Here nor there. The fishing in the river on Monday was tough. I had Craig B. and family aboard. Which was a rescheduled "river cruise" trip, from back on November 12th.
Which now that I look back in my tide planner. It ended up being a NW gale blowing that day, not unlike it was this Monday afternoon. But much warmer, of course.
We fished and fished, I had Craigs mom and dad on the float-rigs out the back of the boat and Craig and Cameron just flipping a tightline rig over the sides amidship. After ZERO bites east of the boat ramp we finally got on a spot where there was a few small Yellowmouth Trout biting. Cameron, Craigs son caught a Sheepshead. It was really kind of funny, he set the hook on the sheeps, and said to me, "I think you need to take it....I can't reel this in!!!" I said, "Boy we ain't out here for me to reel the fish in." Between the sheeps and the yellowmouths that was it as the stiff NW winds really started to blow. The boy needs to come back during summer sharkin' or again for big fall Redbass, then. If he thought he couldn't reel in a sheeps.
All in fun, of course. I believe this was his first fish. No wonder he was surprised.
Then on 12/29 Tuesday, I had Steve P. and three more guys in his party. They came all the way from Daytona, where they were visiting family, and to Daytona from NY. Whoa...."travellers".
Tuesday morning. The kind of C-O-L-D that B-U-R-N-E-D. So we headed up river a bit at 9:15am. And the breeze where we were really backed off, the sun came out and it got warmer, relatively speaking.
Everything was just perfect tide and wind wise. And the guys bottom fished and caught a few Yellowmouth Trout, just small ones. Then Steve lays the wood to a fish and it's a real rod bender.
Steve has a heated battle with something we didn't even see for awhile. Then, finally I caught a glimps of it. A BIG Redbass! As usual, it was way too big to keep at 32-1/2 inches long and 12 pounds. We continued to fish the area with geniune ambition after a beauitiful red like that. And we came up with no more bites at all. The tide peetered out, so we moved on. Hitting the inside of the North Jetty, and then over by the Navy basin. Between the two spots, one of the guys caught a big silver Whiting. Giving a shrimp away would have been a nice thing.
Another tough day in the river, that's for sure.
Now, comes an east wind, on Wednesday. Which as we left the Navy basin area, the flags were already blowing from the S. Easterly direction.
It's so crazy that just 25 days ago I was catching upwards of 50 Trout per trip, less than a mile from the boat ramp. The same area now?????
I can't even give away a bait. And stereo typically, an area where I do all my whackin and stackin all winter long........so this isn't a good sign. Deep January on the coldest of days, we've pulled so many nice big Trout from the Mayport area. But never fail, I'll keep trying. They should show back up if we see some extended mild weather.
Mild weather?
My next trip is on Thursday:
LIGHT AND VARIABLE WINDS. WINDS BECOMING SOUTHWEST 5 TO 10 KNOTS IN THE AFTERNOON. SEAS 2 TO 3 FEET. INLAND WATERS SMOOTH. SCATTERED SHOWERS.
REALLY?? At this point, I really need it.
