Had two great guys today. Brian C. and his dad Bob. I said, "meet me at the boat ramp at 0630 hrs. " And as I pulled in to the parking lot at 0620 hrs. There they were! Man, that was great.
Backed the Jettywolf into the water, parked the truck and we took off......for the Jetties of course. It was windy, 10-15, and choppy. And there sure was a bunch of traffic for a Monday morning. Thought the "holiday" was over????
Lots of fast action today. And lot's of "hub caps".....aka: "Lookdowns". Some small ones and then Brian caught an enormous one. 2-3 Redbass, mostly smaller fish, with one keeper for the box. Mangroves, and many hook-ups and break-off's too. But that's all good. The action was fast. And Brian never used a bait caster before, and after 5 minutes of instruction and you should have seen him pitch and flip like Bill Dance or Roland Martin!! Some people can just learn fast. And I'd put money down on Brian as a fast learner. Between him and Dad, they never skipped a beat, never had any backlashes.
The action slowed as the incoming tide faded, so we beat feet up river. Pulled up on a great Trout spot, and all my shrimp had died. Earlier I got some live Croakers from a friend and when I put them into the live-well and turned on the pump, I think I bumped the switch to the shrimp tanks bait pump to the "off" position. "_ _ _ _ happens." Nothing I can do about it now. So we hung up our Float-rig rods and moved on to bottom fish. Which I was going to do later anyhow. I wanted to catch a few more of those perfect eater Black Drum we caught on the 1st of July. So we moved on to that same spot.
The skies to the west were darkening....."REAL DARK". But we had enough time to try it.
I grabbed the bottom rods, pinned on a shrimp and cast both on out. It wasn't 20 seconds later one of the rods doubled over, and Brian grabbed it. It was a big fish!!
The second rod went off, so Bob grabbed that one. It was a keeper Mangrove Snapper, not a huge one, but a grease tester size. Brian was battling a good fish, and we kept looking westward as he fought it. His biggest fish ever! A seriously multi-spotted Redbass, a 30 incher at about 10 pounds. I said, "now that was what I was wanting you to catch at the jetties". But right here and now was okay too.
The wind started to pick up, the temperature changed right after a healthy release and a photo that needed the "flash" on the camera because of how dark it was getting.
We quickly put everything away, and I dragged up the anchor. And took off back towards the boat ramp, and stayed just ahead of the clouds, for a minute. Till they came over us.
And I snapped this photo to send to Mike Buresh on Fox 30 News for a First Alert Weather Photo, for today. I send him a lot of on the water storm photos so he can show them on the air.
This is what beat us to the boat ramp, and was the front of the storm towards the Atlantic.
Yeah, we got a bit wet. And the lightning was popping around us at the dock, so we called it a day.
Ending on a big Redbass, and a high note.
Wish we could have fished together longer. But sometimes ya just have to surrender to Momma Nature. Next time we'll get the whole day in. And maybe next time a box of fat Trout.
Thanks Brian & Bob.
