops a manatee. No prop scars, but a barnacle or two and algae. Very cool event! Looked to be a young cow maybe 6 or so feet long, but what do I know. She hung out for maybe 5 mins and off she goes.