But that would have been too easy. Well, not on a Saturday. Yes, the boat ramp was a zoo and boats were everywhere. But there was a pack along the beach near the Navy base and Hannah Park. So I soft peddled my way over there.
I saw alot of people cruising around, and that also included a shrimper running straight down the beach in shallow water. Joking, I pulled up to a few boats and said, "Is this where all the bait is?" Because I saw lots of net tossing, and not a lot of Pogie catching.
It was after 9am by now and I can just imagine how many boats ran through the bait. Which will include the Jettywolf, also. The bait was in there, but obviously really scattered. And I wasn't about to make a longer run to find any, so I joined the search party.
All we needed was a bakers dozen, and I'd be outa here. But catching even that many proved to be pretty hard. But as in all fishing, be it cast-netting or hook and line, persistence pays off. I threw my net and got TEN Pogies. Looks like that'll have to do. So we packed up and headed back to the river.
That 10 knot SW wind sure seemed much stronger back up in the river, as the last of the falling river tide was pushed hard. And anchoring where I wanted to be wasn't working....I was dragging. But again, persistence eventually paid off, and we stuck by the hair's of my chin. One good wake, or that FWC guy wanting to tie-off to me would kick us off our anchor. Yeah, he came over to shoot the bull because he wanted to see my boat. He must have been a newbie to the area. Because if you haven't seen me on the river by now. You're not a regular. I told him, "we're hanging by a thread here.....ya can't tie off to us or that'll be it....."
But that was just after I tossed two Pogies out on the "meat-mover" rods and reels, and we had a DOUBLE-HEADER of Redbass! So being in the meat, right here was very important to me. Yep, live wigglers like Pogies right now are like Fun Size Snickers Bar's, laying on the bottom of the river. The kids are gonna pick them up and scarf them! And we were in a Rally of Reds!
For some reason, I feel as if I'm missing a set of photos I took...I knew I took more than this.....Hmmm?
But you get the drift...Brutus T. Redbass was chewing. Right up till the tide backed off. So we pulled anchor and headed to the jetties, looking to Float-rig a little for some possible "keeper" sized Reds. But that didn't work out so well. I had the guys sending the float's with live shrimp down the rocks in the very limited area I could grab, the tide wasn't exactly right just yet, but was getting there. And from out of no where came a huge wind, probably 25 knots from the southwest. The water chopped up, and we had to sit it out. If the anchor slipped, we'd be blown into the jetty rocks. And that eventually happened.
The wind whipped, and as I pulled the anchor we were the only ones left at the Jetties. Everyone vacated.
The river went from slick to white water. So we headed back to the dock.
Weather....."it's like that sometimes, in the summer." And keeper sized Reds in the river can be hard to come by, too. I say, "we can't look gift horses in the mouth." That's why I wish there was some Trout around.
