It Was a Slayin'

4.14.11
Tide: Incoming from low
Time: mid to late morn
Temp: Air 70's Water 72

Nancy and I got out on the salt after a hiatus of watching Hunter play baseball.  And it was on.
I heard accounts of spanish so thick you could walk on them.  So, we have a new recipe we wanted to try out that required one of those oily guys.  It didn't take long after departing the Panacea Marina ramp.  We put in there due to the low tide and not wanting to figure out how to get our trailer off the end of the Mashes Sand ramp on our first time out this year.  I know I will drop it off the end of the ramp sooner or later, but why do it on the first trip!

We headed out to the barrel, which isn't there anymore, and soon saw the spanish busting everywhere.  They were very prominent on the backside of the flat by the barrel.

It wasn't long and we got our first salt fish of the year and our dinner for today.

We played with these fish for over an hour, they were supercharged and chasing glass minnows all over the place.  We also saw a big shark come in on the action.  We landed about a dozen of these and had many cut offs from their sharp choppers.

I was waiting for the wind to die a little so we could go over to the mouth or the OR.  I was thinking about the big trout that we seem to get every year there.  The thought of them eating a jerkbait got me moving.

We eased our way in to our favorite oyster bar and Nancy soon lost a really good trout.  I was throwing the jerkbait, but the water was moving fast.  So, is started casting a white gulp on an 1/8 oz. jighead and it was a non stop catch fest.

I caught this nice trout:

Then I followed up with this 6 lb. red. What a fight in the quick moving water!

Then after catching 5 more trout on six casts, Nancy said she wanted what I was throwing.

She then hit paydirt.

The trout moved from the front of the bar and we proceeded to land 3 puppy reds in a row.  We slid around to the side of the bar and I caught three more trout on a white jerkbait, reeling it real slow as Hunter taught me two years ago.

We only fished here about an hour before heading in.  We caught 10 trout all 18"-19".  The four reds.  A few lady fish.  These added to the numerous spanish we caught at our first stop made me say, "I love this time of year!"