Tom shows up at my house at 6am and we hook up the boat. We make it 15 minutes down Hwy 98 and I passed a nice Beavertail being towed by a silver colored Chevy truck. I didn't think anybody in this area had a B2. Anyway, I pull into the gas station to get my sunflower seeds and some ice. I almost puked when I realized that I never checked to see if I had the boat key. Luckily, I found it in the boat. While paying at the counter, Tom says, "I think my license is expired". Great. We check the bait shop and the computer is down. I got him on the cell phone with FWC while we continued over the Navarre bridge to the boat ramp.
We launched the boat and skip across the Sound to a little grassflat that is loaded with trout. I shut the motor off and jump up on the poling platform. Immediately, I see a handful of trout, all in different locations, busting baits. I'm poling in a foot of water and trying to get Tom to see the trout. He's grown up fishing for crappie and bass. I've got to learn him how to feesh in da saltwater. After playing with the trout and chasing them all over the grass flat, we see a jon boat closing in on us. Lynwood has finally made it out. We fished this area and missed some nice strikes. I grew tired of fishing this area and wanted to try some different areas I haven't fished before. We ran to the other side of the Sound again, towards a natl seashore area. The first spot I wanted was occupied by a bright red bhass boat. Fugger. I spun around and headed down the shore towards a cool looking area with some nice trees and drop offs. As we approach, I see 2 figures standing waist deep in the water, about 40 yds apart. I remember my wading days and how I hated it when boats would invade my only fishing area, so I backed off again. I finally found a nice little sand flat and pulled the boat up. We worked the area and I lost 2 jig tails, but couldn't get anything to stick to the hook. There was some nice bait on the water, so we hunted some bheerfish while hanging out on the sand flat. In ankle deep water, I killed 2-3 bheerfish and snapped some pictures of the boat and the Mississippi boys.
We sat around to BS a little, drank some beer, then I decided to show Tom how to throw a cast net. After several lame attempts, we had a decent sized pinfish that decided he wanted to attack Lynwood in his jon boat. I threw the pin at him and he threw it back and hit Tom. They were talking chit to each other as I backed the Baycraft down on Lynwood, trimmed the motor up and shot the Yammie Tsunami at him. A wall of water hit him like a ton of bricks and almost flooded the jon boat. We had a good laugh, after I apologized, and decided that we were ready to continue fishing.
Off we go, to a spot I know holds some fish. We roll up, I give the obligatory lesson on where to cast and what to use, etc. Tom pitches a spoon while I am anchoring the boat, and he's hooked up. Brings a nice little trout to the boat. I get him back in the water and while I am rinsing my hands, he's hooked up again. Another nice trout. I finally pitch my exude to the dock and Tom is hooked up again. 3 trout in less than 5 minutes. We should have started at this spot today. I caught a dink red and a catfish (stoopid catfish) and Lynwood used his trolling motor to get around us to the next dock. As I am leap frogging him, he hooks up to a stud trout. He got him to the boat like a true bass fisherman and netted the fish. We pulled up next to him so I could give him my scale. 24inches and 7lbs. Nice trout.
We continued to fish the docks and pull some dink trout and ghetto redfish. We tried fishing the bridge pilings and I had a DOA shrimp get sliced in half while I was trying not to spill my beer. I have my priorities! It was 2:30 and we were ready to call it a day. We loaded the boats, had some great Grouper sammiches and headed to the house. On the way home, Tom says that he had almost talked himself out of buying a boat until today, when he got to hammer some fish. I'm glad he had a good time and I had a blast. It was a good day on the water.
Some pictures of Tom on my boat and Lynwood in his jon boat.
