I had the pleasure of being able to fish for 5 days straight a couple of weeks ago, taking a couple of friends for 2 days, then my son, a friend and his two boys the next two days.
Started Monday morning west of the lighthouse catching a few from the second stake out to the big sand bar. Then headed east around the Mare and did a little better though not much. Seems this trip as well as one two weeks before that there are a whole bunch of trout 14-14 15/16s inches, but keepers have been harder to come by than last year. I don;t think there are as many trout period in St. Marks as this time last year. We caught as many on Mirror lures as jigs, with very few on live shrimp.
I think the three of us put in about a dozen keepers in the cooler those first two days. Other folks seemed to be doing ok in deeper water, others not as well as we were.
On Tues. we only fished half a day as my friends had to get back and the AM bite was slow. I spent the afternoon doing a litle skinny water exploring, but couldn't find a red, only getting soaked by a shower that snuck up on me.
That PM was highlighted by hearing my wife's play by play of my 10 yearold's baseball game, including his first homer over the fence. I promptly bragged to some of the other guys at the fish camp. My friend and the boys headed down after the ballgame and got in about 0100. I let them sleep 'til 0600 and then we were off. We stared west again. My son hangs a very nice trout on his first cast which jumped out of the net twice before getting off. Here, let me digress. I know that the rubberized net is supposed to be more fish friendly, byt we sure seem to have a lot more excitement and disappointment over fish lost at the boat side with it vs. the traditional string net. Caught one or two in the 17-18" range before heading to favored eastern spots. Ended the first day with 7-8 nice trout and a lot of throwbacks just short. Had to race a huge storm into the river around 2 pm. Got checked by the Man in the nowake zone with another serious cloud threatening-those guys sure lack judgement sometimes! We ended the day with 8 keeper trout and 3 keeper Spanish.
The next day was similar except that I had the biggest trout I ever hung up to the boat courtesy of a catch 2000 knocked off by my friend after he jumped out of the net 3 times. Caught a 19"er in the same spot a few minutes later. The wind was pretty strong all day and we finished with a similar bag as the day before off of catch 2000s and jigs worked off of the bottom. The little guy you will see in the pictures to follow helped load up the live well with pins as we hoped for smooth waters the next day.
Friday, we stopped by the pinfish trap and added to the baitwell and headed a little off shore even though it wasn't vey smooth. The first stop we able to get over the spot on the first anchor drop. I put a freelined pin on for my son and one each for my friend and me headed to the bottom. I had no sooner dropped my bait than I heard my son groaning like he was in labor. "Reel Willie reel!" "I can't, argh!" "Yes you can! As fast as you can or he'll rock you." Well, he did reel and pulled up a 21 and 15/16s gag. At this point, I am trying to stretch the fish and get the hook off without succes when my friend lets out a groan,"What kind of fish is that?" The boys are all at the stern yelling, "It's a shark, it's a shark!"
One look and I see we have finally caught up with the man in the brown suit of keeping proportions. Over the next twenty minutes I straighten up the boat and repeatedly tell my friend that he will just have to fight the fish some more 'cause I am not bringing a green Cobia into my little boat. Well finally the fish is to the side and appears gaffable, so with the cooler open and my fish glove on the left hand the brown-suited one is brought over the side straight into the cooler and the top slammed down with the tail sticking out one end. Hi fives all around. My son and friend are soon rocked up on the bottom and this ends the bite. The waves are getting up and the two older boys are looking a little greean around the gills. The more water over the bow, the more the little guy with the broken arm likes it! We decide to pick up the anchor and move in closer to another number. This time It looks like Lucille Ball is trying to anchor the boat and I almost give up. Finally we catch on something and end up near the marker bouy. Same baits go out and my friend quickly has another cobia, much larger, on but the hook come out as the fish tosses his head on the surface. That was the end of the action as we had to leave a little early, just as the water was smoothing out.
It was a great week.
Nuts
Pictures to follow.
