2/20/07 - Media General Corp. group charter

I WISH I TOOK A FEW PICTURES....sorry they had me running, and time was of the essence so I never got around to it.

But, I had a 4 boat 13-16 passenger trip that headed out Tuesday. It was in the planning since back in October before I even got my new boat.

BIG problems though, as usual. NO LIVE SHRIMP were to be had. Except on my boat, because I run a shrimp farm in my live well most of the time.
With the weekends cold cold weather no shrimp could be caught, so a few of the boats had to just "wing-it". And go with mud Minnows or dead shrimp.

I know I had plenty so a few of the big-wigs jumped on my boat, for a 1/2 day of float rigging.
They told me, "Dave, we have a big pot going for largest fish...so put us on them."

Just what ya wanna on a February charter huh? So I was under the gun.

On the first spot, and only spot I had that would produce "I.G." - instantaneous Gratification", we were on Trout the first drift of the float!
Then came a few more. For I think it was (3) 17-19 inchers.
Then a few pup reds, and then a 29", 8.5 pound Redbass.

I said, "Here's your winning fish!" As one of the guys took 15 minutes to get it to the boat.
(the fella who hooked into it wasn't by now means a Roland Martin type fisherman)

And then I think we picked up another small pup red again...and that was it. This spot was OVER and DONE with.

But what did we have yesterday?? The lowest tide of damn near all of 2006 and 2007.
The ICW was 10' deep in the middle, the creeks went dry, and by the time we left out of where we were, the tide was so low I couldn't go anywhere else in a creek, or if I went in the river the current was so strong we couldn't fish.

So we spent our nickle on that one spot.

One other boat did really well tossing jigs and Gulp and Mud Minnows, and caught Reds, Trout, and a nice fat Flounder while using the trolling motor up inside Hannah Mills area.

Now we still have no shrimp at the bait shop, No fiddler crabs, just clams....and here comes the JOSFC Sheepshead tournament this Saturday. I'm a sponsor and may or may not fish it.

But I will trade my entry for 20 dozen live shrimp...anyone??