Aucilla

Post by **rocket** » July 3rd, 2004, 6:21 pm

Knocked off a little early Friday afternoon, and headed to the Aucilla with Fishmasterson, and another buddy. Conditions were perfect once the tide turned, with a little wind, a little ripple, and cooler with cloud cover , and light rain.
Very slow until we ran offshore to about 6' of water. We caught a few undersized trout, and some blues.
Highlight of the evening was a 30" redfish that I fought for a good ten minutes. There's nothing like setting the hook, and hearing your buddy say "damn what a fish!!".
After that the only excitement was something BIG crashing top water, but never revealing itself. My buddy set the hook on one, but it was only two seconds of fight and he was broke off. My guess was tarpon.
While I was watching a storm cloud on the horizon today at St. Marks, I saw one leap 5' in the air, and he was every bit of 80-100lbs. It was beautiful.

Post by **DixieReb** » July 3rd, 2004, 6:36 pm

Did you get the big red? and were there any big trout out there? Aucilla has had some big trout this year. I'll be glad when it cools down a little so we can go back.

Post by **rocket** » July 3rd, 2004, 10:45 pm

Dixie,
Yeah, I caught him, and it was a blast!!!

The only trout we caught were under sized. Fish Masterson caught one that probabally would have gone 15", but that was the largest trout we came across.
I agree, Aucilla has got some monster trout, but we didn't find them. We didn't have a lot of time since we got out there late.

Post by **Fish Masterson** » July 4th, 2004, 12:45 am

Heck, Rocket, you left out the real highlight of the trip. It was the raging, rock bouncing, sand bar jumping return to the hill. Now that was excitement.

Just before dark on a -0.7 tide and falling we decided to make a go of it, and return to the ramp. Found an oyster/sand bar in about 3 inches of water running about 30mph. Man, what a stop! We all hopped out and were able to shove the soon to be named "Bullet Proof Boat" back into open water. Phew! After that our captain understandably clammed up a bit, and was a little shy with the throttle. After several minutes of bottom bumping and idling in, we soon found ourselves in the dark with out a light. We just went where the GPS told us and kept head'en into the river. We were doing good for a little while until we found the "Gauntlet". This was a series of rocks that were sticking up out of the water, but unfortuanatly, were invisible to us, due to the lack of a light.

After about six or seven crash and skid overs, we finally made it to the ramp.
All in all, it was a great time with a great ending, and we at least got to see Rocket tug in a nice fish. I am glad we were'nt in my boat, except for the fact that we would have had a light.
I guess the moral to this is always try to be prepared for night fall 'cause sooner or later it just might catch you.
Fish Masterson

Post by **Aucilla** » July 5th, 2004, 9:42 pm

That is SO right about the light. I have just a little 13-er, and I got on of those cirgarette-lighte style plugs and I carry a strong light that plugs in there, in a dry bag. I needed it once. It is like four-wheel drive, as they say. You may not need it often. But it saved the day for me that time.

But what a neat report! Thanks for that story, the highs and the lows. It all made for a great adventure, not to mention great story and nice catch too.