One Fish Two Fish, Redfish, Blue Runner

Friday, October 8, 2010

Put the boat in the water Thursday night because the tide would be too low to launch on Friday morning.  I've pushed the boat into the channel before and this is something I do not care to repeat.  We actually get to the dock to leave at 8:00 AM, a new world record for us.  We load 200 shrimp, some of which are so huge that I just put them in the cooler for dinner.  We're talking shrimp bigger than Pinfish.  Shrimp so big you can't use them because they would actually scare the fish away.  Shrimp so large, well, you get the picture.  So off we go to The Rise, our usual fishing spot, on a tide so low I am actually somewhat unnerved navigating the channel and almost make a red-on-the-right-returning mistake and pass a red marker on the right instead of the left.  Fortunately, Bec is paying attention and she gently catches my attention.  Once my heartbeat returns to normal, we fly out with no further channel marker issues.  What a beautiful day.  Flat seas, almost no wind, huge tide, high hopes, wind in our sails, blah, blah, blah.  Take my word for it, it's magnificent out there.  We get to 5' of water over beautiful grass bottom and SMACK! the day is on.  Bec has the magic rod today and she boats two fine Mackerel.  We both catch lots of short Trout, Bec catches a Blue Runner, and the tide hits bottom and sits still.  Nothing biting, nothing going on.  We decide to go to the fish haven and fish deep for a while.  We drift over rocky bottom with intriguing sights on the Raymarine Bottom machine, but all we get are a series of Key West Grunt and over ambitious Rock Bass.  We float, barely drifting, getting hot.  The bite is off.  After enough of this, we fly back to The Rise and try again.  Bec catches the same very large shark twice and we call it a day for flats fishing.  On to Phase Two:  Fishin' the River.  We motor in and anchor at our favorite spot at a bend in the river.  The tide is nearly full and just ripping.  The fickle magic rod mojo switches to me and I hook a 22" Redfish.  Ohhhh yeah!  I am so hoping for another 22" Sheepshead but, I hook another 22" Redfish.  Bec is grumbling loudly at this point and she keeps fishing in my spot every time I bait my hook.  No go for her.  She catches a minescule trout.  The sun goes down, the tide has changed and is now ripping out. The boat has swung around and neither of us has the energy to re-anchor (have I mentioned lately how much I hate our anchor?) so we decide to head to the dock, which, fortunately, is only a hundred yards away.  We clean the boat and head home.  I clean two Redfish, a Blue Runner, Two Mackerel, a Trout and, don't ask me how it got in the cooler, a 6" Sand Trout in the back yard this morning.  I vow never to clean fish at home again after being swarmed by wasps attracted to, well, I don't exactly know what they're attracted to but they show up every time I clean fish at home.  We're having fish for dinner.