Yep, the whole family came to Jacksonville, including Eric's father who was also coming on the trip. All the way from out west. For our 8am departure. A 172 mile ride I think Eric said, from his house.
So Nawwwww...I wasn't under any pressure!!
A birthday trip plus 172 mile early morning ride. Heck, I did have a customer come from Tampa twice to fish with a friend, here in J-ville. And I was blown away by that...twice!
I was thinking let's see if there's any "butt handers" (blacktip sharks) behind the shrimp boats. So I took off we went out the inlet in the residual swell from yesterdays 20 knot SE breeze. And when we got to the shrimp boats I could just tell, not much was going on. The first thing I looks for is Dolphins in a frenzy. And lots of them. We looked behind two shrimp boats, a small one and a big one. And both had maybe a 1/2 dozen Dolphins following as if visiting the hot dog vendor on the street corner. No real excitement was going on. The Shrimpers were out deep too. Not up close to the beach.
So we moved on.....Plan B, was to go get some pogies. The choice bait of the season. Chit-Chat on the radio was they were all the way down by Jax beach pier and THICK.
So from offshore of the chum hole, we ran all the way to the pier. And thanks to friend Pete, he pointed them out to me and with one toss of my castnet I had all I'd even need. My 8' net swam away jam packed with Pogies. A 1/4 of them went into the livewell, and 2/3rds went into my chum bag to store them.
Before moving, I made a cast out with two rods with live pogies on each one and made a drift across the front of the pier, while cutting and tossing some pogies overboard. I wasn't leaving here yet, till I'd see if any big monster beach Redfish were around.
The drift lines got hit by Bluefish....that's all. So we ran back to the jetties. I thought the tide would have changed over by now with an 8:30am low. But I was surprised to see current still running between the jetty rocks. So I quickly navigated a pack of Coasties, one Submarine, and a tug boat to get to the other side of the jetties. (Do you ever notice that on weekends is when the Navy stuff is going on? They have all week, don't they?)
So I got to my spot, tossed out the anchor and before the boat came completely tight on the anchor line I pitched out a Pogie to the bottom. Two seconds later......there was a rod shaped like a horse shoe in the starboard side rod holder and my Curado 300 DSV, was smokin'!!!
Eric a fresh water lake fisherman was up. And this ain't no bass. It's a Redbass, "Brutus T. Redbass" in the deep water heading East.
And I told Eric's father, "That livewell full of frisky pogies is the reason why we're hooked up after being here two seconds!"
Well, the bite didn't stop there.
I rebaited as fast as I could after snapping a shot with my camera phone, and got baits out again.
Instant, DOUBLE HEADER!
These fish ranged from 28-31 inches. But our goal was a few keepers. (under 27")
So we stayed at it and kept the bite going getting re-baited and back in the water as soon as we could.
The school of Reds were right behind the boat. And made for some
"I.G."
kind of action,
"Instantaneous
Gratification."
We ended up getting our 3 keepers from 26-27 inches, and finished the last of the falling tide current with 7 Redfish and when the current slacked, one big ugly stingray. The bite would be over till the tide turned and the clean green water flooded between the jetties.
Eric's father was feeling seasick in the slow swell, so we packed it in to go clean our 3 Reds.
You can see from this shot, I'm not all that good yet using this phone camera. But it gets the job done at least.
I sent my boat use, water proof camera in to get fixed yesterday.
When the pogies are around, I like to feed them pogies! Even if it means having to go get them a good distance away, that's the part I don't like though.
