PanamaRed
06-08-2003, 04:57 AM
Launched at "Jim's Fish Camp" off Hwy90 at around 11am and had a fair sized flounder in the boat within the first 10 minutes of fishing off the Hwy 90 bridge.
Then ...nothing. Ran out of live bait (no more minnows and shrimp were all dead).
Then... Had to get in the muck underwater to free an old nylon rope that had wrapped up in my prop. By the way, did I mention that I didn't bring a towel OR bathing suit.
Wasted almost two hours getting over to Swamp cove marina (running just above idle speed since the water in the NW part of the bay is only about 2.5 to 3ft deep) to get more minnows only to find out they don't carry them.
Rainstorm rolled in and drenched us BIGTIME!.
At about 5pm we decided to head toward the coves in the vicinity of the boat ramp area on the East side of the I-10 bridge and finally things started looking up. The sun came back out and there was lots of bait activity. Loaded the bait bucket back up with menhaden using a cast net and what do you know --- I landed a decent-sized legal speckled trout on my first cast with the fresh live bait.
...the bite was on after that BUT ....it was nothing but small stuff. Hooked into a lot of baby redfish (6 to 9 inch range) and small trout but no luck finding their elusive parents.
After about an hour of that we decided to move to another spot and realized that the stringer that was holding the only two "keeper" fish (that we had struggled all day to catch) had somehow worked itself loose and disappeared. ARRRRRRGHHH!!! I don't normally use a stringer and I'll certainly NEVER EVER EVER use one again.
It can't get any worse right? ..........WRONG!!!
We move to our new location and the first thing that happens is I get nailed on the finger by a good sized blue crab that had gotten tangled up in one of our lines.
It's beginning to get dark and my wife calls to find out if we were coming home soon and when I tell her that we'd lost the fish that I had told her about earlier, she responds with a sarcastic "WhatEVER!" (having always seen me put my keepers in a cooler, she was having a hard time believing that we had lost our fish until I explained how it had happened).
My friend finally gets a hit by something big enough to fight and make the reel sing. We're all thinking IT'S ABOUT TIME ...well, turns out it was a damn baby shark (about 2 1/2ft long) and his teeth cut through the leader just as I was grabbing it.
Five minutes later, another good hit. I break out the net and await eagerly for dinner to come to the surface and when it does it turns out its a darn stingray. After that, another stingray, a catfish, and a few little croakers.
Well, at about 9pm after we all finally decided we'd had enough, we head back to Jim's Fish Camp to haul out the boat only to be welcomed by a Florida Fish & Wildlife officer who proceeded to issue me a written warning for "Safety Equipment Violation - Stern light not 360 degrees :? ".
In actuality, I had forgotten to put up my masthead light and he probably wouldn't have even given me the written warning if it weren't for me opening my big mouth and insisting that stern lights only need to be visible for 135 degrees.
And if it wasn't bad enough, when I walked in the door at 10pm my wife wouldn't even say hi to me for having been gone all day & night.
I'm still trying to decide what is worse.... spending the day fishing and getting completely skunked or spending the day fishing and actually catching something only to lose the entire day's catch just before you planned on going home. I guess on the bright side of things at least I didn't have to clean the damn things.
Pablo
Then ...nothing. Ran out of live bait (no more minnows and shrimp were all dead).
Then... Had to get in the muck underwater to free an old nylon rope that had wrapped up in my prop. By the way, did I mention that I didn't bring a towel OR bathing suit.
Wasted almost two hours getting over to Swamp cove marina (running just above idle speed since the water in the NW part of the bay is only about 2.5 to 3ft deep) to get more minnows only to find out they don't carry them.
Rainstorm rolled in and drenched us BIGTIME!.
At about 5pm we decided to head toward the coves in the vicinity of the boat ramp area on the East side of the I-10 bridge and finally things started looking up. The sun came back out and there was lots of bait activity. Loaded the bait bucket back up with menhaden using a cast net and what do you know --- I landed a decent-sized legal speckled trout on my first cast with the fresh live bait.
...the bite was on after that BUT ....it was nothing but small stuff. Hooked into a lot of baby redfish (6 to 9 inch range) and small trout but no luck finding their elusive parents.
After about an hour of that we decided to move to another spot and realized that the stringer that was holding the only two "keeper" fish (that we had struggled all day to catch) had somehow worked itself loose and disappeared. ARRRRRRGHHH!!! I don't normally use a stringer and I'll certainly NEVER EVER EVER use one again.
It can't get any worse right? ..........WRONG!!!
We move to our new location and the first thing that happens is I get nailed on the finger by a good sized blue crab that had gotten tangled up in one of our lines.
It's beginning to get dark and my wife calls to find out if we were coming home soon and when I tell her that we'd lost the fish that I had told her about earlier, she responds with a sarcastic "WhatEVER!" (having always seen me put my keepers in a cooler, she was having a hard time believing that we had lost our fish until I explained how it had happened).
My friend finally gets a hit by something big enough to fight and make the reel sing. We're all thinking IT'S ABOUT TIME ...well, turns out it was a damn baby shark (about 2 1/2ft long) and his teeth cut through the leader just as I was grabbing it.
Five minutes later, another good hit. I break out the net and await eagerly for dinner to come to the surface and when it does it turns out its a darn stingray. After that, another stingray, a catfish, and a few little croakers.
Well, at about 9pm after we all finally decided we'd had enough, we head back to Jim's Fish Camp to haul out the boat only to be welcomed by a Florida Fish & Wildlife officer who proceeded to issue me a written warning for "Safety Equipment Violation - Stern light not 360 degrees :? ".
In actuality, I had forgotten to put up my masthead light and he probably wouldn't have even given me the written warning if it weren't for me opening my big mouth and insisting that stern lights only need to be visible for 135 degrees.
And if it wasn't bad enough, when I walked in the door at 10pm my wife wouldn't even say hi to me for having been gone all day & night.
I'm still trying to decide what is worse.... spending the day fishing and getting completely skunked or spending the day fishing and actually catching something only to lose the entire day's catch just before you planned on going home. I guess on the bright side of things at least I didn't have to clean the damn things.
Pablo