Friday, March 2, 2012
I would like to say the weather is better, but it isn't. It is warm though! 80 degrees. Amazingly warm. On the boat today is just Ryan and Marc. I asked Russell Paul, but he wasn't feeling well. We arrived at the dock around 7:30 a.m. At least, I think it was the dock. It is so damn foggy that I can't even see my boat. Wow! I've only seen fog like this once before and that was when Gene Griffin and I went fishing with a guide many years ago at Shell Island Fish Camp. Except today, I am the guide.
We start heading out the channel, except I can't see the channel markers. I have to admit though, I was kind of looking forward to this challenge. I MUST trust the trail that I created on my GPS called "Channel Out". Since I can't actually see the markers, I must simply follow the red trail on my GPS. So I do. I make one slight error and we come close to going aground outside of the channel. Stay on the damn line Marc! Without seeing channel markers until we are right up on them, we are still able to navigate. Wow! Both scary and exhilarating at the same time. Without electronics, I wouldn't have made it 100 yards.
I decide to stop at "Trout Hole" which is just West of the last channel marker. Once again, no problem finding this because of my electronics. Because the weather is questionable, we only have frozen shrimp on board. I have no intention of deep sea fishing on this voyage. Even with my limited Captain skills, I do know that getting trapped 25 miles off the coast in heavy fog is not adventurous, it is just stupid.
Drop lines. Bam! Small redfish. Well, that is kind of cool. Drop line. Bam! Small redfish. For the next hour, I keep this up. Ryan is getting very pissed because he keeps missing his bites. Then, he catches something that looks exactly like a spotted sea trout, but it has no spots. Hmm. Ryan says, "Maybe we should call back to the Marina and see what the limitations are on these things". I reply, "Well, I'm certain they are trout so they gotta be 15 inches". We fish for another couple of hours catching trout after redfish, after trout, after redfish. The fog is unrelenting. We hear a couple of boats around us, but we can't see them. Wait, is that the fog lifting? Is that sunshine? Yes, no wait, No, it isn't. Fog is back. God Psyched us! There is a sunken wreck on my map just South of us. I decide to head for that even though we are catching fish. We get to wreck but catch nothing. I really want to fish the oyster beds in Ochlockonee Bay, but with this fog, I really don't have the confidence to go that far. So we head back to "Trout Hole". Bam, more fish. At the end of the day:
Marc: 15 Redfish, 9 Silver Trout. 1 Hammerhead Shark, 1 Nurse Shark
Ryan: 12 Silver Trout, 4 Redfish.
Dang, that was fun. It isn't Spring yet, so the fish are all small. When we get back to the dock, we learn that there are no limits on "Silver Trout". Either by count or by size. Oops! Oh well, we would have been cleaning fish for 3 hours, and they would have all been very small filets.
For now, let's keep waiting on the weather. As things warm up, the fish will get bigger. I have to admit, I have never seen so many redfish in one spot in my life.
I'll write again soon.
Captain Paul
Fishing Florida's Forgotten Coast
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