Saint Marks and the Wind
Posted: October 27th, 2019, 5:16 pm
On Saturday, upon arrival at St. Marks, we realized how important the Stone Crab Festival is to the town, as traffic was backed up well beyond Newport road. After a 15 minute traffic delay, we made it to the boat, and headed out on the water. The wind was forecast to be out of the south, but it was more of a southeast wind, and it was strong. The river was very choppy heading out, but the FWC boat overseeing the fort re-enactments had no issue holding their ground. This was the largest FWC boat I've seen this up in the river.
The water in the bay was not as choppy as one might have expected, and tucking in behind sand bars helped. We hit the water right at slack tide, and it was slow at first, but the bite picked up. We only had about 2 hours to fish, but ended up with a keeper trout and a monster sailcat. Water temps in the bay were still holding at about 74F.
I fished again on Sunday, with a much improved forecast. Fortunately, I managed to forget my Garmin at home, so we fished blind ( at least when it came to water depth ) The wind was out of the north, and the fishing was good on the rising tide. We fished live shrimp, pinfish, and DOA lures.
We got broke off THREE TIMES by large fish, once due to a reel / braid malfunction, once due to a weak spot in the braid, and on the last fish, probably just too much drag, although it popped some 40# braid, and the pinfish it ate was big. I'm assuming it was a big shark, but I have no idea...
Ended the day with two keeper Spanish, and two keeper trout, with many other short trout and ladyfish in between.
It looks like a cold front coming in next weekend, and that's our last shot at Red Snapper...
The water in the bay was not as choppy as one might have expected, and tucking in behind sand bars helped. We hit the water right at slack tide, and it was slow at first, but the bite picked up. We only had about 2 hours to fish, but ended up with a keeper trout and a monster sailcat. Water temps in the bay were still holding at about 74F.
I fished again on Sunday, with a much improved forecast. Fortunately, I managed to forget my Garmin at home, so we fished blind ( at least when it came to water depth ) The wind was out of the north, and the fishing was good on the rising tide. We fished live shrimp, pinfish, and DOA lures.
We got broke off THREE TIMES by large fish, once due to a reel / braid malfunction, once due to a weak spot in the braid, and on the last fish, probably just too much drag, although it popped some 40# braid, and the pinfish it ate was big. I'm assuming it was a big shark, but I have no idea...
Ended the day with two keeper Spanish, and two keeper trout, with many other short trout and ladyfish in between.
It looks like a cold front coming in next weekend, and that's our last shot at Red Snapper...
