First Tarpon Jump of the Year

6.29.11

Incoming tide to high.

water temp: 83 degrees.

I took Hunter out for his last go for the summer here at the Forgotten Coast as he heads to Charleston tomorrow for his MBA schooling.

He wanted to try and jump a tarp, watch out for what you wish for!

Our plan was to fish the tip of Alligator Harbor as we have seen tarpon schooling down there for a month.  Unfortunately when we got to the surf and sand ramp the rain was coming down.  We shot the bull with a fellow there and he told us about a hole over by Piney Island.

So we headed back to the house, picked up our rain gear and headed to Rock Landing.  We fished there a couple of days ago and caught some trout and saw tarpon rolling.

Hunter caught a nice trout on top water and some smaller trout.  Not many tarpon were seen so, we headed down towards the cabbage patch.  It was our first time there.  Very deep cut surrounded by shallow oyster bars and grass.  Capt. Vic was down there hooping and hollering over catching some nice trout.

I caught some pinfish for Hunter to drag behind the boat to try and hook up on some tarpon.  He hooked up three times there, but we think they were sharks.  Two broken lines and one shark to the boat later, we decided to hit the point at Mashes Sands on high tide to try one more time for a tarpon.

I pulled up on the sandy point and we immediately saw one roll.  Hunter said, "that's what I like to see."  About a minute later the water exploded with a 100 lb. plus tarpon jumping twice with the pinfish in his mouth, it was on!

This tarpon was a stud, Hunter has caught a few, and the fun thing about tarpon is it seems every one has it's own personality.  This one's personality was, "I'm going to stay down, not wear myself out and drag your butt a mile down the beach, good luck!"

It was a heckuva a battle with us chasing and the big fish only coming up to suck some air, and then rage on.

Another wish granted, Tarpon On!

The big fish took us all the way down to the edge of Mashes Sands beach.

He took Hunter out to ten feet of water and then headed in.  We were worried that as he hit the shallower water that he might scrape the leader on the sandy bottom and break off.

When taking these pictures my phone read 1 pm.  Hunter had been battling the fish for at least 20 minutes before I started trying to get some pix.

As the fish headed to the bank the line broke free at 1:36 pm.  A good 56 minute battle and a frayed broken leader later it was time to head to the hill.

Hunter got his wish, I wish I could have touched him, but another tarpon swims free.

Five Gallons of Scallops

6.25.11

The FWC opened scallop season early this year hoping to lure some $$$ into the local economy after last year's oil boom laden excercise in the Gulf.

Every time I go out this year, all I can remember is the feeling of doom and the dodging of all the misplaced oil booms all along the coast.  What a waste of time that was.

Anyways, Hunter, Charlotte, Nancy and I headed out for some scalloping.  We did some initial scouting Friday before the opening day and found a few down at Lanark.

So, off we went to our GPS coordinate on Saturday morning.  The skies were cloudy and the winds calm.  A perfect day for scalloping.

Hunter and Charlotte picked up about a gallon in the areas we had marked. They were surprisingly large.  But, we knew we had enough for appetizers, but not enough for a meal.

We decided to join the boats a little further west of our spot.  Charlotte and Hunter jumped in and for the next half hour we only saw their butts and feet sticking out of the water as the gathering fest was on.

They even let Nancy and I get in the action.

Hunter came up with this nice bag.

We finished with a five gallon pale full.  Not a limit, but good enough for a dinner and another later this week.

We combined the scallops with our remaining red snapper and had quite a meal.

Now, if we can find some more red snapper before that season ends.......

Lanark Off Shore Gas Burning Exercise

6.21.11

Water temp: 85 deg.

Took a look at the seas and decided to take Hunter out for the elusive red snapper before he heads off to get his MBA.

Headed out of Lanark Village early.  Picked up a few pinfish and headed out to the spot near K tower where we have done well on grouper and caught a nice red snapper last time out.

Nothing.

Headed out to other snapper holes, and again nothing but grunts and sharks.  Nancy finally had a big fish on that took her around the anchor.

Hunter caught a nice little gag on the engine block hole.

Came back in near shore and Hunter caught a short red grouper.

Wow, this is hard!   Saw lots of bonita schooling everywhere.  Saw another local guy at k tower and he said the fish weren't biting because the moon was upside down and the water was falling out of it along with the fish.  He also said he was a myth buster and was going to prove that myth was false.

I wished him good luck because we weren't myth busters today.

Big Bend Saltwater Classic Fish Potpourri

6.17-6.18.2011

Water Temp: 82-85 deg.

Another year and another donation to OAR.  But we got free tshirts and free beer and the captains meeting for our $65 donation.

We practiced hard for the tourney, spending pretty long days on the water.  We had a good red bite at Lanark on high tide, and an average bite at the OR river mouth.  We also felt we could troll up some nice spanish after a brief but very bumpy ride of Dog Island Reef earlier in the week.

We were up early to drop our lines at the OR river mouth on Friday morn. We quickly hooked up on a nice trout at the white bar.  We slid over to the banana bar and caught a nice flounder.  Hunter brought this mini doormat in.  It was the biggest we had ever caught, approaching 3 lbs., but knowing that last year you needed a 4 lber. to cash a check, we sent the meal for 3 overboard.

Flounder on white gulp shrimp

After having some goobers decide they wanted to fish in our boat we left the bar to hit the bars at the entrance to the OR.  The tide was on it's last outgoing surge.

Hunter lost a really nice trout on the bonkadonk in very shallow water.  He fought it around the anchor rope and brought it boat side and suddenly had that light line feeling and I heard "&*$# that" come from the front end of the boat and I knew she had come off.  

We caught some blues and lady fish and decided to call it a morning.

Our afternoon trip was a planned troll at two flat and 24.  Unfortunately the on shore breeze kicked up and all we got was wet, beat up, and fishless.  We didn't even make it to 24.

On Saturday we had the river mouth to ourselves.  I landed a nice 21" red on a Zara Spook right away in the dark.  

But as the morning progressed we had this feeling:

NADA

I suggested we head over to Alligator Harbor and give it a try at the tip of the point.  We caught the tide dead low unfortunately, but we did put together a couple of limits of these guys:

They were fun to catch and we are planning on coming back to get a fish fry together this week.

So, fun was had, sweat was sweated, sleep was lost, advil was taken, and I got to fish with Hunter again.

Not to bad and looking forward to the next BBSWC!

One of Everything

6.13.11

Tide: low to incoming

Water temp: 85 Degrees

Hunter and I were out early trying to pinpoint some fish for the Saltwater Classic this week.

We didn't come close to anything that would be worth weighing, but, we caught the whole gamut of fish today.  Two trout, a catfish, a lady fish, a red, a jack crevalle, and a flounder all came to the Nan today in the OR.

Hot and humid was the weather and a real slow incoming tide.  Not a lot of activity, but enough to keep us jerkin'.

Bonkadonk Trout

On my last cast with a white grub, I thought I had the big daddy red.  It ended up being one of these guys.  We caught these jacks a few years ago at the mouth of OR, but the last two years we only caught a few little ones.

6 lb. Jack

Evening Milk Run

6.7.11

Tide: High to outgoing

We decided to hit OR bars in the evening.  Really pressing our luck!
We did pretty well and had the whole mouth of the river to ourselves.
No one was at the Mashes boat ramp.
Here are some pix of the lucky fish we brought to the boat.  Lucky because I was too lazy to clean any of them!

Gold Spoon Hex Broken

6.7.11

Tide: High and outgoing

Water temp: 84 deg.

We decided to hit Lanark with the wind blowing hard out of the east south east.

We headed west out of Lanark and started throwing the Big EZ and Hunter had the gold johnson spoon on.  We were throwing baits that wouldn't hang in the suspended weeds.  Hunter was commenting on how he has never caught a fish on a gold spoon.

It wasn't long before Hunter said "I think I've got one".  I turned to watch him looking puzzled as the fish swam towards the boat and suddenly realized it was hooked.  Hunter's new Johnny Morris reel got it's drag worked out as Hunter's thought of "having one" turned out to be true.  A nice 22" red came aboard.

It wasn't long before he hooked up again and brought this nice multi spotted red aboard.

We worked our way up and down the coast and ended up with 6 nice reds, of which two were keepers.  They bit well on this smoky morning, but eased up as the sun got up.  We hit some docks but to no avail.
We loaded up the tin boat and put the hex of the gold spoon behind us.

Oyster Bar Multi Specie Catch Fest

6.6.11

Tide: High to outgoing

Water Temp: 83 Deg.

Hunter and I wanted to get out and try to find some fish for the upcoming Big Bend Classic.  Seeing we had a high tide first thing in the morning, we took the tin boat, Nan, out for a oyster bar milk run.

Heading over to the banana bar for the first attack and we were rewarded with some 3 nice flatties which two came home with us for dinner.  They were eating Hunter's gulp.

Hunter was pretty much on fire today.  He was feeling it with his new rod and reel.

We hopscotched around the bars avoiding the worst water as the wind was blowing hard from the north right down the river.

I caught a couple of nice blues.  At our last stop, the white bar, the bait was stacked up.  Hunter had been throwing the bonkadonk with no success all morning.  I said, "I'm gonna catch one here with it, here we go" and bingo, nice trout.

I even had a small cobia on a swimbait here.  

It was getting hot, so we headed to the Mashes with a good multi specie day slugfest behind us.

Snapper Run

6.3.11

Lanark Village Ramp

Tide: low incoming

Water Temp: low 80's

With favorable winds forecast we decided to try for some delicious red snapper.  With the short season, we wanted to get some in the freezer while we can.

We headed about 13 miles off shore from Dog Island.  We were remarking how few boats were out.  Wouldn't you know it, the first hole we were going to had a boat on it.  This happened again later in the day.  I guess the numbers I have aren't really secret after all.

Nancy and I knew one number no one would have, because we found it last year while out in the K tower area.  We went there on our second stop and the fish were waiting.

Hunter caught a bunch of illegal grouper, gag and red.

While I was waiting to help Hunter get one of his illegals in the boat, I heard Nancy grunt and say "this is a big one."  Hunter looked over the side and saw the nice red glow of a snapper coming up.  He dropped his stuff and netted this nice 22" 7.25 lb. snapper.

We had an OK trip, stopping here and there.  Finding fish at one spot and not another, but we did catch a nice black bass to go home with the snapper.

We figured we actually fished about 3 and a half hours, so not a bad trip.  All fish were caught on cut bait, as my bait catchers didn't come through again.