Rock garden report 5-12

[randymullaly]

My beautiful bride (Realtor) recently closed a deal with bman and I promised her a fishing trip as a reward. We floated the boat at the lighthouse at sunrise and ran strait out to the rocks. 3 dozen live shrimp in the live well, bucket of gulp (all assorted coolers and configurations) and a baggie of cut bacon for pin fish bait. Water was at 78 degrees and a light chop. Fished hard till about 11:00 and caught several large (18-24") puffer fish, sharks galore, the occasional catfish and two small trout. Water was smooth when we left and baitfish everywhere (learned that pinfish like bacon more than bacon fat). Just don't understand where the trout went and where these puffer fish came from!

[Bofus]

I appreciate the report as I was considering taking off of work and going tomorrow....I am now reconsidering...

[FishWithChris]

don't go to St. Marks... try Lanark instead! Or maybe Mashes, or maybe Keaton? IDK... where da fishes at!?

[DixieReb]

Sorry about that. Has anybody on here tried going out to deeper water (9-10 ft.) to look for trout? Just wondered. Seawater temp is up to 78 now.

[Redbelly]

I think deeper, salinity and temp.

[Blue spinner]

i went out to 10 to 12 ft of water about 2 weeks ago no sea bass no trout , we got 1 13" flounder in 2 hr. temp was i think around 74

[Redbelly]

i went out to 10 to 12 ft of water about 2 weeks ago no sea bass no trout , we got 1 13" flounder in 2 hr. temp was i think around 74

Then surely there has been a die off

[crappielimits]

Is it a good idea to start killing these puffer fish?

[Blue spinner]

if you can find some grass are remember where there was some last year is where i was found fish in 4 to 5ft. of water

[randymullaly]

We moved from the rocks to the grass (just west of the rocks) and tried it there for about an hour) 10:00 ish to 11:00 with very little activity. Might have been the tide. It was high tide. Very clear water at about 4 feet. Water so glassy that is seemed hazy. Huge swarms of bait fish moving all around. Everything looked perfect except the absence of the normal fish population this time of year. Any work from Keaton Beach? We had a lot of success on the flats there this time of year.

[Steve Stinson]

Fishing is off right now all along the coast. If you look at the two recent tournaments out of Perry, the winning weights were down and there were a lot of good fisherman fishing from Keaton to St. Marks who did not catch much. Same way with our NFGFC tournament this past weekend in St. Joe. The stringers and total weights were not close to those of past years.

There are so many club members on the water every weekend that we would have spotted a large-scale fish kill or any red tide outbreak if there had been one.

I am not sure where the fish have gone.