-here's one afternoon in November with just me and Nick W. dropping anchor only twice!!!
Either way, I got off the Sunday trip at 0630 hrs.
They were right on time. Daniel S. and Carter.
We float-rigged a few places and came up with one trout, one black drum, one Mangrove snapper, and two ladyfish. Everything was small.
Worked our way back towards Mayport and ran into my buddy DOA Rob sitting on his kayak. Rob was not smiling and casting, but rather anchored up tossing a light bottom rig and catching Croakers. He had 2-3 potato chip flounder, and 4 small Trout doing his DOA shrimp thing. He gave up and went home, not long after we stopped to chat.
We headed to the jetties after completing the St. Johns River 'world tour'. Missing about 3 spots I wanted to try, due to boats already sitting on them. Damn, the weekends! And another spot the Mangrove Snappers were so bad we couldn't even get a bait threw them, while fishing in constant river traffic wakes, muddying the bank. Not very conducive to "gamefish" catching.
We missed the last of the falling tide, going at getting Pogies. That were moving fast up the beach from the south hitting the jetty, working down the rocks and then getting blasted at the south jetty tip, probably from sharks. Two or three times a 1/4 acre of water exploded with baitfish flying through the air escaping the jaws of death. It was an awesome sight! One guy was motoring over the south rocks and the irruption happened around his boat. The two occupants got wide eyed, real quick.
When we got back to the jetties from getting a few pogies, having to dump the net. Because one toss had the net swimming away with 200 pounds of them. The current had about died, so we laid slack on the anchor line. Carter hung into something massive that ran him up and under the boat and out the other side.......this was no Redbass!! Most likely a shark, and the 25 pound leader broke on the light rigs we were using. The tide started on the bottom as usual and as the boat swung around we had a few other small bumps on the big pogies and that was it. So we headed in. Day two with no keepers, in the fish box.
I have a decent idea of where I could go and get a different kind of action, but it's a incoming tide spot and it has to be dead calm with light winds to fish it. It's usually a July hot and steamy kinda weather spot, and is 10 miles away....completely a different direction that I normally go. So once the commitment is made. You're committed to that area, period. But is worth a look, so I believe DOA Rob and I may check it out tomorrow. If it's dead, we'll just leave and have no hard feelings. Because we know the stakes.
It's one hell of an incoming tide spot in July...here's the proof.
But tomorrow isn't an incoming tide, and this certainly isn't July, 2 years ago.
I told DOA Rob this morning (Monday) on the phone that I still have a glimmer of hope, cause it can only get better.
Oh the topper to Sunday's trip?? While a customer was adjusting his float rig stopper knot 12 inches of the tip of one of my custom Biscayne float-rigging rods snapped off!!
With no willingness to help out with the expensive of replacement, I guess I'll be bearing the whole loss. The clause in my policies is; Lost or damaged tackle (rods & reels) will be charged at replacement cost. Please treat my fishing tackle as if it were your own.
I'm having a "re-build" done on the rod, so I'll know what the replacement cost will be now, for next time.
