My first spot was "white water", but I knew the fish would be there. Exciting as all hell, in small doses. The boat sat in the trough and whallowed back and forth, water crashed and slapped the side of the boat and a few times splashed right in! Yes, it was "hold on and fish". But Don and his friend Lisa, and young 14 yr. old Nathan were up to it. I said, "we're gonna whack some big Yellowmouth Trout, maybe some Specks, too." This is what the JETTYWOLF was built for. I've fished here many times before in these same exact conditions. Sometimes the fish are chewin' in a spot and it's not going to be super comfortable. But it's gonna be a whack-fest! So you gotta be there.
And I was right. Don, Lisa, and Nathan started reeling in fat Yellowmouths to 20 inches, no problem. The fish were scattered though. So it took some finding them. I just told Lisa, "Don't get too comfortable with them. Because the next time your float may go down it could be a big Redbass. And it won't act like a Trout!" Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, her float goes down, and see ya later......the RB takes off on a 100 foot run down the rocks. In these seas, the battle was magnified. Standing, reeling, rod bending, drag pulling, swells folding, all made the fight, that more intense. Besides the 15 pound mono leader, and the number 4 Kahle wire hook, along the big nasty granite boulders.
The Redbass ended up being a 28-1/2 inch fish, and was a good picture taker, then quickly released to fight another day. I thought I took a few pics of the fat Yellowmouth Trout. Especially the one that Nathan caught. But, I guess not, in all the excitement. Don said he was loving it. Lisa was hanging on a having a blast trying to hook up more Trout. Not long after Nathan catching the largest one, he was down and out for the count in the bow, sea-sick. So after Lisa's Redbass, we moved on. I didn't want to sit there any longer, the poor boy was not looking good. So we moved on.
As we pulled away from the jetty. Guess who shows up? I see it about 10 swells away, poking it's head out of the water. It's Flipper!!! The friendly Dolphin again. It saw us bouncing around in the seas and came straight over and again.....asked us for a free fish, sticking it's head out of the water along side the boat and smiling the Dolphin grin at us a few times. I wasn't about to give it a big Yellowmouth Trout. And we never even caught a single Bluefish (believe it or not). So after not getting a freebie, it swam away.
My whole plan was working. There was hardly a boat around at 5pm. No traffic, no wakes, no anyone! I was loving it. So the plan was to go do some Sheepshead fishing, after the Trout. Yeah, can ya believe it.
The Jettywolf was going Sheepherding? Reason being is, they are going NUTZ! The buck Sheepshead seem to be just about everywhere. The spawn, I guess is in full courtship of sorts. Not that a Sheepshead has only just one life love....
So I pulled up on the spot that a few weeks ago we caught a 10-1/4 pounder. The spot is deep, has great current and I know, doesn't get hammered by the masses. The anchor line was tight for only 5 minutes and Don, sitting up on the bow was already slowly pumping the first Sheeps to the boat! We looked up and there he was rod bent and bucking, with a big grin. Them danmed Digital Cameras, I ended up getting a shot of Don dropping the fish instead of holding it. (just like when I tried now for the 3rd time of getting a photo of Flipper!) My Digital Camera is way tooooo slow to react!
Nathan, was now back feeling alive. And was having a hard time feeling the tap,tap, of the Sheepshead bite. Don had 3 fish in 5 minutes back to back. Lisa had her fair share, no problem. So I helped Nathan out.
All the buck Sheepshead ranged from 2-4 pounds. And I wanted to see if we could catch that big "sow" that could be near. So I even tried a few drops. But instead of fiddlers I tried jumbo live shrimp. And yeah, I got tons of bites. But only caught the first Jack Cravalle of the season. Lisa caught a pup Black Drum at 16". I would have liked to see a 10-15 pound Black Drum too, for Nathan. That would have been something. But, the Sheepshead kept chewin. And as the sun went down, the bite went in and out as the tide slowed too. So we left for the dock with a 72 qt. cooler full of 6 Trout, 1 Black Drum, and 10-12 Sheepshead.
My plan worked out great. And Lisa even had headlamps, thank goodness. Because half way through the fish cleaning, it got really dark!
