Lanier Revisited

11.27.10
Air: mid fifties
water: 61 deg
windy, cool, blue bird skies

Got in a quick fishing trip with Nick and his Dad while taking Hunter back to ATL for his plane ride back to Memphis.

Hooked up with Nick late morning at Balus.

We ducked into Flat creek to stay out of the wind and absorb the sunshine as we BS'ed about everything from fishing, hunting, college, Nick's future in the FLW tour and of course the President.

In between we finally patterned the bass at about 35' to 40' deep along creek ledges.  The spaghetti lines on the graphs were showing their whereabouts and a jighead with a sand worm or a spoon would bring them up.

Biggest fish of the day was by Nick's dad on a ledge in the back of Flat.
He was probably a little over 3 lbs.

The rest were in the 2 lb. range as shown here:

Left them biting as we hauled out of Balus Ramp with another successful day of fishing at Lanier under our belts.

Smooth Seas=Big Grouper

Water: 71 deg. calm
Wind: light from the east
Weather: sunny, 70's
Tide: low to incoming
11.24.10

We decided to try and really get our lines stretched with a half day trip on Wednesday.

We travelled over to Mashes but the tide was so low, we couldn't get the Nan Z into the water without backing off the ramp.  Been there, done that.
So, we headed off to Panacea to put in there.  The new ramp at Rock Landing has made for the possibility of getting in even on a very low tide.

After getting in we headed out to our Yank Wreck hole.

Nancy and Hunter were the designated fisherman today, and I was the designated bait installer.

They caught many pink mouths and a few undersized grouper, but certainly not what we were looking for.

Headed over to our Good hole where Doug and I pounded the Red Grouper a few weeks ago.

A lot more grouper there and the designated fisherman put a few undersized groups in the boat and this one nice keeper Red in the box.

We decide to head about a mile away, a little further to the east, where I had a number.  Don't remember much about the spot, but we were soon to be surprised by the fish there.

About as soon as the baits got down, we knew we were on a good grouper hole.

Rods were hitting the gunnels with regularity.

I heard a grunt of "there he is" by Hunter and looked over to this sight:

 Hunter was soon to bring in the biggest grouper we have landed on the Nan Z, a whopping 16 lb., 32 incher.

Nancy was next in the act, with her biggest grouper she has ever caught.

She then went and got her fighting belt in case she had to do it again.  But, after some more action, we ran out of bait.

We tried trolling some stretch 30's over the hole, but to no avail, they must have wanted only the dead fish today.

We packed it up and headed to the hill.

A nice 4 and a half hour trip, with lots of meat in the frig, and another memorable trip at the Forgotten Coast.

Ditto That

11.22.10
Water: 66 deg., calm, high tide to outgoing
Air: 70's
Moon: Full

Hunter and I decided we would try to duplicate yesterday's success at the mouth of the OR.

Since everything was the same as yesterday except the tides just being an hour later, we decided to hit the docks in the OR with some shrimp while the tide was up.

We went almost to the bridge and decided to fish back towards the ramp.
We were pitching shrimp to the outside edges of the docks and used a baker's dozen of shrimp to no avail.  The only bites we got were from what we think were sheepshead, jerk, no bait.  No good redfish pulls.

So, off we went to the oyster bars.  This time we got to fish one of our favorites in the middle of the bars.
I was casting a gold johnson spoon, and Hunter was gulpin  a shrimp.

I caught this nice 20" trout on the spoon there.

Hunter caught a couple of small reds and I got broken off by a big red on a new penny gulp.
I remembered a workshop Nancy and I went to last winter.  The guide said that a large gulp jerkshad works well.
So, I put on the last one I had and the first cast produced this guy.

We caught a couple more reds there, and then decided to head off to where we left them yesterday evening.

Although they weren't as thick as they were the night before, we were enjoyed a magnificent sunset and another nice  19" trout.

Hunter nabbed this nice red using my rod, while he made me retie his line when he got broke off on a fish. (sneaky).

Finally at dusk on the "last cast", I was quickly reeling in my jerkshad when a big ol' red came up and missed it as I about to pull it out of the water, I quickly stopped my retrieve and he came back. After a big swirl, a tightening of the line and a solid hook set; SNAP went my line.

We packed it in with the thoughts of "I'm gonna have to buy me another bag of those baits!"

Hunter is back and the Reds are Biting

11.21.10
Water temp: 68 deg., very clear
Wind east 10mph
Tide: very high (full moon), to outgoing
Air: 70's

Well, Hunter is in from college and waiting to get on the water.  Every time he gets in the boat in the fall, you know the reds are coming aboard.

We had a great battle plan.  High tide was at 2:30 PM and we would hit the edges of the OR and fish the weedlines until the water started to move, and then hit the oyster bars.

Well the first part of the plan was really bad in execution. We fished the west side of the OR, for a couple of hours, skipped over and hit a couple of oyster bars in the middle of the OR and then fished the docks and a couple of oyster bars by Tradewinds for another hour or so and all we had to show for it was Nancy's 10" redfish.

The tide finally started to move out and we headed to the mouth or the OR to fish the clam bar.  We hooked, but didn't land a few small trout.

For the finale, we decided to hit the oyster bar between 11 and 13 markers.

We pulled up to the bar, and the mullet were jumping everywhere, which was the first activity we had seen.

As we eased up along the bar, I had to start fishing ol' reliable, white gulp shrimp on a jighead.  It didn't take long and the first 24"  6 lb. red came aboard.

About 10 minutes later this beautiful multi spotted red decided to take the bait.

He was so pretty he got a reprieve and got to swim off, maybe wiser to gulp.

The next few casts produced another 18" red, which also was released.
We lost a couple of nice trout also.

They were on fire and it was almost dark when we finally left the honey hole hoping they would be there tomorrow!

We placed this fishing trip in the category of keep your line wet and good things will happen.

Bassin' and Troutin' at Crystal River

11.18,19 2010
Water: Super Clear, Temp. Unknown
Little breezy out of the east

Went down to Crystal River to fish with my bro.  Still taking antibiotics and covering up real good, we headed out to bass fish Thursday afternoon and trout/red fish on Friday morn.

Doug said he had been killing them, so it was my turn to get some killin' done.

The water down there is very clear, the river is aptly named.

We started out at Doug's hotspot, a cove that has a pipe connecting to another canal.

It didn't take long for Doug to hook up on a spunky little chunk, but he got spit before we could admire the fish.

Then, I hooked a nice chunk and while lifting him in the boat the line broke, er, the line came untied.  I'm gonna fire my guide for tying a knot like that.

So, you can kind of see how this day went.

We managed to put two in the boat, and missed or let another 6-7 get off.

The bass down there are dark and very beautiful as you can see in the pix.

I threw the toad all day, while Doug alternated between his 10 rods, but I think he missed all of his on a white super fluke.

We headed out to try some trout/red fishing early Friday on the dead low tide.

It gave Doug a chance to look at the lay of the land at a new boat ramp he has never put in before.  He drove past his usual boat ramp telling me lies about how many fish he's caught over the past week.  So we ended up  at the very tip of one of the long points that are around Crystal River.

After some slow negotiating in low water, we got out to his honey holes, but the fish didn't cooperate except for one flounder Doug caught on the Gulp Shrimp

As we were heading out we passed over a weed patch that I had him mark on his GPS, so we could fish it on the way back in.

It's a good thing we did, because on our first drift over it, we caught 3 keeper trout and a few shorts.

Our second and third pass didn't reveal anymore fish, so we loaded it on the trailer and bid Crystal River adieu!

Meow, Meow, Meow.....

11.8 and 9,2010
Weather, nice and a little breezy Highs in the 70's
Water: Alligator Harbor: 62, OR: 65

Nancy and I tried it on Monday and Tuesday of this week.  We really got into the catfish.  Not what we were trying to do.

We haven't been able to put the boat in until the afternoons due to the extremely low tides.

We decided to try some different locales this week, with the Harbor being the one on Monday.  We met a man and his son as we were putting in at Surf and Sun.  They were coming in and said fishing was reel good on Turkey Pt. Shoals.  They said the water was crystal clear and loaded with reds and trout.

It was a little too late for us to head out there, and the evening chop had picked up.  We decided to anchor up and fish the Alligator Pt. tip hoping to catch a bull red on some cut mullet.

Unfortunately, we caught cat after cat.  Got our lines stretched though.

Tuesday, we put in at the Roho ramp up the river.  Some mullet fishermen were coming it and pointed out an area that was loaded with bull reds.

We made our way there, but came up with nothing.

We fished around the mouth of the river for a while and ended up anchoring in the river just past the ramp.  Our bug lady, Sherri said she had been catching some nice reds there fishing off a dock.

We caught another cat and some really big crabs.  Finally I hooked up on a big red, he was fighting hard in the current.  Suddenly, slack line greeted me.  If figured he broke my line, but as I reeled in, he just had gotten off somehow.

I got laid up with a bad case of diverticulitis yesterday, and probably won't get out on the water for a while.  I think the good fall fishing season is upon us though, and if possible, I'll get out there sooner than later.

Mama Don't Let Your Babies Get Blistered

11.4.10

Went up to my skin doc to get my cancer removed.

He said that if you get sunburned and blistered as a child you have a real good chance of developing skin cancer when you get to be an old fart.

Well, I remember going swimming by the Olentangy River north of Columbus, OH and getting burned and blistered every year for a while when I was just a young'un.

In Ohio, if you got a sunburn AND got blistered you were like a god.  Wow, you are cool!  After those outings it was neat just to sit back and break the blisters that were on you back and arms.

Well, last month after fishing offshore, I felt a raised patch on my skin.  I thought it  was just dry skin and was rubbing goop on it to try and make it go away.  My doc said this is how you make it go away.

Ten stitches later, no more dry scaly itchy spot.  

He said the face lift was done for free.

Oh well, wear that sunscreen!

Here is the description of what I have:

Squamous cell carcinoma in situ: An early stage of skin cancer. Also known as Bowen's disease.

This is a tumor that develops from the squamous cells which are flat, scalelike cells in the outer layer of the skin (the epithelium). The term "in situ" (borrowed from the Romans) means "in the natural or normal place" and, in the case of cancer, it says that the tumor cells are still confined to the site where they originated and they have neither invaded neighboring tissues nor metastasized afar.

The hallmark of squamous cell carcinoma in situ (Bowen's disease) is a persistent, progressive, slightly raised, red, scaly or crusted plaque. Bowen's disease may occur anywhere on the skin surface (or on mucosal surfaces such as the mouth).

Under the microscope, atypical squamous cells are seen to have proliferated through the whole thickness of the epidermis (the outer layer of the skin) but to have gone no farther.

The cause of Bowen's disease classically was prolonged exposure to arsenic. Today, Bowen's disease occurs most often in the sun-exposed areas of the skin in "older" white males.

Treatment options include freezing with liquid nitrogen, cauterization (burning), surgical removal, and chemosurgery.

Bowen's disease is named after the American dermatologist John Templeton Bowen (1857-1941).

Blustery Election Day Results Just In

11.02.10
Overcast/showers
Wind: NE 15-20
Water Temp: low 70's
Air: 70
Tide: Incoming and fast

We wanted to try and go out to 2 flat for some Bull Red fishing Monday, but got sidetracked by flying squirrels in the attic Sunday night.
So, on Election Day we decided to try in the river due to the strong winds.
After waiting for the tide to get high enough to launch, we finally got going around 10 AM.  We couldn't get out to the mouth of the river, so we decided to try in front of the Tradewinds dock.
After 6-7 tries at anchoring up, we finally hooked bottom with the anchor and that was where we were gonna fish.
We were fishing the bottom with cut mullet and managed a white trout and a couple of croakers.
Then the rain came.  Wonderful.
Only fished a couple of hours, went home wet.

"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."
Roderick l. Haig-Brown
A River Never Sleeps (1946)