Dave's still all full of the memories of the Yellowmouth Trout slaughter we had back in September. Which was really fun, but it was only after a morning hunt for big Specks that really didn't pan out.
Although they too, are Trout they are not what I'm normally hunting. Stronger, meaner, and willing to chew many times when the Specks aren't, sure does make them pretty desirable. Dave C. says, loves 'em.
We left the dock and headed to where we caught some decent keepers in the gale force winds on Monday. They caught some Trout, but we only "boxed" 2 - 16 inchers.
So we moved on. The wind in the river was not all that strong, but the jetties were a mess. So we stayed comfortably in the "hub". And with the tide still pouring in real strong, started catching a mix of Specks and Yellowmouths.
There was many 14 inch Specks, and small yellowsmouths. But the fish were coming to the boat one after another. I stood by Net ready!
Here's what I mean....
By 10:30am we had almost run right through 12 DOZEN
LIVE SHRIMP!!
Holy crap....
FYI: The new policy is, when I bring that many shrimp and they are burned up early.
We head back to the dock. I bring more than enough shrimp. There's no way I can account for how many get used "not" catching a fish!
OR: I will give you the option to pay more for your charter, and I'll bring some many we'll have them left in the livewell at the end of the trip.
At dead high slack water I insisted it be lunch time, break time, whatever... Just so no more shrimp were used up during a super non-fish catching stage of the tide.
In Louisiana, they say, catch a limit of Specks and Reds....trips over, time to head in. Well, this ain't Louisiana. So my rule will be use all the bait, playing feed the bait stealers? Time to head in.
So after a 10 minute break for lunch a stop at the boat ramp for a rest room break, we moved on to try a different spot at the absolute first of the falling tide current. Two Jacks and a Mangrove Snapper, no trout. So we picked up and headed to where we caught Trout earlier, but now had maybe 2 dozen shrimp left. So while Ron and his wife float-rigged, Dave and I dropped bottom rigs with cut Croaker and caught more Yellowmouths, and a Black Drum.
We finished up the day with no shrimp, used a whole Croaker for small pieces of cut bait, used every shrimp that died. And left for the boat ramp to clean 1-Drum, 8-Specks, and 9-Yellowmouth.
So that goes to show ya, how many fish we released, lost, and how many bait stealers were fed.
I kinda blame fishing the mega- incoming full moon tide.
But, the wind wasn't all that bad, it was warm and sunny. Water temp. 76 degrees.
I'll be at it again tomorrow with another regular customer, Jeff P. and his dad. Always fun to fish with.
