What a day!
I'm up and bright eyed and bushy headed at 0500 hrs this morning, so I decide to go fishing.
But remember, "again" the west coast bait shrimp guys are having some sort of problem, and there might not be any live shrimp today...
So at 6:15 I call the bait shop. "hey Rusty this is Dave, ya'll have some shrimp?" "Yeah we have shrimp, but they're big.", Says the owner. "Okay, I'll see ya alittle later".
So I finish my coffee ,while listening to my Clan ne Gael, CD. And load the boat with my swords (aka: Fishing rods). I get to the bait shop and Rusty wasn't kidding...The shrimp are like 6 inches long. Local Eatin' Sizers. But at least they are shrimp.....maybe 12-16 count types that were destined for the seafood market, but now destined for my hook.
(SEE THAT PHOTO OF THE SHRIMP ABOVE? Each one of those white stripes is an inch. I took the photo so you could see that the shrimp easily measure 6 inches long!!)
Actually, this wasn't a good thing, if your a Float Freak, trout hunter. They were WAY too big, and died easily on the return of a drift, they weigh too much and although in the other photo, you can see I could just reach in and pull out the shrimp from the trouts mouth, because even Fat and Healthy Ocean run Trout couldn't choke them down before I set the hook on them.
I had to let the float go under and then do at least a 5 count before striking on the fish.
I fished today from The jetties to Nassau Sound, and then back to the jetties. I caught Trout at both places. But "again", the falling tide was really weak. I started at the jetties and caught no Trout, so I bottom fished. I caught 3 Whiting and my first Stingray of the spring season, because there was no current. That's when I said "I think I'll run to the sound, and get out of here for a while".
I caught Trout up there on a new spot, didn't catch any on an old spot, and then moved to another old spot and had (5) 15-18 inchers in 5 casts just as soon as the anchor came tight, and then they just shut down......or I caught them all, either way. So I ran back to the Mayport jetties (both ways via the Ocean, damn my new boat rides the open ocean nice.)
The Bluefish are still chewing anything that moves at the jetties, but at least I found the Trout chewing too. And caught about 10 all between 18-20 inches. Lost a Sheepshead, and fed a very annoying seagull at least 4 giant shrimp. Or more like it stole 4 giant shrimp from me. Another huge annoyance.
So I had my 5 keepers, out of 22 Trout. (I wish they'd make the Sheepshead limit 5 and the Trout limit 10).
Now for the NEW FACE thing...I had one person actual say something today. Buck at B&M Bait and Tackle. My Face or more like cheeks have not seen day light in over 12 years, because I've been the "red bearded guy". So to update my image, I'm now a Goatee wearer. It's funny how only one person out of 5 that I spoke to face to face even noticed and said something. The problem is now I have to keep with it. The beard thing was because I'm lazy, and have always hated shaving. Maybe Goatee's...Can change my luck.
What weather were having huh? Ya'll missed another beautiful day.
I just hope that it stays decent for the run of trips I have starting on Friday. But most of all I hope we'll have some Normal size bait shrimp, and hope to have shrimp at all. Something always goes wrong with the Gulf coast Shrimp right when I have a whole month of charters crammed into a 10 day stretch.
