The forecast was for a sunny day, occasional showers, with winds building from the east up to 25 knots with the visit of gale force winds here and there. And believe it or not, the forecast was dead on!
This morning at 0730 hrs. we took off from the dock and things were pretty damn nice. The tide was high, and with the east breeze pushing the river even higher. The parking lot of the boat ramp was getting wet.
Okay, high water, east winds......"hmmm, were do I go?"
I stopped and anchored up on a spot near Chico-pit bay, where there's a long shallow shell bar.
And we float-rigged along it and over it. Catching Trout right away.
Problem was, many of them were small, with only 2 good keepers out of 8 or more.
Then came the Pinfish bites. It's as if they just found us. And my theory is; "if bait stealers are the only fish biting, then they are the only fish there." So we moved on.
We did a short "world tour" of the river down towards Mill Cove. But the wind was just too strong to be anywhere near open water. So I headed back to the Mayport Hub. (aka: boat ramp up to the little jetties area)
(commencing, sarcasm) We sure were weak on the 10 DOZEN LIVE SHRIMP I thought I bought. Strangely, I sure hope all these dead mutilated shrimp that were in my livewell, weren't part of the 10 dozen live I forked over $30 bucks for. Because I know these shrimp didn't get this way after a few hours in my livewell. (end of sarcasm)
We worked an area at the Little Jetties where the current was absolutely unbelievable. So strong I couldn't even anchor. I finally tied off to a piling, and we caught those dreaded 4" Mangrove Snapper bait stealing bastards, and one healthy Croaker before it was once again time to move on.
Low on bait, already...we moved looking for some action in the gale force gusts. So I went shallow, along another shell bar. One more keeper Trout, and then all of a sudden it was "pupper time". Small Reds, I think Don and Eric caught the whole school. They were 12" to 18".
Then my
"suppose to be"
10 dozen live
shrimp were
all gone.
Overall, a decent day for how hard the wind was blowing.
Ended up with a nice bag of fillets for the guys to eat. And I was glad to get the heck out of the wind and head home.
By the way: I'll be casting my VOTE, to get that damn Bill Nelson out of office the first chance I can. He wants a 5ooo person nuke aircraft carrier in Mayport, add in the city wanting (2) 2000 people cruise ships(?) in Mayport and again as like everything this city does, it does it with no infrustructure!! GIVE ME A DAMN BREAK!
He lives no where near Mayport. He needs to live near Mayport,thats for damn sure. So he can sit in the traffic, and hear the Navy dragsters go over the Wonderwood bridge, and sit in a mile long line of cars to get to the ferry or boat ramp. It's been easy getting to the boat ramp in the morning for the last year or so and now this big mouth bureaucrat is at it again.
