Half a Fish Story

5.18.12

Incoming Tide

Water: 78 deg.

It's been real windy the past couple of weeks unfortunately.  My bro and I have been trying to fish the Redtrout Shootout.  He keeps driving 3 hours to fish with me and they keep canceling the tourney due to small craft advisories.

I have been catching a few trout on topwater, not the size caught earlier but nice 19"-20" fish with some smaller ones thrown in.

I went out this morning to see if the NE wind that is predicted for this Saturday's trout tournament would allow me to fish the flats in front of Mashes.  I quickly determined that it wasn't gonna work and cancelled my plans to fish Saturday.

So I saddled up to the oyster bars in the mouth of the Ochlockonee.

I was fishing the bar where Willie and I caught them early this year hoping to catch a red.  I spied a bunch of sheepshead but no reds. 

So with the tide running hard and creating an eddy behind the boat, I switched over to a heavy jig head tipped with a Gulp shrimp in new penny.

I was getting a lot of grunt bites and even managed to put a few in the boat.

I felt a good bump and set the hook.  When I first set up the fish wouldn't budge and I  thought I had hooked a manatee that had just swam under the anchor rope.

Then I felt the head shake.

And the battle began.

I fought the fish for 15 minutes before I finally got a glimpse of a really, really big red or black drum.

The back and forth battle of me bringing him to the surface and the fish diving back down went on and on.

I was finally winning the battle and trying to determine what to do when I get the monster boat side when I felt quite a tussle on my line.  Then the drum slowly started coming to the boat.

I looked down and saw bright red coming up from the area where my line entered the water.

As I kept reeling and the fish surfaced I realized I now had half a black drum.

A shark had bitten him in half.  Now, with blood running thick behind the boat and a shark lurking in the off colored water, I was thinking, "Do I really want to put my hand anywhere near this fish?"

I finally and quickly used my Boga Grip and swiftly brought the bleeding fish aboard.

As you can see it was at one time a huge fish.

This part was 30" long and pinned my 15 lb. Boga easily.

After rejigging my line and lure I proceeded to catch a bunch of white trout out of the hole.

While I was catching them a Spinner Shark jumped out of the water about 100 yards behind the boat and did a 360 degree turn.

I guess he was thanking my for his meal this morning.

Note to self:  Do not swim in the Ochlockonee River.