Wind blowing hard from the east as usual
Water temp: 68 degrees
Hunter and Ben came down to fish the Big Bend this weekend. The weather was very iffy as the winds are still blowing and the rain is still falling.
I decided to take them to the Aucilla River due to the fact that I felt the east wind would be knocked down there and that the fish up our way have not been very cooperative. This planned worked pretty well.
It would be an exploration trip since I had never been there. I was cautioned on boating in the area due to the rocks, but the rock also help the area harbor a lot of fish. We were soon to find out if this was true.
We made the hour jaunt to the Aucilla River ramp and we were one of three trucks there on a Saturday, much to our surprise.
With the help of a map downloaded from the internet, we proceeded to putt our way to the coast of the Gulf. This is a place where you need all day to fish because you aren't going anywhere fast unless you want to lose your lower unit.
Upon our arrival to the fishing area we tried banging the coastline first, and all we had was one topwater explosion and no fish to the boat.
We then headed away from the hill a bit to try and do some drifts to drum up some trout. We caught some small ones and the pinfish were pecking good, but nothing to keep us in the area very long.
We decided to head to the west towards an area that says Cobb Rocks on my GPS.
We made a few drifts and the trout kept getting a little larger.
This one grabbed a nose hooked Gulp Jerk Shad.
As we made another, drift Ben and Hunter noted a white pipe in the water about a quarter of a mile away and we decided to make a drift towards the rock.
As we approached the rock, I casted the Jerk Shad up towards the rock and after a couple of pops of my rod I felt the tell tale thump of a fish and set the hook.
The battle was on! After about fifteen minutes a beautiful bull red was brought into the boat.
This was the biggest red I had ever caught and the ten pound Suffix fluorocarbon leader was tested, but withstood this brutes long runs. Little did I know that the leader and Hunter's knots would be tested again.
We made another pass by the rock and Hunter hooked up on this nice bluefish that ran him around the front deck a couple of times.
We made another pass and decided to try some shallower water, but nothing materialized.
So we headed back out to the newly named, Bull Red Rock for another go around.
As we neared the rock I again felt the thump of a red. This time I was using Hunter's Loomis/Stradic combo and the fight was on. Ben mentioned that this time he was going to time the length of the battle since we could see another bull red had ate the Jerk Shad again.
The fight was on as the fish roaming back and forth over the shallow rocks and all we kept talking about was knot strength and drag smoking.
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| Hunter thinking his Dad is a wiener for not dragging this fish to the boat |
Ben was calling out the time every ten minutes or so. After about 20 minutes he saw some activity and threw his chug bug out and caught this nice spanish to break his boredom.
Finally after a long, long battle Hunter was able to finally get the net up under this fish.
Here is a video of the landing.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
I say the lord's name in vain, sorry in advance.
We hoisted the fish and figured it was in the 30-40 lb. range which made my previous biggest redfish pale in comparison.
After getting ourselves settled in after the excitement, be looked to the east and saw rainclouds gathering.
We decided to putt back to the ramp, but not after running aground on an oyster bar, and getting absolutely soaked after our timing didn't work out so well and the rains came.
What a rain!
What a fishing trip!
