When Mark booked this trip. He told me his Nephew and his buddy are Baseball pitchers. And if pitchers are 6'3"to 6'5" long and slender. Then these dudes were Baseball pitchers!!
So I told Mark when he booked the day. "Let's not go up in the river. But let's treat these guys to some knock down drag out fights."
So we took off thru the jetties at 0630 hrs and headed straight for three shrimp boats trawling the chum hole area.
First pitch of a half a 12" Mullet, and we were hooked up! A big Spinner Shark, flew thru the air and made some good drag screaming runs. But chewed right thru the 200 pound mono leader.
The rest of the hook-ups were very difficult and if we did hook up the sharks were small. NOT what I wanted for these slender athletes. I wanted them to hook up big Blacktips and get a true ass handing!
So we tried and tried...from drifting baits to even trolling 14" plugs that resembled Spanish Mackerel, we kept following the shrimp boats. But not much action.
I finally had enough. I said if they aren't here they're probably at the jetties. So we blasted in and anchored up at the North jetty.
We cast out dead Croakers and soaked them on the bottom.....NOTHING!
A boat next to use hooked up and lost a Tarpon. "Hmmmm...so there is something around here?"
The dead bait wasn't working at all. So we pulled out the bottom rods and dead shrimp and they guys caught some big Croakers. I took the sinkers off the 200# Mono and 14/0 Circle hook rigs and freelined the live Croaks out behind the boat. One got bit as I reeled it to check it. Then, the next bites were "BACK TO BACK".
DOUBLE-HEADER...there's a Baseball term that also fits Fishing. We hooked up two Big Blacktips at the same time.
Now, I started to see these "bass fisherman" start to sweat!
The fight was exaggerated as they had to try and keep the Blacktips apart. And from going around a near by boats anchor line.
The guys did great and this is the whole reason I brought them out here versus trout fishing up in the river.
Athletes vs. Athletes!
Full time 365 charters, Jacksonville Fishing since 1996
www.captdaves.com
