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.
