HELL YEAH!
Had Barry V. and two boys today from Tenn. Kinda a short notice deal, but heck I enjoy a challenge.
If you don't, then ya better move and stop fishing N.E. Florida!
As with all my Full and New Moon charter trips which seem to be many. I said, "Lets not go early, let's try 10am." With the high tide at 8am, I knew 10am wasn't late enough for that tide to be down much, but I had to figure it's dark at 5:30. So....we gotta put up with some of it. The reason people hire a guide, is because they don't know anything about tides and all we go through around here.
So as we depart at 10am...."damn that water's still HIGH!". And as we head down river, "Damn that wind is blowin!" vs.
So I go through my rolodex in my head and try and match up wind direction vs. tide vs. can we actually catch a decent fish?
I come up with ONE SPOT. The tide is soooo wrong for this spot. But I have nothing else. So we try it.
NO TROUT....jus' Croakers and Mangrove Snappers. But at least it's "Bites".
The boys put a decent amount of Croakers in the fish box, and I can just feel that if a big Trout was gonna bite it would have already happened. So we leave. Next spot, a "nursery Trout spot", I know that going in....and what do the boys catch? Small Trout! The 1st one is a mere 11-12 inches, with the largest about 14-1/2".
AND THE TIDE IS STILL NOW WHERE NEAR L-O-W YET!
Hey, but at least we're getting some bites. We could always do worse.
Then, the tide slows and I make a move. A real good one. First shrimp out on the float-rig...
BOX FISH!
The guys continue....
Hmmmmm, "we have a HOT ROD fisherman here!"
It's only a "pup redfish", but at least it's variety.
NEXT... "Dad" Barry puts one in the box. Along with a few "shorts".
Then, another Box fish.
Mean while the fish box is looking much better....
They didn't keep any fish. My crew got off the Jettywolf and were heading straight back to Tenn.
So I was the recipient of the fish at the end of the day and I cleaned up a box of nice trout, , the Croakers and Mangrove Snappers. Had enough to take some over to Mom, since she constantly asks if my customers took their fish or not, and she was super happy! And I still had enough for a large fish fry for myself.
Thanks to a great group of fisherman, that were patient and easy to have aboard. I enjoyed it, too.
So this goes to show ya everything I've ever said about Full or New Moon wacko tides. And that is, "Go when it's low", and save all that Super High Tide for the fly flingers looking for "tailing Redfish in the submerged marsh grass", because if you're a "float-rig fishing machine" it's only good, when the tide slows and goes L-O-W.
It's not about tide height as much as current Velocity. When the two get right, it can be a great day, even on a Wacko Moon day.
