That Was A Nice Boat Ride and the Upside Down Moon

5.6.14

Finally got nice enough to put the old Seacraft in the water.  It's May for goodness sakes!
The weather has reminded me of when I lived in Ohio and didn't get the boat out tip May also.  That ain't right.

After wishing my Mom happy birthday we headed down to the Carrabelle ramp with the idea to fish for pompano and then try some offshore spots and maybe grab a grouper or AJ.

We did all of those things minus catching the fish.

It was an easy ride to the west end of Dog Island and three boats were anchored up closely and catching pomps.  We never could get in line with them and just watched them catching them while we wore out the ladyfish unfortunately.

A school of spanish came through and promptly cut my jig off, so we decided to head off shore towards O tower as the seas were as flat as we have ever seen.

Stopped and hit some grouper numbers and caught rock bass and grunts but no grouper.

A first for us: we saw a sailfish chasing bait about 6 miles off Dog Island and not much farther saw a monster hammerhead shark cruising on the surface.  It was like a National Geographic special on fish in the Gulf of Mexico.

We made it to O tower and tried jigging up some AJ's but all I got was this kingfish for my efforts.

As you can see that is some nice smooth water.  

Saw some monster kingfish cruising the tower chasing bait, but they didn't want anything we were offering.

Made the run back to Carrabelle and when I was walking up to the truck I looked at the moon which was up in the spring time sky.

The crescent was upside down.  

A couple of years ago we were fishing with Hunter and Charlotte out at K tower with not much luck.  A fellow came up to K tower in a 16 foot boat with a tiller motor hardly wearing anything but his shorts.  He was definitely a sea rat kind of guy.  He was puzzled about the bite being off too, but the moon was upside down at the time  too, as he pointed out.

He said that that means the water is pouring out of the moon and consequently the fish won't bite.

I think I'm gonna run with that to explain yesterday.

Solo Trip

4.24.14

Water temp.  67 degrees

Headed out into the murky waters at the mouth of the Ochlockonee River.

Ran into a guide and he said that it is the worst he has ever seen it in his years of guiding.

The fog was heavy and kept coming in and out and didn't burn off until around 11 AM.

I started at some of my holes that were close to the ramp as I left my GPS at the house, so I was fishing blind as you couldn't see 100 feet in front of the boat.

I fished a large circle with nothing to show for my efforts.

Finally I ended up at the horseshoe bar hoping for some late magic.

There was a heavy incoming tide and I was fishing the back side of the bar with nothing to show for my efforts.

Said to myself, self, I wonder if they are on the front side.

Slid around there and the flurry of action began.

I ended up with a nice limit of speckled trout in about 20 minutes.  Four came to the boat that were in the 18 inch range.

And my over 20" fish was this nice 22" speck that but up a heck of a battle in the swift water.

As you can see, all of the fish came on a gold red fin.  That lure was taken on my last cast by a blasted Spanish Mackerel.  I know that folks love catching the macs, but I hate when they arrive, because I lose a lot of jerk baits to them.  But, bass pro shops is happy because I ordered 3 more this morning.

Drifting For Grouper Updated Picture

Patty got home and sent me this picture of her other grouper she caught.
She was rather offended that I posted her little grouper picture in the previous blog.
Sorry Patty and I hope your arms and wrists are feeling better.

Drifting For Grouper

4.11.14

Water Temp 67 degrees

After the big blow, the seas calmed and Patty, Willie and I hooked a ride with Captain Randy on his 25' Parker and headed 40 miles out to try and catch some red grouper and mutton snapper.

The seas were great and the water beautiful as we laif down on one of Randy's numbers and started our drifts for the day.

Patty had the touch today as she landed two nice gag grouper that had her hands and arms hurting by the end of the day.  She also had her line broke a couple of times by the big grouper heading back to their rocky homes.

While she was doing that, Willie was loading the box with grunts, porgies and Vermillion snapper.

Randy is pointing to the hot hand Friday.

We made it back to Rock Landing at 6:30 and loaded up our gear and cooler full of fish.

All I can say is we cleaned a lot of fish and the pizza from Big Daddy's tasted real good at 9:30 Friday evening.

So while we didn't get to keep any of the 4 gags we caught because we were in federal waters, the day was fantastic as the weather, company and fish made for a memorable trip.

Fighting The Wind

4.7 and 8
water temp 67 degrees

Well my kin got in and we've been trying to fish as much as we can.
The wind has been blowing since the big front came through.
But we still have managed a few trout and flounder.
I love throwing baits in the mouth of the river this time of year, but sometimes it is way to rough so we have been stuck in Panacea Harbor a couple of times.
That didn't stop my sister from catching this nice trout.  The shrimp sales go up when she arrives.

Since Pat and Willie are on vacation, sometimes Patty sleeps in and I take Willie out so he can net my trout.

These came from the river on Tuesday as a few came aboard on the red fin and chartreuse pepper soft plastics.

Fish tacos were on the menu Tuesday night!

Trout 15 Gags 1

3.31.14 and 4.1.14

Did the inshore offshore thing the past couple of days.  I wanted to see if some trout had arrived in the river in anticipation of some kin fold coming down and April Fools Day was the beginning of Gag Grouper season and I managed to hitch a ride with some folks from the marina.

Nancy and I did a lot of casting on Monday afternoon, but once the trout were found we hammered them pretty good.

We fished the north side of Ochlockonee River with nothing to show for our efforts.  Traveled up Chaires Creek for some recon work, but nothing was found there either.

Finally made it out to the horseshoe bar at the mouth of the river and it started slow on a huge incoming tide and ended up on fire.

We put 15 trout in the boat and one spanish mackerel.  Many were caught on the usual soft baits, but they preferred chartreuse pepper colored baits the best.  The bigger fish came on the old gold redfin.

On April first I headed off shore, but in the state waters as the gag grouper season opened.

We trolled mostly for at least a half a day with stretch 30's but got nothing for our efforts.

We dropped dead baits on a few stops and managed one keeper grouper and some grunts and rock bass.  Certainly nothing to talk about but it was a beautiful day on the water.  Every hole had 4-5 boat anchored up or trolling over it.  At one time we counted 27 boats on Smokehouse ledge.

So, lots of gas was sold!

Little Corn Island Nicaragua DIY Bone Fishing Expedition

3.13.14-3.18.14

Nancy and I headed down to Nicaragua to enjoy a bone fishing trip and an island vacation.

The water was nice!

The food was good!

The people were very friendly!

The accommodations were like big boy camping.

My travel companion was nice to me.

Did I say the water was nice?

Caught this snapper in the surf and busted off three tarpon this evening.  My face is expressing the shock of catching a fish!

Alas, no bonefish were seen or caught on the island, but I did see this nice school of bones in the Miami airport!

That Was Fun!