10/7 - Bottom Action

Awoke this morning to pouring rain.....so what's new? Loaded up the boat with not a great feeling in my gut, because of the wet stuff. But as it got later the rain went away, and it was a fine morning with no one around on the river. A nice way to spend a Sunday in October.

Had The Mathy's on board from SW Florida.....Naples. Where the Snook and Goliath Grouper reign supreme. Had plans to hit some of the same spots as yesterday and get some Trout in the boat.

But as the day progressed, the action was on the bottom. They caught some Pup Drum, lots of Croakers, chunky Sea Bass, and a really nice Sheepshead. The first of the season.

Tried some Float rigging but where I was it seemed the Trout all disappeared, and where I wanted to Float-rig was windy as hell, so we ended up hiding on a spot way up river that was literally a Mangrove Snapper colony of colossal proportion! Every single drift of the float was nailed by this scourge fish... (it's 6" Bluefish in the spring, and now Mangrove Snappers in the fall) add in a few small Grouper of course.

Just like yesterday the wind started and got ferocious as the day progressed, so we went back to spot #1 and picked up another Drum to wrap up the day. A day that only included some small Yellowmouth Trout caught on the bottom, and of course some big Croakers.

I may be running past the Trout, while loosing track of them since the huge rains and wind had me stuck at home for days.

Either way a successful day, and everyone had fun. And they had some really nice fillets for a fish fry.

Next up for me is a Tuesday solo angler day. I may have to use that as a Hunt for the Speckley Bastards day, if the weather allows.

I know where I can catch some really nice ones on a low tide, but the problems is that the last few days low tide is when it's the windiest part of the day. If I had a low in the morning I could sit on that spot and probably get some big ones and make the fish box look really good.

But this 20 knot wind every single day at noon is getting old quick. Preventing me from using my Float rigging talents, effectively.

10/6 - The APP "count the spots", tournament

How did that happen? I was really ready for an all out waylay of a weather day, and we never got rained on, and the winds held off till 11:00am. The Fore cast was for heinous winds and more rain....someone was smiling on us fishing the fun APP - "count the spots", fishing tournament put on by Haskell Construction.

Then talk about L-U-C-K-Y, I was supposed to have 4 guys, and ended up with just two really great and fun guys to be with.

I was armed with 12 dozen live local shrimp, knowing all well that the Mangrove Snappers have been eating this Float Freaks live well dry of bait in a half a day, if I don't come prepared.

Well, my two guys Jim and Stewart (and I from time to time) used up every single live river cricket (shrimp) in the well today. The fish were chewin'. Especially the small types; Mangroves, SeaBass, and Croakers. Besides those three we had Flounder, really nice Trout and perfect sized Black Drum.

The salinity is WAY, WAY down, and in my mind that's a good thang. (falling tide: 10-12 Part Per Thousand) But I'm waiting to see the Trout stack up like cord wood on some of my spots, still. Believe it or not the water temps I'm getting are still 78-79 degrees.......way too warm still.

I found the Black Drum we caught right smack in front of one of my falling tide trout spots. We moved up from float-rigging about 50 feet, after attempting to find some Trout there on the high water early this morning. It was good action for hours. Big Croakers, SeaBass, and Grouper up to 14" were hammering our shrimp dropped to the bottom. Then Later it was Trout, all nice ones to 20 inches.

I swear over the years that there's more and more small Grouper and a lot more Mangrove Snapper's in the river than 20 years ago. I can't stand the "Mangos", they are a pest fish in my book, unless they're 14 inches of better. I can't wait till they are "outa here".

We only fished 3 spots today. Every time we went to move, someone hooked a nice fish. I live by the rule, "don't leave fish to go find fish". So we'd stay a while longer, and that while was hours.

It's the time of the year for some really good fishing. If the weather just straightens out. No more 15-20 knot weeks, and a back off of the torrential rains, and we may have a great fall season.

This time every year, I wait for the Trout to really go nuts. And patiently wait for no more 85 degree days. A good friend and knowledgeable fisherman, my "Sea Daddy" as I call him, always says, "Dave, it's all about the length of days", and he's right. That is the same thing that determines bird migrations, and dictates what's going on in the woods too. So I have to just be patient. And keep up with what's right in front of me instead of wishing for something else.

Today was a great time, with two guys that were very interested and willing to learn. I ended the day by driving a very very sharp fillet knife across the tip of my thumb while cleaning fish. Blood was everywhere in the boat before I could get a rag over my thumb and attempt to stop the bleeding. But not before retrieving my fish scaler that I dropped over board, when I cut my self. So while tied off to the Sisters Creek dock I had to chase my scaler down the line of boats that were all tied up after the tournament. Then, I figured I better take a break and went up and enjoyed the BBQ and sweet tea the tournament organizers had up on the boat ramp lawn.

After a quick lunch I went back and cleaned a mess of fish, with a rag taped around my thumb in a big bundle. Man, it made it tough to effectively clean all those fish.

I RECOMMEND ONE OF THOSE kEVLAR FILLET GLOVES!! I will have one by next week, because the wounds I give myself while cleaning fish after fish are getting really old. The last "bad one" was I drove a brand new surgically sharp blade right through the palm of my hand. It went damn near all the way through! I thought I was gonna pass out I lost so much blood from that one! When I'm in a hurry, is when this stuff happens. Dark clouds had me hurrying today. Because I still had to get back to Mayport from Sisters Creek boat ramp, make some return charter calls, and get ready for tomorrow's charter crew.

10/4 - After a week of high winds & rain

Holy Trout! It sure felt good to be back on the river. I have been since the last report, but really had zero to report, so today was the real first day since my last report that we did anything.

No less than 5 days of rain...and I mean Forest Gump, BIG RAIN. If your not from here, then you won't realize that in the last 2 weeks or more we've had all the rain we were suppose to get "all" summer, in just as I said, the last few weeks.

If you're a regular visitor to the Blog, then you know how many times I've asked for some rain and you may have even seen me out in my boat doing a rain dance or two, this summer.

Either way, I was heading out "FRESH"....not having a clue of where my fishez may have been after all the wind, lightning, pressure drops, flooding, run-off, and since I couldn't be out there "keeping up", going back out Fresh is what it felt like.

Jake and Doug were with me, and we were suppose to go back on Sept. 22nd but back then was the day after the other week of rain and high winds we had. So we felt it was better to just try again later. And look, it turned out we went the 2nd day after the second week of storms. There's no winning with the weather calls we make, all anyone can do is make the best out of it.

Yesterday was GORGEOUS compared to today. Sunny no wind, no rain. But today was over cast, we had a red sky at sun up, and the wind blew good and hard this afternoon.

I started out trying to hunt some big 12" or better Mullet. I looked yesterday for 3 hours, and came up empty, and came up with none today either. I want to get some for cut bait, for big Redfish. For bottom fishing, I like a big piece of "FRESH" cut bait. I like to feed them a meal, not a snack. So we looked around and I caught some small ones in my cast net, so off we went to a few Redfish holes. No bites. 2nd spot, no bites......"Ah, the bait'n and wait'n was killing me", since we ended up not far from a good Float-rigging spot for Speckled Trout. So after too long of that, I said, "let's pack it up fellas and do some float-rigging."

Doug was into it, and started catching some keeper and throw back Trout right away, then he caught some very "chunky" Sea Bass, and a Black Grouper. Jake and I caught Mangrove Snappers, so we were glad Doug was on the boat. He hit them perfectly.

Man, it's so much better putting fish in the box than sitting there watching the rod tips waiting on a fish, we probably won't be able to box anyhow.

I like big Reds. But I like "ACTION" too.

We squeaked all the fish we could out this spot and put on and took off our rain Jackets 10 times, as the dark clouds passed over head. So off to the next spot, we went to spot number 2.

FINALLY.....Low Salinity!!

I said to Doug, "on this spot, if the salinity is low, we have the chance for a really big Trout!", and then I dipped my salinity gauge in the water, and came up and looked at it. It read a 12 PPT, that's 12 parts per thousand, and not all that far from Mayport, either! So finally that rain water is making it's way eastward.

Doug and Jake dropped their rigs in the water and let them drift toward the spot. Doug reared back and had, WHAT? A big TROUT! (I know my spots, huh?)

A beautiful 25 incher, with "yellow highlights", which means these Trout was way down there in that "brackish water", this summer. And we were glad to accept it in to our cooler.

We worked the absolute last of the falling tide, as hard as we could, and the wind started to get really blowy, right down the river in our faces.

The Mangrove Snappers were eating all our priceless live local shrimp. So we moved off and headed to a more protected area. But the current was slack....real slack.

Nothing but more Mangroves, so we packed it in and headed back to Mayport, where the tide was incoming. I stopped by a spot where a buddy said the big Sea Bass were thick. So we pitched shrimp on bottom rigs, and instead of catching big Sea Bass we caught CAT FISH, and one decent Croaker. Hmmm....I wonder where these fat Sea Bass are?? Well, I'll try that spot again, on another day on another tide. That maybe the ticket.

My regrets were that I wasted time looking for Mullet and bottom fishing for a Big Bull Redfish, instead of filling the box further with tasty Trout fillets. Just goes to show ya' I'm a Float-rigger at heart. And I think I may have a made Doug into the newest Float Freak.

I hope to get out this weekend, because there's another storm system out in the Atlantic, moving this way with more rain and possible high winds. I had charters on both days, and Saturday is a tournament with 4 guys aboard.

I won't be wasting valuable falling tide bait'n & wait'n, we'll be hunting in that low salinity with our Float rigs and live river crickets (shrimp).