March 16, 2012
On the Triton today is Bill Brattain. The weather temp is 83 and sunny. This is only the second time that I have
taken the boat out in sunny weather. A
little windy, but all in all, a beautiful day.
Our first stop, of course, is "trout hole" next to the
channel. We stay for about an hour, but
not much here really. We both catch a
small silver trout. They don’t put up
much of a fight, so we decide to move on.
It is my intention today to head into Ocklockonee Bay and
fish the oyster beds for trout and redfish.
But, before I do, I decide to head to another spot on my map which is on
the way and which supposedly has an obstruction on the bottom. Ryan and I fished this spot a few weeks ago,
but didn’t get any bites. This spot is
only about a mile from trout hole.
So we drop our lines.
Bill starts with a DOA plastic shrimp.
I mention to him that I have never caught anything with those but he
says he has had luck with them. I am
fishing with frozen shrimp. A little
time goes by. Nothing. So – it is going to be that kind of day! Bill changes to something called a candy corn
jig. I have no idea what the heck that
is, but hey, to each their own. I stick
with my frozen shrimp. It isn’t long
before something hits his rig pretty hard, but then it gets off. He reels it up. It bit the tail of his candy corn off. Interesting.
So he sticks another one on and throws it out.
WHAM! Whatever hits
it is big and strong. It starts
running. What the heck is it? It takes Bill several minutes before he can
get it close enough to the boat. A large
Spanish Mackerel. I grab the net, get it
in the boat and just like that, we have a decent fish in the boat. Cool!
I am very tempted to borrow one of his frickin Candy Corn jigs. But this time, instead of leaving my frozen shrimp on the bottom, I decide to reel it slowly. WHAM! Mackerel. In the boat.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
WHAM! WHAM!
A couple of hours go by. Bill and I have twenty Spanish mackerel in the boat – some of them quite large. We are both exhausted. These fish are VERY strong and fight like crazy. The last one I caught took me 15 minutes to get in the boat. Every time he saw the boat, he would take my line. I thought you had to troll for these damn things? We are simply anchored and reeling slowly. Honestly, I think we could spit on our lines, drop them in, and catch a mackerel. These big monsters are hungry. My fingers are all cut up; I am bleeding everywhere, because their teeth are sharp as razors. Bill helps me put some bandaids on my fingers. I’m loving life!
We have a snack and decide to head into Ochlocknee Bay to hunt for redfish and spotted sea trout. As soon as we get there, I catch a 16 inch trout. Okay, this could be very cool! But after an hour of fishing the oyster beds, we get no more bites.
It is such a beautiful day.
The temperature is perfect and the breeze is just right. We have lunch on the back of the boat while
anchored to the oyster bed. After lunch
we troll around the beds with various spoons and shrimp, but get no bites.
We decide to head back to our “Mackerel” spot. We both catch one right away, but after that, things quiet down. I don’t think either of us are disappointed as we caught so many of them.
We shake hands on a job well done and head into shore. I have caught Spanish mackerel on a charter boat before, but never on my own boat. Without a doubt, this has been the most productive fishing day on the Triton.
If anyone has any good mackerel recipes, please send them my way. I don’t really know how to cook this fish. Some people say it is wonderful, other’s - not so much.
That was a lot of fun Bill! Let’s do it again soon.
Captain Paul
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