Sunday, February 4, 2007

2/4- SUPER FISH SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





WHERE WERE YOU?
Today, was a beautiful Sunday with low winds, blue skies, and yes it was cold...but real fisherman, don't really care.
I'm obviously tougher then a lot of you. More dedicated, yeah that's obvious.
I'm so hard core, wives hate me, and their husbands get defensive. Because I'm a bad influence on their domesticated husbands.
I used to make them wish they were in my shoes. Talk them into going fishing too much, spend too much money, and stay out too long. Yes, I'm a bad influence, so keep away if you want to stay married.
But I don't do that any more. I just go alone, I don't talk to many of these men much anymore. I do whatever I want when I want and don't have to share a phenomenal bite, like I had today with anyone.
Or was it because there was a foot ball game on, this evening? The water was nearly vacant? Or was it because it was cold this morning?
For what ever reason.........THANK YOU for staying home. Because I had a great day.
Today was a nearly perfect tidal day.
High Tide: 4.4 feet @ 10:05 Mayport
Low Tide: -0.3 @ 4:00 Mayport.
What's that make the tide height? A 4.7'.....just perfect! The wind, no concern at all. And the JEA plant smoke stacks? They were straight up, almost all day long. The cold? Well, it really wasn't all that bad.
First stop was up in a creek, and before the boat settled tight on the anchor I had 5 small reds and 5 small trout off a Oyster bar, using of course the float rig. That was on the last of the incoming tide. And I actually left because I just wanted to make sure they were there, for future reference. So I picked up and left.
I won't go thru each and ever move I made, but I'll tell ya I never fished in any water deeper than 4.5 feet all day long, no matter what the tide was. At one point I was in 2.5 feet of water, catching one Flounder after another fishing double Floats. The tide was easing along so perfectly. I cast out two float rigs and have them drift off the starboard side of the boat at the same time and just watched them drift on a slack line, till one of them went under.
Later, I caught a bunch more Reds in a hole, literally a hole or a pocket in a sandy bottom with a shell bar adjacent and behind it. I spent the whole rest of the day at the second area I went to.
It's a "way" of fishing actually. I refer to it as "tracking". Go to one spot, catch some fish, and when they stop biting, move 50, 75 or only a 100 feet to the next "likely" spot they'd be at.
This system works for me so well, it's absolutely incredible. Don't run around, especially if you found fish in an area. If they stop biting it's most likely they moved with the tide. (they do that ya' know??)
I arrived on the second spot I went too, at high tide. And by low tide between 4-6 hrs later, I was only 500 feet away from where I started. (I hope you caught that... because I'm giving away Pearls here.....)
This way of Float rig fishing insures you're learning the area, the way the water moves, the way the currents flow, it's subtleties, and with that it's usually the way the fish move too. Just do it. You'll be so surprised.
Today's catch was so good I started a tally on a piece of paper, to keep it all straight.
Redfish- 15 (Largest were 30", 28", 21". The rest were pups.)
Flounder - 7 (in a row, fishing double float-rigs.)
Trout - 12 (not even trying for them, could have had a nice limit from 18" to 20")
Sheepshead - 1 ( fought a 5 pounder class one all the way to the boat, then it got off the hook.)
It was another "Super Fish Sunday". Just like many other's I've had on Super Bowl Sunday's.
I thank the usual masses of weekenders for being (you know). Or more kindly discribed as..."being fair weather fishermen", and staying home.
My favorite game is played on the Fluid turf, in a big alloy plate platform, that I have found goes unbelievably shallow! And I even had 100 gallons of gas in her.
(rest of the photos are on my recent catch pages #6)

Saturday, February 3, 2007

2/3 - some tackle history...FYI




Always facinated by the dog-eat-dog world of the fishing tackle industry. I have an interest in the how's and why's of the G. Loomis company.
(I'd actually love to take a vacation and go to Woodland, Washington to the factory. And while there fish for Steelhead or Salmon on the local rivers. Ya' know they "float-fish" up there for those species! Plus hit Marysville, Washington where my 26' BlackLab Marine boat boat was built.)

I first became a Pro staff or Guide Program member for G. Loomis Rods about 5-6 years ago.
I remember always wanting a set of Loomis rods, when I was much younger. Because, G. Loomis for me was always thought of as an innovative company making high quality rods for specific anglers need. For specific fish, in specific places, for a demending angler.
Well, G. Loomis is celebrating it's 25th anniversary.

Here's a bit of history by Bruce Holt, who's been with the company since the beginning.

Gary Loomis has always been and will always be an avid outdoorsman. He is a unique individual. He is passionate, driven, opinionated and strong-willed. He is one of those individuals that hits the floor running and never slows down.Several years ago, he had a dream. He wanted to make the best ultra-light steelhead rod that money could buy and nobody in the world made anything close. As time went by, he refined his techniques and his rods and the next thing you know he started building blanks. Within a year or so, he started a blank company (Loomis Composites, Inc.) and a few years later, following a short hiatus from the fishing industry, he started making rod blanks under his own label...G.Loomis, Inc. That was January of 1982 and today, G.Loomis is recognized as one of the leaders in the fishing rod business, making very technical, high performance graphite rods for bass, walleye, trout, salmon, steelhead, bonefish, tarpon, redfish...well, you get the picture. In May of 1997, Shimano American Corporation purchased the company from Gary and today, it's bigger and better than ever. Gary still has an office here at the factory where he not-so-quietly takes on salmon fisheries issues © Copyright 2007 G Loomis, All Rights Reserved
With that said. BUY THE BEST EQUIPMENT YOU CAN AFFORD! At this point, it should be pretty clear that cutting corners on your equipment will ultimately be reflected in the number of fish you hook and land. Plain and simple, fishing garbage gear will cost you fish! Pay attention to detail, eliminate every controllable variable, and most importantly, buy the very best equipment that you can afford. As technology rockets forward at break-neck speed, most of us “average Joes” will quickly come to realize that constantly upgrading our fishing equipment is just not economically feasible. So where do you draw the line? Before parting with my hard earned cash, I like to ask myself one simple question: “does this purchase have the potential to either enhance my equipments performance or raise my confidence level?” If the answer is a resounding “yes,” then I think its money well spent. Without a doubt, the equipment advantage is one of the fastest and easiest ways to improve your Trout, Flounder and Redfish or (what ever species) success rate! 2007 G. oomis all rights reserved

And believe me when I tell you. That I have friends that didn't always have the highest grade of tackle. And they caught plenty of fish. Now, as they have progressed. You ought to see what they catch thier fish with now. One of those guys that comes to mind is my buddy, nick-named "DOA Rob", (that's him up there at the top of the page in his Bad-azz Hobie Kayak). He has a nice boat, a wow-factor Hobie Kayak, and now some serious tackle. And this guy has specialty tackle for fishing his favorite lure of all, a 1/4oz. DOA shrimp. Now that's what I'm talking about! Once you figure out what works best for you, and your favorite kind of fishing, go ahead and make the upgrade. And that's where Loomis rods come into play.

And that's why you'll use all G.Loomis rods when aboard my boat, because I want you to have the best performing equipment, and the highest confidence level. Because, you can float fish with anything. But then there's specialized float fishing tackle, that'll never let you down.

Friday, February 2, 2007

2/2 - Bored to tears...large enough to surf. Cyber surf that is.

Well the weather screwed me!!!!
Had a charter call yesterday, for today.....(gotta love the late notice crowd) Yeah there was loads of planning going into that trip, huh?

It was blowing 25 knots yesterday and I looked at the weather that morning and today it was supposed to blow hard too. So I said to the guy, "I think the winds gonna be way to strong", but now of course it isn't.

So I was sitting surfing the web. And checked out Yahoo, to see my listing. Then, found where I come up in the search listings. Then saw a tab for "more information" so I clicked on it.

Soooooo, this is where people get all that old stuff from. I recieve calls all the time where people tell me they are looking at my web site and telling me that they see _____. When that stuff hasn't been on my web site in 8 years!!!

I'm not all that search engine savvy, but now I get it. And either is half the callers I get.
They click on anything that moves, obviously.

Well, I found VERY old archived pages of my web site. Now remember, I've had a web site before there was Google and Yahoo. My dad (35 years in the computer field) started me a one page web site, the minute the Internet was public. When was that....over 10 years ago??
Now look at the world wide web, huh?
I always say, "I had a web page back when web pages weren't cool!"

So of course I have many, many generations of web pages out there floating in cyber space.

That explains the "what are you looking at.....?" reaction you'll get from me when I hear your looking at a page from 10 years ago. Which today is ANCIENT history.

You may or may not notice I change things on my web site almost weekly. "I had a good teacher". I go in and tweek pages all the time.

But I found these from surfing around on Yahoo:
http://www.captdaves.com/Article.htm

You may find this a bunch or crappola, or interesting educational reading, as many did back in the day. But yes, I did have a complete articles page for a while. Because I did 6 years worth of monthly columns for the Jacksonville Fisherman Magazine. That's a lot of fishing stories.

That seems like a life time ago, now. When even the charter biz in Jacksonville seemed different. And I had such a "following readership" also. I guess the Internet kind of sterilized that kind of relationship between readers and writers. Now, there's too much out there. But still, here I am!
Cooking along, as a survivor.

Rusty, owner of B&M bait and tackle keeps asking me when I'm going to do a Newspaper article again, like in the Beaches Leader Newspaper. I tell him no one bothers to ask, and like the military it's all political, I'm sure. Plus, since my literary mentor is Tred Barta (back page of Sport Fishing Magazine, and author of The best and worst of Tred Barta, and host of his own TV show)

I may not always tell it the way people want to hear it either.....like Tred.
I'm an opinionated SOB, just like him.