Unfishing Report for 1/22/05
Posted: January 23rd, 2005, 12:05 am
Gentlemen,
Today's fishing trip started at about 12:30PM when my wife left to go get her hair cut with about 3 other women. I talked to my best friend and suggested we go wet our lines. In his usual overly enthusiastic tone he replied, "Uh, sure."
So we started out on our trek. 
We headed to the Tallahassee post office first since my mother was going psychotic about me not sending her the copies of the wedding pictures she bought. An later after I figured out that the post office sucks as much now as it did when I was a kid
, then we headed out of town. We stopped at the StopandShop on Woodville Highway outside of town to fill the car with gas. The clerk was nuts, I mean literally insane. 
He counted EVERY single item we purchased individually. After 25 minutes of his insanity we finally got back on Woodville highway. About a mile down the road we were at a standstill in traffic. Apparently they decided to start repaving Woodville HWY in the middle of the day. We sat there for 25 minutes before we started to move. 
We made our way out to Jerry's for the mandatory live shrimp. We found out that they had been sold out since 10 am. They also had no frozen shrimp. In a frustrated huff I left leaving my Mountain Dew on the counter.
We finally got out to St. Marks Wildlife Reservation. I had decided that I wasn't in the mood for Poor Mans fishing, so we rented a boat from that tiny bait shop / boat rental place on 98. We got a 14' johnboat thingy. Having never personally piloted a boat I knew that was going to be an adventure. Since I've had a hankering for trout for the last month we headed toward the salt. Lacking a GPS or a Depth Finder I stayed in the middle of St. Marks river and wasn't going to go out in the bay at all. I'm navigationally impaired without cool electronic gadgets.
After stop and start fishing we found that there were absolutely no fish anywhere in that river. That is with the exception of the 1 sand trout I caught that was a total length of my middle finger. I do believe that the Bala Shark in my wife’s fish tank would have kicked it's ass. As we came up on the first set of Channel markers heading out towards the bay I got honked at by a MASSIVE boat, probably a 40 - 50 footer. Apparently my little rental boats Idle wasn't Idle enough for that monster and I deserved having the living snot scared out of me, since I would obviously toss that little yacht all over the river. So to be polite I turned off the engine and coasted on the current for about 100 feet. I showed my roomie where the river was no longer a river and we turned around. This time on my way back I turned off the engine before getting to the Jolly red giant, my ears couldn't take another honk.
We coasted up the river and returned our boat and talked to the lady who rented it to us. She showed us pictures of the 32 pound striper her friend caught off her dock and raved about how great the fishing had been lately. Since I caught that little sand trout, apparently the day doesn't qualify as 'skunked,' but it sure felt like it.
The good news is that I didn't run the boat on to anything. Neither I nor my best friend fell out of the boat and overall I think I did a good job. In the end I can't wait to go out again, because a bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office.
Drayno
Today's fishing trip started at about 12:30PM when my wife left to go get her hair cut with about 3 other women. I talked to my best friend and suggested we go wet our lines. In his usual overly enthusiastic tone he replied, "Uh, sure."
So we started out on our trek. We headed to the Tallahassee post office first since my mother was going psychotic about me not sending her the copies of the wedding pictures she bought. An later after I figured out that the post office sucks as much now as it did when I was a kid
, then we headed out of town. We stopped at the StopandShop on Woodville Highway outside of town to fill the car with gas. The clerk was nuts, I mean literally insane. He counted EVERY single item we purchased individually. After 25 minutes of his insanity we finally got back on Woodville highway. About a mile down the road we were at a standstill in traffic. Apparently they decided to start repaving Woodville HWY in the middle of the day. We sat there for 25 minutes before we started to move. We made our way out to Jerry's for the mandatory live shrimp. We found out that they had been sold out since 10 am. They also had no frozen shrimp. In a frustrated huff I left leaving my Mountain Dew on the counter. We finally got out to St. Marks Wildlife Reservation. I had decided that I wasn't in the mood for Poor Mans fishing, so we rented a boat from that tiny bait shop / boat rental place on 98. We got a 14' johnboat thingy. Having never personally piloted a boat I knew that was going to be an adventure. Since I've had a hankering for trout for the last month we headed toward the salt. Lacking a GPS or a Depth Finder I stayed in the middle of St. Marks river and wasn't going to go out in the bay at all. I'm navigationally impaired without cool electronic gadgets.
After stop and start fishing we found that there were absolutely no fish anywhere in that river. That is with the exception of the 1 sand trout I caught that was a total length of my middle finger. I do believe that the Bala Shark in my wife’s fish tank would have kicked it's ass. As we came up on the first set of Channel markers heading out towards the bay I got honked at by a MASSIVE boat, probably a 40 - 50 footer. Apparently my little rental boats Idle wasn't Idle enough for that monster and I deserved having the living snot scared out of me, since I would obviously toss that little yacht all over the river. So to be polite I turned off the engine and coasted on the current for about 100 feet. I showed my roomie where the river was no longer a river and we turned around. This time on my way back I turned off the engine before getting to the Jolly red giant, my ears couldn't take another honk.
We coasted up the river and returned our boat and talked to the lady who rented it to us. She showed us pictures of the 32 pound striper her friend caught off her dock and raved about how great the fishing had been lately. Since I caught that little sand trout, apparently the day doesn't qualify as 'skunked,' but it sure felt like it.
The good news is that I didn't run the boat on to anything. Neither I nor my best friend fell out of the boat and overall I think I did a good job. In the end I can't wait to go out again, because a bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office.
Drayno