9/12 - In between the rain

Had Nick W. aboard today. Nick and I haven't fished together in a while. The weather was mighty iffy, but you certainly couldn't tell that from the amount of boats on the river. Yeah, instead of offshore, I guess. Because the east winds blew, and the dark clouds passed over all day long.

But that didn't matter. Nick got to wet a line. And together, we always have fun!

We pretty much were on the Trout search. But that was ending up being kinda slow. I caught a fattie that really was a true pig. As I was taking the hook out of it's mouth I noticed that it had a big fish tail sticking out of it's throat. Was either a large mullet or a yellow

mouth Trout. I had a customer catch a 7.5 pound Trout once that had three 8-1o inch yellow

mouth Trout in it's stomach. So I'm not all that surprised what these dudes can actually eat.

Here's that fat bellied Trout that also ate a 3" live shrimp.

Nick was catching some Mangrove Snappers, and as I fished along with him. I kept the Trout coming. But the bite was quite slow on trout.

Nick hasn't wetted a line since last Christmas.

So he may have been a bit rusty.

The first of the year "river" Grouper was also caught. By this time last year I believe many more were caught while float-rig fishing.

We then moved on and went and threw some jigs and shrimp. Caught 5 Flounder, not very big ones though, but keepers. A small Sheepshead, some Jacks, a few more Trout, but small. And by the time to tide had come up, went towards the ICW, to see if we could get a Redfish up in a very flooded bay. But only caught a small Trout.

Lot's of action. on and off rain. Lot's of boats around. But the east wind really didn't affect us much at all. We hit the dock and I cleaned the fish, long after the weather sent the crowds packin'. The boat ramp when we got back was nearly vacant!

Hmmm, reminiscent of a winter day, during football season? Yes, I think so. I'm really looking forward to when the weather turns a bit cooler. But with the inshore water temps still between 78 and 80 degrees......"that won't be for awhile, yet".

The pile of fish yielded a bag of fillets that weighed over 5 pounds. Which was great, because Nick didn't want it all. So when I got home I had me a nice dinner of fresh fried fish. Then hit the sack.